Finally in progress

I started this at art group last November and I hadn’t touched it till today’s art group. That’s about 2 months. I feel guilty that it’s taking so long but with illness and one thing and another it’s taken me this long to get going again. It’s a work in progress and I want to try and get a better feeling of three dimensions to the teapot.

I working the pattern out as I go along and I need to take into account the lighting aswell. It’s been four hours and I didn’t want to stop, but the session only lasts till 2.30pm

Wooden

Sliced wood. How do you make a veneer for furniture? Cut through a slice of wood four times, glue it onto some backing wood  like pine and add three more pieces rotated so the result is a symmetrical pattern.

This is what my grandfather, who was a carpenter, did for my mom and dad as a wedding present. He gave them two wardrobes, one large and the other smaller. He used a carcass of probably elm or beech and then used Walnut, polished and stained to a dark glossy finish. They were beautiful. As a child I used to go and look at them. The pattern and colour enthralled me.

Not brilliant.. Doodle

A doodle from a few years ago. I just found it on my phone, I was playing with colour and texture, using an app to solarize areas.  But clearly I wasn’t concentrating on proportions! This fairy Ballerina has very large legs and one large arm, and the other arm and the head are tiny. The body is too small too. I think its a case of looking at one part too closely instead of viewing the picture as a whole. Anyway I thought I’d share it as a bad example of doodled digital art.

Full memory again

My phone is full of photos and my WordPress account is too. I want to add new images but my blog tells me my media  file is full. What can I do? I have to delete previous photos from my previous posts.

So if you read one of my blogs and it doesn’t have a photo to illustrate it, that’s the reason why. I could delete the actual blogs but I don’t know how to do it?

A face

Making up faces, good practice if you don’t have anyone to draw. You can work out eye shapes and sizes, how would a long or short nose look? Big or small mouth thin or thick lips? Are the ears visible? How long or wide is the face, what shaped chin.

Drawing is a skill, practice does help. 10,000 hours is meant to make you an expert. Millimeters can change things, hair, makeup, colour, looking in different directions. Up down, sideways, three quarter view.

Please keep working, practicing, enjoy it.

Tree across the road

The tree across the road a few years ago. Covered in ivy. This was drawn for an old #bandofsketchers prompt. The prompt was ivy.

I haven’t been doing these challenges for a few months. I think I ought to try again. It seems a shame that I stopped but life has been getting me down. Art is a great cure for sadness I think. I’ll try again soon.

My grandads ship

My grandfather carved this ship from wood, probably in the early 20th century. It had no masts so I put the the bamboo sticks into it when I was young and I was going to try and put sails on it. It has thin strips of cardboard nailed on along the sides. I painted it up because it was so shabby.

This was a watercolour sketch I’d done about 4 years ago and I’m mourning the fact that I could still draw and paint neatly.

A hundred?

What are your thoughts on the concept of living a very long life?

Not me!

Old, not a word I dread, as long as my mind and body continue to work. I want to keep going. I don’t think there is anything after life, I seriously doubt it, so I want to be me for as long as I can.

Health is the problem. Co-morbidities are flung at me at a rapid rate. One thing or another to take tablets for, carefully balanced to keep me going. Unless the pharmacy can’t get my pills, they are out of stock, suppliers let them down. Almost every month there is a problem where I’m left owed something.

After all that I would like to leave a legacy of my art. I hope my paintings won’t get thrown out, maybe I can keep going for seberal more years. I will try.

Distracted

Things have got in the way and I have hit a block with my painting of a teapot. I mean both physically and mentally.

You can see some of what is obstructing it. I need to move things, it’s just that I am mentally stuck. I think its the low light levels as this seems to get me every year. One day soon I hope have this finished.