Old digital sketch

Drawn with dots at a now defunct site called sketchfu. The site had a colour picker, about six round brush sizes. An opacity/transparency setting, zoom option and a pallette. Not many tools, but simple to use and it attracted a lot of traffic (thousands of users). In the end the owners abandoned it, they ghosted us moderators (I was one) I think they sold the site off.

Artrage face

Abstract face finger painted with the Artrage app on my phone. I like the way the different brushes and changing the roughness of the surface and grain size gives it a real textured surface. I added lines on the eyes and mouth rising a roller tool that left a line if you dabbed your finger on the surface of the phone. I also added spirals on the edges of the picture, I was trying to make it look like material. If you turn the pen up to 100% metallic the colours get darker.

Sea face

Eight years ago I painted this. I based it on a broken terracotta wall plaque that I’d had on the wall outside but I think the frost split it. It sort of reminds me of the green man theme and I think I actually bought it in a green man shop in Pickering in Yorkshire….. It was an acrylic on canvas and I guess I must have sold it as I haven’t seen it for years? You can get inspiration from all sorts of places if you look.

White rabbit

I couldn’t resist, I’ve never had my photo taken as a white rabbit before. My hubby had his taken as the mad hatter. This was at the New Vic theatre yesterday. The only problem was that I had to really crouch down as the cut out faces were really placed to be the right height for children. I was impressed by the quality of the painting. Whoever painted the Alice in Wonderland characters has a real talent, full of energy and funny.

Funny face

When I drew a very grumpy picture of myself today I remembered how much I used to like pulling faces. Then a memory came back to me… I suddenly remembered that I won the funny face competition and my twin won the funny walk competition at a school sports-fun day one year. We won a pound and a half of full cream chocolate! I think we must have practiced a lot, but I’m not sure I knew that this was what the prize was.

It’s funny because I can remember the scene as if it was yesterday now. A group of children on the sports field and kids taking it in turn to make the others laugh. Whoever had the idea was a genius, much more fun than running races. No doubt influenced by ‘Month Pythons Flying Circus’ TV show which was on at the time. (Which I wasn’t allowed to watch because it was too ‘rude).

Open time

What to do in your open studio? Meet lots of people who want to ask questions. I got nervous seeing so many people so I decided to paint my hubby reading. It’s a vert small studio and as one lot of people left another came in. I tried speaking but it’s hard to know what people think and after avoiding people for a couple of years because of Covid I have become more socially inept. It’s just hard to know what to say. But anyway overall it was a positive feeling. I sold one minature painting and made the princely sum of £4!

Ow!

Ow! I was getting some paintings out of the car boot today and I pulled the door down and hit my nose. It really hurt so I rubbed it as you do and everything seemed OK. I hadn’t hit the bridge of my nose. So nothing broken. I went into Spode and priced up my work. Hubby didn’t tell me I had a cut on my nose. I spoke to several people, no mention! Either I looked so rough that they didn’t want to say anything, or it didn’t look that bad, or they were just very polite. Anyway, I only noticed it because it’s started to hurt and it felt rough under my finger, so yes, ouch!

Decidedly under the weather

I’m tired and not feeling much like doing anything, scratchy sore throat and a bit blocked up nose and ears. I decided to doodle a face. Why is it when I draw profiles they normally face left? Previous discussions with other artists raised the idea you can see where to draw easier if you draw the outline first then move back towards the eyes and mouth and ears. This is a finger drawing in ArtRage oils. I need to experiment more with it. I also need to find my stylus.

I see a face.

Light and shadow  become a mask. Eyes in shadow, high cheekbones. Flight of fancy? Do you see it? The light was cast onto the wall and the green and brown strands are the stems and leaves of a spider plant. The image has been mirrored so that there is vertical symmetry. It feels like a view of a cinema screen and could be a super hero or villa. I think it looks like a cross between spiderman and batman!