Artful Stroll - Geometric

This was the work waiting for me yesterday morning when I arrived at work - about 18 crates of books, each containing anywhere from 20 to 50 books. I think it looks pretty geometric!!

This photo is in response to the Artful Adventures Stroll through the Hood project. You can find out more here: http://nathaliesstudio.com/learn/online-workshops/artful-adventures-stroll-challenge/

Artful Stroll - View

This is a somewhat skewed version of "view" - but I could not resist. Every time I go around to my brother's house, my nephew's dog Yella wants to play tug. She is very strong and just about pulls by arm out of its socket! And of course, she wants to play forever.

As my brother only lives five minutes away by car, I consider that this is in my hood even though I drove rather than strolled! Unlike my photo for the 25th May Reflection which was in China - what was I thinking?

This photo is in response to the Artful Adventures Stroll through the Hood project. You can find out more here: http://nathaliesstudio.com/learn/online-workshops/artful-adventures-stroll-challenge/

Artful Stroll - Growth

I had to pick up a book at the local library yesterday and took  photo of the children's area - sadly bereft of children at the time.

I retrained as a Library Technician a few years ago, but even before then I was a great believer in the power of reading. The younger you get children started, the more likely they are to read throughout their life. To me reading is growth - words, stories, places, information, imagination.

(Sorry, the photo is ever so slightly out of focus)

This photo is in response to the Artful Adventures Stroll through the Hood project. You can find out more here: http://nathaliesstudio.com/learn/online-workshops/artful-adventures-stroll-challenge/

Artful Stroll - Shadow

I love the dappled shadows I get in my garden in the late afternoon. This is a self-seeded lavender bush (nearly as tall as me) growing out from my pavers and the shadows are playing against the garage wall.

The lavender is always full of bees and other insects and I love it!

This photo is in response to the Artful Adventures Stroll through the Hood project. You can find out more here: http://nathaliesstudio.com/learn/online-workshops/artful-adventures-stroll-challenge/

Artful Stroll - Boundary

This photo is not very recent but it does show the north boundary of the property where I live and the construction of factories going on. We also have a major road running past our north-east boundary.

But while this photo looks stark, there are walking paths and trees have been planted to soften the outlook.

This photo is in response to the Artful Adventures Stroll through the Hood project. You can find out more here: http://nathaliesstudio.com/learn/online-workshops/artful-adventures-stroll-challenge/

Artfully strolling

It is the beginning of winter here in the southern hemisphere and I have to say I don't often feel like strolling on my days off. But it has been a sunny weekend and I was able to fit in a few more photo prompts.

Day 18 - Contrast

We've had some frosty mornings, so I tried to capture the sunny sky with the frost still on the roof - unfortunately, it is not a very good photo.

Day 21 - Loud

To the south of our unit complex is a school and a number of ovals where various games are played throughout the year - football, cricket, hockey, athletics. By far the noisiest are the Australian Rules football games played every weekend in winter. As well as the cheers of the crowd and the siren sounding for each quarter, we also have to put up with the shouts of coaches during the week when the team are training.

This photo was taken from my neighbour's kitchen when I was visiting today.

Day 22 - Old

I am lucky enough to have a few treasures from my mother's family which go back to the 1800s, but my favourite thing is the large photo of my Nana and her two sisters taken about 1900. this photo has pride of place in my dining area with a couple of other family photos.

Day 25 - Light

The sun was shining very brightly this morning as there were no clouds so my north facing rooms warmed up quickly today. This is the corner of my craft room with the light coming through the blinds.

I still need to find something to photograph for Boundary & Subtle, and if I go outside now (4 p.m.) I should get some afternoon shadow for tomorrow's prompt. So cheers for now and thanks for looking.

These photos are in response to the Artful Adventures Stroll through the Hood project. You can find out more here: http://nathaliesstudio.com/learn/online-workshops/artful-adventures-stroll-challenge/ 

Artful Stroll - Tiny & Progress

Here I am again, trying to catch up with the prompts provided by Natalie in her "Stroll through the Hood" art challenge adventure. I think they are getting harder and we have to put more thought into what our responses will be. Interesting and still fun!

