New paintings and regular art updates.
Imp or Ogre
What would an Imp or ogre look like? Are they related species?
I decided to doodle an idea of what one would look like. They are both characters in the Mystery Play at Penkhull Play. They will be puppets I think, and we already have them made but they might need to change how they look.
I quite enjoy drawing characters and it’s a challenge to see what comes out. I’ve also drawn the two witches and a witches assistant to help me think how they should look.
I always loved drawing cats in hats. I usually draw them in wizards hats. But this time I decided to drew something like a fascinator. It would be a close fitting felt hat with patterns and bits projecting up from it. I’ve played around in photodirector to give it a more textured feel.
I do like drawing in my little sketchbook. It’s getting full of pictures and poems and some short stories.
This morning a friend took me out so we had a cappuccino and a muffin. It was lovely to have a chat. I decided to draw what was on the table so here’s the result. I like crosshatching to add shape and shade to make it more 3 dimensional.
We were talking to the waitress and and she saw my sketches. She said that she used to be good at art and sometimes shows her children how to do things. I suggested she get a little sketchbook to start drawing in again, I hope she does.
Youdraw.com was a simple black and white site with small and large black pens and erasers. The space to draw in was tiny but people drew wonderful images. For a while I drew and moderated at the site. It was trying to collect 500,000 drawings to represent population growth. I had to delete rude and racist pictures, and spent hours on some days deleting the same scrawl over and over again till the person posting eventually gave up. The site then had protection put in place to block the bad posters, so things improved. Then I found I couldn’t make enough time to volunteer anymore so I had to stop. This drawing was one of mine X
Wire fairy I made 4 years ago and a sketch of it. I enjoyed making it although I would say it’s not as delicate as the ones I’ve seen at Trentham Gardens in Stoke on Trent, England, where there are some lovely examples. In fact looking at it again I’d call it an Imp, not a fairy!
It resides somewhere in my garden, probably overgrown by the laurel bush that is overwhelming the bottom of the garden.
Smallest house in Great Britain, in Wales, is it in Caernarfon? (I’ve just been told its actually in Conway) If I remember it’s one up one down. If you spread your arms out it’s only just a bit wider than them (it’s smaller on the inside). I remember there was a woman called Carole dressed in Welsh traditional costume standing outside. We went in (squeezed in) and were amazed at how small it is.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some flats in big cities are actually smaller than this, although I don’t remember seeing a bathroom in it. It’s on the seafront between the castle and a bigger building than it if I remember correctly. It might be worth Googling it if you are interested. I didn’t realise how long ago it was that we visited it, hence the hazy memories.
Pattern makes me happy
Cats are fun to see
A patterned cat is better
Than a plain one to me!
Can’t you see
How funny it can be
To have a tortoise shell cat
That looks like knitted wool
She’s warm, cuddly and fat
And specially cool!
Tuesdays #bandofsketchers prompt was Content. I struggled with this, then looked up ‘content’ online. I found a lot of content faces. This is based on one of them. The drawing is done in fine black ink liner pen. I tried shading with it. Photo taken in quite a dark room so the brightness /contrast is a bit off.
I went to the Orme Art Group charcoal workshop today. It was run by an artist called Jo Watson and she taught us various techniques. Here I used brushed on charcoal powder smudged with a rubber tipped tool. Then I used willow charcoal sticks which you put on in a random way, then smudge again to lighten the charcoal. Finally you add darker layers to add contrast but you can tone these back to the paper colour, either by using a putty rubber you can shape, to lift off a layer of charcoal, or you can use a mechanical eraser thar rubs off patches to make the drawing lighter.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was grumpy. I had two reasons to be grumpy, a big bill, and still feeling ill. So I pulled this awful face (I look disgusted!) and drew this miserable looking self portrait! I really hope I don’t usually look like this. I’ve already deleted the photo I drew it from.
Mallaband-Brown