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.

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.

A new year means a new challenge

Happy New Year to everyone - I hope you all had a break from work and could spend time with family and friends. Because it was so hot here, we had a Christmas BBQ - just chops, rissoles and snags with salad, followed by pavlova and chocolate ripple cake. YUM!!!!!

It was the perfect lunch for the weather and we all enjoyed it very much. My brother rang our other brother (he's in Brisbane) so with the phone on speaker, we all got to talk to each other for the first time in about three years. The four of us have not got together since just after my 60th birthday.

So this year, I have paid for a year-long course on drawing and painting faces, run by Kara Bullock at Let's Face It 2017. (https://karabullockart.com/lets-face-it-2017-registration/) It is my first PAID course and I am wanting to make the most of it, so I will probably not do as many weekly challenges this year. However, I will try to combine some of my weekly prompts just like I have seen others do.

Anyway, here is a catch-up on what I have done since the last time I posted.

Colour Me  Positive Week 52 - Christmas

Having pulled out out all my Christmas stuff , I found this great napkin with the funky Santa image. The background was swiped in seasonal colours and the words are from a stencil. I added some glitter accents, did a bit of doodling and even added stickers from my Christmas lunch cracker.

Colour Me Positive Week 53 - Opportunities

As luck would have it, there were 53 Fridays in 2016, so we got an extra challenge. The quote was short: "1 year = 365 opportunities." I decided to do another mandala using the flower of life and used the colours of the rainbow seeing as how I had 7 flowers inside the circle. I changed the quote slightly to read: "365 days of opportunities = one year of creativity."

Kylie (the new owner of Lulu Art) also posed the question - What would you do if you couldn't fail?  So, I answered that with another journal page.

I've been experimenting with textured backgrounds starting out with napkins glued to the page, which are then covered in paint usually in analogous colours. Then I dry brush metallic colours - gold, silver or bronze - to catch the raised bits. It comes out looking a bit leathery. This one was a bit of a fail - the burnt umber was too dark and stood out from the other colours - so I used it as the background for my page.

Journal 52 Week 50 - Fire & Ice

Again with the mandala - I am really enjoying this art form, although it is very time consuming and colour choice can be a pain. I spent some time looking for images of fire and ice before embarking on this design. Of course, the obvious images work the best - flame and snowflake - with warm vs cool colours and doodling in gold & silver.

Let's Face It - Week 1

This week we looked at portrait mapping using circle/oval template with the face's proportions broken up into thirds & quarters. Kara showed us how to do a front facing portrait as well as profile and three quarter portraits. My first effort was 3 small faces on the same page - but they all leaned to one side. I think it was how I was sitting.

Later, I tried again in a larger format (and sitting properly) which worked out much better, although my profile portrait is too long in the face compared to the photo.

Let's Face It - Week 2

This week, we looked at using a grid to draw a portrait - this helps gives an accurate portrayal. (I'll have to try that profile portrait again using a grid!!)

Next, we drew around an image using charcoal or graphite then turned the page over and burnished the image onto a blank page. You have to rub really hard (using a bone folder or other similar tool) but you should get enough on the page to then draw the image and add all the details yourself.

I think this is a great way to practice and get used to drawing lots of different faces. This is the same girl as above but she is now the opposite way around!

And lastly, a free hand exercise using marks and shapes to build up an image. Kara wanted us to use only black and white charcoal to produce this image and show the play between light and shadow. I used the image that Kara supplied.

So far, I am loving these classes and exercises. Even when things go a bit wonky, it doesn't matter because I am creating and using muscles that have been dormant for about 40 years. Looking forward to the next lesson so much.

If you've got this far, thanks for reading my blog. I hope you have a good 2017 ahead and keep well. Cheers.

Zentangle - have you heard about it?

While processing books at work, I came across Beckah Krahula's "One Zentangle a Day: a 6-week course in creative drawing for relaxation, inspiration, and fun".

I immediately put a reserve on my local library's copy so that I could have a better look.

I really like the concept of Zentangle as a means of meditation, and a way into being able to draw again. The act of repeating the patterns takes your focus into the drawing and away from the distractions of everyday life.

So I did a bit of dabbling using the patterns in Beckah's book, did some surfing on the net and found a whole community of tanglers out there. Their work is inspiring and I really need to sit down and tangle more often.

I did this one for one of the Diva's Challenges.

This is one of my earlier efforts.

I would recommend anyone to try Zentangle - even people who say they are hopeless at drawing. The instructions for each pattern are clear and easy to follow. Before you you know it, you are off and running with a small (3 1/2 inch / 9cm square) drawing that YOU did!

Check out these sites:

http://tanglepatterns.com/book-reviews/one-zentangle-a-day

This is also a great site for getting tangle patterns to use.

http://iamthedivaczt.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/weekly-challenge-195.html

This is an interesting challenge from last month, scroll sown to check out all the responses.

https://www.zentangle.com/zentangle-method

The founders website with links to blog & newsletter.