Day 19 - Tiny

Here I have used an old photo from the nearby Botanic Gardens. These beautiful birds used to visit my yard when I first moved in to the area over 20 years ago. Sadly they have been moved out by road building, factory building and of course, predators - because they are tiny - smaller than a common sparrow.

They are the Superb Fairy Wren whose males turn this lovely bright blue for part of the year, and I was exceptionally lucky to get this shot as they are very fast movers.

Day 20 - Progress

I am taking part in a year long on-line course learning how to paint faces and skin tones.  (https://karabullockart.com/product/lets-face-2017/)
One of my colleagues at work is taking a keen interest in my progress, so occasionally I post something on Facebook for her to see. I posted this last night.

I still have work to do with shading and skin colour, but I am happy with it so far. I hope I can get more done this afternoon after work. Then I can start on the next lesson because, guess what? - I am about three weeks behind on these classes.

Thanks for looking and cheers.

These photos are in response to the Artful Adventures Stroll through the Hood project. You can find out more here: http://nathaliesstudio.com/learn/online-workshops/artful-adventures-stroll-challenge/ 

Artful Stroll - Text

Today I have photographed a crate of books - one of about 10 sitting behind my desk waiting to be processed. The company that I work for gets books "shelf-ready" for libraries. We label and cover the books, and for many libraries, we then add the books to their databases (catalogues) before delivering them.

My job is data entry to the library catalogue and I do some editing or downloading of catalogue entries. I retrained as a library technician in 2012 & 2013 after working more than 30 years in accounts and admin for various companies.

This photo is in response to the Artful Adventures Stroll through the Hood project. You can find out more here: http://nathaliesstudio.com/learn/online-workshops/artful-adventures-stroll-challenge/

Thanks for visiting and cheers for now.

Artful Stroll - More catching up

So here I am again, behind on the challenge and playing catch up. I got my night shot when I popped out to the local supermarket after dark, and then stopped to get my mail. The crack was easy and I cheated a bit with the reflection shot.

Day 13 - Night

This is looking up the drive of where I live from the front entrance where the letter boxes are - you can see the front of my car in the shot. It is quite a long driveway and my unit is way off in the distance.

Day 15 - Cracks

We have a very large crack in one of the windows at work. It appeared shortly after we moved into the building last year. We don't really know how it happened but we keep checking to make sure it hasn't grown any larger.

Day 16 - Reflection

This is an old photo - taken in a beautiful garden and lake complex near Shanghai. In my old job, I had do a couple of trips overseas to attend company meetings and seminars. I was only in Shanghai for 4 days - two day seminar plus one day visiting the office and one day sightseeing.

The delegates from the seminar had a lovely day walking the gardens and sailing the big lake. The blossom was just starting to come out - it was really pretty.

This photo is in response to the Artful Adventures Stroll through the Hood project. You can find out more here: http://nathaliesstudio.com/learn/online-workshops/artful-adventures-stroll-challenge/ 

Thanks for looking and cheers for now.

Artful Stroll - Catching up

I've been busy with work lately and missed quite a few of the daily challenges. I thought that I would catch up here and then try to get myself into gear and keep up.

Day 11 - Sign

That was easy. My sister-in-law bought this sign for my garden at my last place and it followed along to the new place. The string at the back broke, so now it hangs off the trellis on a couple of hooks.

Day 12 - Trash

This is my recycling bin inside the house - it's where I accumulate recyclables until it gets full and I need to chuck them in the larger bin outside that the local council empties every fortnight.

Day 14 - Pattern

I like doing word puzzles, particularly Code Words, where you have to find the letters and make words. It is often a matter of knowing common structures or patterns of words that helps work our which letters go where. I can sit for ages doing these puzzles or crosswords (normal and cryptic).

You will have noticed that I missed day 13 - Night. I will try to get that tonight - but I don't go out much after dark!

