partner journal

I am involved in a partner journal with Wendy in Australia. These are the eighth set of layouts that I have done. These layouts are in Wendy's journal.

The theme for these pages was hopes, dreams or aspirations for 2010 or beyond.

They both have gesso backgrounds with water-soluble crayon colour over the top. Both have collage elements. Hand lettering has been done with white Signo Uni-ball pen and Sakura sparkle gelly roll pen in the roses page, and black Pitt artist pen and coloured pencils in the wings page. The wings and flourishes in the second page are stamped with black ink.

I think I will try something a little more vivid in my next two partner journal spreads. Mmmmmmmm! Have to think about that!

girl alone

Just thought I would add the scan of the girl I drew by herself without the weight of her strings attached heart! This one is a scan rather than a digital photo so it is probably a bit clearer. I need to find myself some really smooth paper to draw on. I find when I do these sorts of pencil drawings I just want them to be absolutely smooth so that nothing interferes with the line. Does anyone have any suggestions? I might ask one of the Yahoo Groups I belong to. Mmmmmm. Good idea! Bye.

For Sleep or Death

I was trying to portray a more solemn feeling with this page. I haven't got the hang of the collaging the way I would like to at the moment, but instead I just went with my flow to see what would result. The poem by Ruth Pitter gave the feeling that I wanted and the collaged images underneath are pages from a vintage children's book about life for Victorian children. The woman is from a Dover Clipart book. I drew the line of washing and the hooded figure. The colour was a dilute wash of muddy green acrylic to start with then coloured pencils and coloured graphite on top. The words and the poetry were written with souffle pen and I went around the words of the poem again with coloured pencil.

It's not dramatic like other people's journal pages, but it contains the more sombre elements I wanted, and that is good enough for me!!

Blooms

I haven't managed to get any Illustration Friday art done last week nor this week. Had ideas but not the time to do anything with the ideas. Been thinking a lot though of fibre craft things. I have been sewing beads on a felt bag that I made at a beginners class a few weeks ago. I love the felting look but I feel I need to stitch and bead it to give it some definition. I will post the final result when it is completed.

This post is to put on an artwork I did in a similar way to the bird I posted recently. It was a dyed paper that I drew on with gesso from a squeezee tube. I left this to dry for over a day, then coloured with oil pastels that I blended in with an old brush. I then added coloured pencil over that.

The idea came from a photo called "An armful of wildflowers" from "Bloom" magazine.

This is the paper after the dye and the gesso before I added the oil pastel or the coloured pencil. See you next blog!

illustration friday "canned"

Well another week gone and nowhere near as much art as I'd have liked to express! But... did manage to get an illustration friday piece done! Just a sketch and coloured pencils. Very hard to think of something for "canned". 10 out of 10 for difficult choice of topic. It was good to do this drawing, something with a little attitude!

Lake Opouahi

The other week my friend and I and our kids went on a trip up North of Napier towards Wairoa to a reserve at Lake Opouahi. There was a gorgeous reserve called "kiwi creche" which has been fenced off as a nature reserve for raising kiwis. I took over a hundred photos (thank goodness for digital cameras!) although only some of them have captured what my eyes actually saw. The nice easy track around the lake was a mossy green tangle of nature that was a joy to explore. We even took sketch pads with us to do a little art. Didn't really have enough time to relax and draw, but below is the sketch that I started there and finished at home.

The feeling of damp and beauty that I was looking for in this drawing is better felt from this beautiful scrap of prose I stumbled on thanks to a comment left behind by the author "Spot".

http://inkhaven.blogspot.com/2008/06/like-runaway-tattoo.html

I urge you to follow the link and experience it for yourself!

I will post a couple of the photos too to give you an idea of the little piece of artist's heaven that Lake Opouahi is!

The next image is a little different but it was a photo I took under a ledge of droplets of water that just begged for a little digital magic! Enjoy!!

Illustration Friday "enough"

"The little bird had travelled such a long way to get the princess' message to the young man that it collapsed onto the ground exhausted. It's tiny heart forced one last beat and said, enough."



Used dyed paper, then shellac. Drew image of bird 3-D with white gesso from a squeeze tube. Applied more colour with oil sticks and blended with a brush and with my fingers. Pushed background back with black oil stick and blended. Added detail with coloured pencil. My aim originally was to get a luminous colour shining through for the bird.

I loved the effect of this combination of media and I certainly intend to keep experimenting with it in different colour and theme combinations in the future!




For anyone interested, above is a scan of the back of the paper that I used. Yummy eh?!