New paintings and regular art updates.
Some sketches from last year. Using various amounts of white along with red and black. I think I added white to make the images easier to see and read. The red is quite a dark tone and it’s hard to see against the black areas. I also think someone who is colour blind might be able to see the images with more white.
Dragon with teardrop shaped scales. For swimming underwater, nostrils that close up with spring valves, a small mouth that can close tightly. Pressure resistant eyes and ears that can hear infrasound under the ocean. Another design idea. I duplicated and mirrored the dragon head as I had only drawn one half of it.
You are strong and ethereal, the light glints on your skin, like a dolphin, sleek, slipping through the waters, twisting coral and seaweed in your hair.
Siren songs, calling out to passing boats and ships, but ignored as diesel engines drown your subtle music. You have lost your sisters to giant nets, trawled from their watery beds by fishermen that know no better.
Mystery surrounds you, mystic, mythological, mesmerising. No soft fairy story of prince’s and princesses. You are more powerful, a trident carrying warrior.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt is meditation. I wanted to do pattern to meditate on? I was trying to draw a mandala but it went a bit shaky and sideways. So I embellished it. Using various metallic pens.
Drawing over the top of a green faced man, I used Artrage oils to create this profile of a woman. I had the ‘oils’ set on metallic, it gave the image an old fashioned look. I am glad I can use this app.
I used photodirector to adjust the textures in the effects part of its editing tools. I like the rippled effect, it somehow reminds me of the patterns in the cloudscape on Jupiter taken by the Juno probe a few years ago. Because I didn’t shade all the way up to the outlines I like the dark edge that lies between them and the silver shading. I could imagine using this style to illustrate a book cover or within a magazine article. Perhaps one day I will get a commission to do something like this? I don’t know.
I spotted five metallic pens made by Bic in the shop today. So on a whim I bought them. I have to say I was impressed! They have large felt pen nibs and the ink flows well. The lines you can draw are a good weight and if you tip them on their side you get wider lines because they have a bevelled edge. The colours are strong and they seem to work well on my black cartridge paper sketch pad, they are nice and opaque. I will see how they work on white paper next.
Walking around the world museum in Liverpool three years ago, I was so impressed by the travelling exhibition of the Chinese terracotta warriors. Obviously only a few if them were represented in the gallery, but it gave a strong example of the creative and military civilization behind these figures.
There were crowds at the gallery, people shuffled round and many of the exhibits were partially hidden by bodies that strangely mimicked the warriors remaining in China as they stand within the archaeological dig there, rows and columns lined up. Humans used to congregate. They group, they press against each other, travel together . That feeling of community has been lost to some degree because of Covid. Will they ever do the same again? Will we go forward in time to a freedom we do not enjoy now? I don’t know.
Todays #bandofsketchers prompt was Halloween. I thought I’d draw an angry skeleton in the style of urban graffiti. I took a while over it but I’m not completely sold on it… various metallic paints and pens drawn over with metallic pens, then black and white acrylic paint.
Felt pens can make interesting patterns, and this was one I created which I called jazzy.
It’s hard to know where the triangles and lines should go and which colours fit together. Stripes and chevrons. Highlighted lines to try and add depth. Abstract art isn’t just splodges, I think it has to have some thought, at least that’s my opinion.
I should have been doing some art today, but I’m not well so I thought I would share this.
Mallaband-Brown