These photos are in response to the Artful Adventures Stroll through the Hood project. You can find out more here: http://nathaliesstudio.com/learn/online-workshops/artful-adventures-stroll-challenge/

Thanks for looking and I hope you enjoy this look around my neighbourhood.

Artful Stroll - Wildlife

We get lots of birdlife in the area - mainly because there are wetlands to our north-east and to our south-east. When the units were first built, there was a bit of a pond behind the property where you could see lots of water birds. As well, up in the sky hunting small prey (field mice, etc) were black-shouldered kites. We even had fairy wrens visiting along the back fences hopping in and out of low shrubs and grasses - usually only the bright blue male was visible.

Slowly the area around us has been built up - the pond filled in, factories built and a new highway gone in. We still have open ground to the south with a school and football ovals/cricket grounds, and because of the wetlands, we sometimes see flocks of birds flying by. The birds we see most of now are the rainbow lorikeets and noisy miners - both very loud and raucous. Outside my dining area, I have a grevillea and it is popular with both birds, however only the lorikeets are pretty to look at!

 This photo was taken from the doorway of my dining area and for some reason this pair did not fly off when I opened the door. I love it when they visit and could watch them forever!!

Artful Stroll - Plantlife

I was going to include photos from my garden, until I thought about the name of this challenge "Stroll through the Hood", so I decided to photograph some gardens that I pass by each day. Only problem was life (i.e. work) got in the way and I didn't have time for walking around the neighbourhood.

But when I went out into my backyard, I noticed a couple of plants in flower - so here they are. The first one is a small banksia - I think it is called "Birthday Candles". 

The other is a crowea - "Princess something"?? I love the bell shaped flowers of the croweas and I have one in my front garden with flowers resembling chef's hats (not in flower at the moment!)

Both plants help liven up the garden as we head towards winter.

Artful Stroll - Ground

Somebody decided to lay some rubber at the entrance to the property where I live.  I am on the Owners' Committee, so took a photo when I stopped to get my mail on the way home.

Not so good to see as you drive in, but unfortunately we get some dodgy visitors at one of the rented units. Otherwise, it is a great place to live.

Artful Stroll - Sky

This is not a very recent photo - it was taken last year just before Christmas, when one of the local community groups moved their fireworks display & carol singing to the football oval behind where I live. Their annual concert & display had got too big for their carpark, so we were the beneficiaries of a close-up fireworks display.

The view is from my front porch, looking over my opposite neighbour's garage. It was really nice to see the fireworks because usually we only hear them going off in the distance.

This photo is in response to the Artful Adventures Stroll through the Hood project. You can find out more here: http://nathaliesstudio.com/learn/online-workshops/artful-adventures-stroll-challenge/ 

Artful Stroll - Window

This was the view from my front window this morning when I opened the blinds, and discovered a very foggy world. It did not lift for a few hours, but this afternoon it was sunny again.

This photo is in response to the Artful Adventures Stroll through the Hood project. You can find out more here: http://nathaliesstudio.com/learn/online-workshops/artful-adventures-stroll-challenge/

Artful Stroll - Shiny

This was a no-brainer for me. Every day I get blinded by sunlight being reflected off cars in the carpark. My office has large windows facing north and west and while that makes the office very light and airy, on really sunny days, we get a bit too much bright light.

Fortunately Melbourne's weather is a bit changeable and five minutes after being blinded by sunlight, it will be cloudy or even rainy - especially at this time of year.

I might add that this photo was taken yesterday from inside  my office, over my colleague's desk which was bathed in sunlight.

This photo is in response to the Artful Adventures Stroll through the Hood project. You can find out more here: http://nathaliesstudio.com/learn/online-workshops/artful-adventures-stroll-challenge/ 

Artful Stroll - Mailbox

Where I live, we have two banks of mailboxes flanking the entrance to the property. Sometimes they can be a bit messy with junk mail hanging out - worse if it has rained.

This photo is in response to the Artful Adventures Stroll through the Hood project. You can find out more here: http://nathaliesstudio.com/learn/online-workshops/artful-adventures-stroll-challenge/ 

Artful Stroll - Fence

Just a small part of the fence around my unit. This is an ivy geranium which looks lovely when in flower.

