New paintings and regular art updates.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was history. I decided to draw the pool at Bodnant Gardens, a house and gardens run by the National Trust near, Llandudno in North Wales. Its well known for its beautiful laburnum walk and many flowering shrubs and plants. The upper part near the house has lawns and perennial plants while the garden slopes down to a river and has lovely wooded areas.
A felt pen and black ink doodle/sketch of different eyes. I found it hard to blend the colours of the pens because they dry quickly so you have to try and shade in thin layers and build them up. It’s only a small drawing and blowing it up a bit really shows up the blotchiness. Mind you when I paint I do find it hard to blend colours. I think that’s because I use acrylics which dry very fast as opposed to oils that can take a very long time to dry. I don’t do photorealism but I once had the local newspaper art critic talk about one of my paintings in his report about a local exhibition. He said if I wanted to be a photo realist I should try harder! I was insulted because a) I was not trying to be one and b) he didn’t ask me what my style was! I think it was lazy journalism. