Butterfly

Butterfly

The black and grey ones could be turned into prints to go on bags, badges, coasters or tee shirts. That’s what I would like to do, create designs for printing onto things including cards.

I was contacted a few years ago by a company that would have done it for me. But when I looked into the ratings for them they were not good. People were not getting things delivered on time. Artists were not being paid. The quality of the printing was not up to scratch. I decided against working with them but I would like the opportunity to do something like that. I’m chatting with a friend about what to do.

Goodnight, x

Bones

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Funny what you can find in a pub. This skeleton is plastic and sits in the corner of a local pub, next to the fire. I called the drawing the regular, he has been there for a few years. There is also a pretend skeleton of a dog behind him. Also you can see the top of a guitar next to him. That’s because I drew this on music night. The sketch pad is about 4 inches square and I have a drawing from 1995 in it of a place called Winnats pass in Derbyshire. _20190222_235651

I’m tired because I’ve been at the panto all evening so this is a  very short blog post and also a short poem

Skeleton

Skull

Pirate

Gull,

Treasure

Gold

Dubloon

Silver

Moon

Ship

Sea

Ocean

Free.

 

 

Doodles

After I posted about the wind I decided to play with drawing the eye in it on an app called sketcher free. But what could it be? Then I thought fish eye, and fish eye lens.

Rather surreal but fun don’t you think? I used various pen shapes and sizes and colours to draw it including the ribbon pen and an eraser. Then I used the chrome pen on a medium setting.

I do love playing.

Blow the wind

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I love the illustrations of little cherubs , cheeks puffed out, blowing ships across maps or in ancient paintings. That was the inspiration for this digital drawing in ArtRage oils. I had the metallic option set to 100%. You have a choice of 4 paint brushes and a sliding scale from 1 to 100.

I also love the song “blow the wind southerly” I think this would make an interesting illustration for it.

This is a free app I downloaded a couple of years ago. I have deleted other apps, but I kept this one because I like using it so much. I think it’s in Google app store or Google play if you look… I’m never quite sure how to find things there though.

Drawing a kiss

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How.?

Noses get in the way

Mouths don’t fit together

Where do they look?

Do they close their eyes?

This turned out closer to a little peck on the cheek than a full blown kiss. Maybe it’s a first kiss. They are looking at each other quizzically. Is this OK? What is their back story? They are not children or teens. They are about the same age, young adults. Life is ahead of them, do they have a future together.? Can they trust each other. It might have been easier to draw real people, but I don’t think two models would stand around for an hour while I drew them. The same goes for photographs, I don’t know anyone who would want to let me do that.

Trying to imagine how to draw this was interesting, it’s not something I normally do. I used a drawing app and a stylus to do this and a pencil setting on 3 and 5 pixel widths in black, grey and white.

It’s a doodle, a sketch, a bit of fun.

 

Drawing practice.

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What’s better than challenging yourself to do something different.

If you draw something often enough you get to know its shape, whether its a drawing of a car, or a landscape, or a face.

If you want to see things more clearly when you are drawing it can be an idea to turn your picture upside down. then you can identify areas you need to adjust.

This is an extension of the idea. Draw the object upside down then turn it the right way up. It’s a way of learning. I find myself talking through what I am doing. Is the nose too long, are the eyes too close together. Just think how you would draw someone if they were standing in their head? How does the hair on their head fall? Where would the shadows be. In this case I can turn my phone round and clearly see that the face is too long, the eyes are too small and the face is too thin. But it doesn’t look as bad from the normal perspective. I think that’s because of foreshortening. Tablets and phones tend to be held horizontally where pc screens are vertical.  With phones that means the top of the image is further away from your eyes than the bottom of it. Consequently the top half may be drawn slightly bigger than it should be so that when viewed upside down you can see the distortions.

When I was a child I learned to draw by copying from cartoons and photos,  but also by drawing people from life and from memory, the old adage is right, practice makes perfect. I just need to spend the time to learn and hone my work.

Phone doodles

Do you doodle when you are on the phone? I do if I’m on my phone. Its funny what comes into my mind. Mainly faces, patterns, thoughts.

These were drawn in biro on an old envelope. Sometimes I use italic pens or metallic ones. I tend to fill up all the space. I don’t remember when I did these. A few years ago?

And why not draw doodles? The more you practice art the better you can get. It also helps understanding what you are doing. I talk to myself sometimes as I draw to work out where I want to place features on a face for example.

Collage

I did this a couple of years ago. A collage of the view outside the art group meeting hall. I did a small sketch and then drew out the tree on the back of wrapping paper. I built up layers of paper and glued them one on top of the other, starting with the background trees in a pale purple and two individual trees on top of that. I then did the chain link fence out of silver holographic paper. Finally I cut the tree out of a darker patterned Christmas paper. The blue peices of paper on either side are meant to represent curtains.

I think making things like collage is quite creative. My example is very simple but you can go into much more detail. All you need is a pencil, paper and a pair of scissors. Maybe something to do on a wet weekend?

 

Digital patterns

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I’m a sucker for patterns. If I can’t think of any other art to do I will draw a pattern on my phone or tablet then play with it.

I do wonder where my ideas come from. I must be very visual. I never feel comfortable unless I’ve got something to look at. Minimalism is not for me.

I once had to live in a student residence while I was on placement somewhere. I had a room with a bed and a desk and chair. Blank walls.  That dingey pale grey /blue /green that public buildings are painted. One kitchen between about 16 rooms and a toilet and shower block.

No home comforts and it was the start of November and I was based there for a months placement. I could only come home at weekends.

I went out and bought a couple of sheets of wrapping paper. A newspaper, a party bag made out of holographic shiny metallic paper. Also a few postcards and a sketch book.

By the end of the day I had 42 (honestly) pictures, photos, patterned paper, the beautiful wrapping paper all stuck up on the walls .. Then I felt much better… Its my visual brain you see…..

Pastel workshop


I was going to have a quiet day today. But I got up and there was a bit of a disaster in our kitchen. My hubby had decided to brew some beer. But he had added some extra sugar to the brew. Then he has put the bung in upside down. Beer had turned into volcano. Half the brew was all over the kitchen. It had hit the ceiling, there were puddles of ale on the cupboard tops, it was all over the cooker. Basically half the kitchen has been inundated with beer….

After about an hour of cleaning up I decided to go to the pastel workshop with the Orme art group. Basically to escape! The workshop was run by Sandra Orme (no relation).

It’s difficult to describe what we learnt, it was complicated. I’ve added a few photos of the two pictures I did. First you lay down colours in soft pastel on fine toothed pastel paper. Once you have enough pastel on you blend them together, then build up layers using smaller more intricate marks, gradually blending and adding. Sometimes only lightly pressing on the pastel, other times blending more. The direction of the marks can make a difference to how it looks. You can use the edge of your hands, your palms, your fingers or blending tools (like a brush but with the bristles replaced with a rubber tip).

Im pleased with the results. I’m even thinking of getting them framed….

X