Artful Stroll - Transportation

Here is my car in my very crowded garage. The stuff is not mine - I am storing it for a nephew until he finds somewhere to live. The computer boxes don't have computer bits in them, they are full of towels, sheets and other household stuff, so are the drawers and the plastic tubs!!

Artful Adventures : Stroll through the Hood

I saw this photo/art challenge on Frieda Oxenham's blog, so thought I would join in - except, I had trouble find a user name on Instagram, then discovered that it is not compatible with my PC. So no other option but to use the blog (because Pinterest will surely be the same as Instragram!). Today I am playing catch-up with my photo posts.

Here is Day 1 - Home

This is my own little slice of a 37 unit complex in suburban Melbourne (Australia).

Having fun

I have been having some fun with the week nine lesson in Let's Face It 2017, even though I did not have the right tools. I still cannot get over the variety of lessons provided and we are only at week 10 of 52!!

Unfortunately, I am not getting much done with my other challenges. Even with work being quiet for the last couple of weeks, I seem only to be able to concentrate on LFI lessons with the occasional journal page thrown in.

Let's Face It Week 9 - Deb Weiers

Deb does these amazing whimsical characters with pen and ink, and she gave us an insight into her process with an introductory video. We then got detailed instructions for a project using coloured inks, collage and loose pen work.

My character is based on some photos of Margot Robbie in "Love" magazine and has a 1950's vibe which Deb picked up on in her comments. I used my Distress stains and Signo pens - but will be buying some inks and a proper pen & nib in the future.

After I had drawn the hair, I was reminded of the old rhyme my mother used to tell us: 

There once was a girl

Who had a little curl

Right in the middle of her forehead.

When she was good

She was very, very good

But when she was bad, she was horrid.

 A couple of the participants did giraffes, so I was very tempted to try my hand at one too. BUT then I saw a post on FB from Landline about camels in the outback with a wonderful close-up photo, so I did a camel instead! This was done on a page where I had wiped off leftover paint - all I did was tone it down a bit with pale grey and draw the camel with black & white Signo pens.Shading was done using water soluble black coloured pencil.

Naturally, I had to find a rhyme about camels - a clean one, as there are way too many iffy limericks out there!! Anyway, I did find a nice limerick called Nance & her Dance by Shira:

There once was a camel named Nance

Who decided to learn how to dance.

She wiggled her hump

And shimmied her rump

Whenever they gave her the chance.

My next bright idea was to draw and paint Merlin (my niece's old horse). My niece regularly posts old photos of Merlin on FB, even though he has been gone for a few years, and everyone oohs & aahs and says what a great horse he was.

This is the reverse of the process for the 1950's girl where we gesso'd over the background so she stood out - instead I gesso'd over the horse outline to make him stand out. Again, the background is leftover paint wiped over a blank page in my 8x8 journal.

I find that I like drawing animals, so I am collecting reference photos and may try some more family pets - past & present. But next time I'll do them on separate sheets, so I can give them away.

Journal 52 Week 9 - Emerge

A constant image on our television screens lately, is one of people (mainly women & children) emerging from the ruins of war-torn cities in Syria and Iraq. So that was the first thing that popped into my head with this week's Journal 52 prompt.

Again I used a page where I had wiped leftover paint, but this time in a vertical pattern, so it was reminiscent of buildings or people. I defined some of the shapes with water soluble pencil and added extra colour with water soluble crayons. I gesso'd lightly around the edges to look like smoke or dust and wrote the words.

This was a quick page to do - very intuitive - but it hit a nerve with many group members when I posted it.

Well my next LFI lesson involves OIL paint and I am still trying to decide if I will use this medium (which I haven't really liked in the past) or try doing the lesson using acrylics. Am I adventurous enough to try the oils? And if I still don't like them, what will I do with the leftover paint, mediums & brushes? There's more reasons not to use them - cost of materials & storage afterwards.

Anyway, thanks for looking - hope you enjoyed your visit and come again. 

Keep well and bye for now.

All caught up!!

I have finally caught up with all my Let's Face It 2017 lessons - courtesy of doing no housework and my job quieting down so I had extra days at home. That's the problem with working for various public libraries - feast or famine - and at the moment it is famine with all my libraries. How different from my last post when I was so busy.

Anyway, that meant a long weekend to do lots of art. I also cooked two meals to refill my freezer and did some laundry - but that was the extent of my homely chores. It is hot again with 6 days in a row around 30 degrees, but we are getting cool sea breezes at night to help us sleep.

I am amazed at how versatile the lessons are on LFI 2017 - every week another talented artist takes us on a journey through another technique. Some of the lessons are very detailed and require hours of work, which leaves little time for my Facebook challenges - but those are free, and I paid for LFI 2017, so I need to concentrate on that. Besides, I am learning so much!

Let's Face It Week 6 - Effy Wild

Wow, was this lesson complex!!! Effy had us build up layers on our background before sketching in a face. There were so many steps and I had to spray it with fixative so many times, that I lost count. We used glazes to delineate some areas with colour, i.e.: the scarf and the background.

This is an interim photo showing how a blue and magenta glaze changes the background which started out looking like her dress. The face gets painted with gesso as a basis for drawing and painting the face.

Eventually after various applications of paint and coloured pencils, I ended up with the lady below. It only took me a week!

Let's Face It Week 7 - Renata Loree

A a complete change, this week we got a mini lesson from Renata, where we could use either ink or watercolour to paint a face and try to fix values to show light and shadow. Renata had a great image of a dreadlocked girl, and to stave off the "shades of grey" jokes at work, I used  blue watercolour.

This was a fun and quick lesson - just exactly what I needed after the intensity of Effy's lesson last week.

Let's Face It Week 8 - Jennifer Bonneteau

Wow, again! Jen's lesson was so interesting and I'm not sure I really succeeded, but I had fun trying.
We were encouraged to pick a painting by Voka, an Austrian artist and use that colour scheme in our own painting.

I used Jen's reference photo and picked one of Voka's portraits of Andy Warhol. A tip we were given was to photograph our portrait and then convert it to black & white to check the values we had painted against the reference photo. This immediately shows up where we might need lighter or darker colour values - it was really interesting to do this and see the underlying values.

Her mouth still needs work and I need to watch the video where Jen shows us how to paint teeth without making them scary, but now I am ready for lesson 9 which came out today and promises to be very different.

Journal 52 Week 8 - Stillness

I had a play with some of the printouts I did of Voka faces and tried a messy collage, adding some watercolour pencil details. As often happens, things did not turn out how I had planned - so the best thing to fix that is to draw something and then paint over the mess. So inspired by something I saw yesterday, I drew some bird shapes and gessoed over the rest of the page.

I then used black paint to outline the birds, paint in their legs, and some tail feathers (to shake). I wrote the word "peace" which is a synonym of stillness, because in my experience birds are never still, but can be peaceful to watch.

Thanks for visiting, leave a comment if you like, and take care of yourself. Ciao for now!

Catching up again

I really can't believe how fast time goes by - it certainly doesn't seem like three and a half weeks since my last post. Partly, I suppose, it's because work has been busy - four full days per week and then on my day off I have to do shopping (to get a discount) and clean (because my cleaner has hurt her knee, and is out of action). That means that I am behind with all my challenges and my paid classes, so I have not had much to post about.

Anyway last week, I finished the bulk of the books for the new library I have been working on and managed to complete a couple of challenges plus what was a big lesson for Let's Face It 2017. So here I am catching up with posting my work.

Mission Inspiration - January 2017

I got this challenge in by the skin of my teeth, using the revamped list of steps. I still don't really like the rigidity of following steps like this, but I do like the colour suggestions and the words to use.

Personally... I think my page is very ordinary, but I followed all eight steps, so that means, mission accomplished!

Journal 52 Week 6 - Dream

I got the inspiration for this on Pinterest where I collect possible backgrounds, but this was really dreamy and I thought I could use some daubers to make the marks. It uses white, pink, purple, orange & turquoise paint with a hint of gold round the edges.

Journal 52 Week 1 - Portal

I had leftover paint from the dream page, so with the addition of black to make the purple darker, I made this page to signify a portal or doorway. The inspiration came from a photo of a nebula which I also found on Pinterest.

Both of these pages were really quick and easy to make in my 9 x 5 Dylusions journal and gave me a little pick-me-up to get started on the big lesson from Juna Biagioni on Let's Face It 2017.

Let's Face It Week 5 - Lynda King / Colour Me Positive Week 4 - How We Treat Others

I'm doing my LFI ain the same order that I completed them - that is, I did the week 5 lesson before I did week 4. I also used this panting for week 4 of CMP because of the lovely light in her eyes.

Lynda's lesson was about using watercolour pencils with mediums other than water to activate them. It was a very interesting lesson and is a technique I will use again.

Let's Face It Week 4 - Juna Biagioni

We are still looking at values and how we can use different values of a colour to highlight or shadow.

Juna's lesson used just three shades - light medium and dark - to get the image on the page. We spent time refining then glazed the portrait before adding subtle colour with oil sticks or soft oil crayons.

This was a complex lesson with lots of videos to watch, however, I think I chose the wrong photo to copy - there was not much contrast between light and dark. I also made her mouth too small and her hair a bit too boofy. 

The reference photo was altered to show the areas of light & dark. My portrait above is before any glazing or colour was added. It was done using just the three shades of colour.

The portrait below is the finished version with blue glaze added to the background, magenta to the face and a mix of magenta & yellow to the hair. I followed up with soft wax crayons, toning down the face and trying to emphasise the lighter areas. I also gave her lips, hair and eyes more colour

Lots of interesting techniques learned in this lesson and especially, the use of glazes. While I may not be really happy about my work, I am loving all the new things I am learning - I just need to find time to practise, practise, practise.

Thanks a lot for visiting, leave a comment if you want, and I'll see you in "blogland" sometime soon. Cheers.

More Faces

I am concentrating on the Let's Face It classes at the moment and not doing much with the art journal challenges - because, lack of inspiration and time.

Finding inspiration still presents the biggest problem when completing these set challenges - and then of course, when inspiration does strike it is another matter entirely to get it down on the page exactly as you see it in your head.

I've done two Journal 52 challenges and neither has turned out quite how I was hoping.

Journal 52 Week 2 - Hope

I did this in my small Dylusions journal, emulating day 4 of Effy Wild's pages for the #MiniMoleyDaily challenge that she is also running. Effy's is much shinier & brighter - her greenish paint was much more translucent so the gold stencilling showed up. I may have another go at this for a different challenge.

Journal 52 Week 3 - Strange

I started with napkin remnants covered over with paint in various shades and then dry-brushed with silver. I stamped the words and felt it needed something - so I drew a face. She has hearts on her cheeks and multi-coloured hair. The hair overpowered the letter stamps so I had to go over them with my black Uniball. Not quite the effect I was looking for!

Let's Face It Week 2 revisited.

As I mentioned last time, I decided to try my profile portrait from week one again. So I did both a grid portrait and a burnished portrait. Surprisingly, the grid portrait still looks longer in the face than the original photo - how does that happen?

The burnished version below is better - as it should be!

Let's Face It Week 3 - Values

Well we've finished the review portion and re now getting stuck into painting portraits this week with our first lesson on grey scale values. Again, I've made the face longer than in the reference photo - that is obviously something I'm going to have to work on!

I didn't have a board or a Stabilo All Pencil, so used a heavy duty paper and water soluble pastel. Using gesso to get the different shades of grey was interesting - it worked really well if you got just the right amount of gesso on your brush. An exercise in control for me who tends to overload her brush!

Something else I will have to try again when I have the right materials - but the Stabilo pencil is proving elusive.

Thanks for looking and reading - look after yourselves til next time. Cheers.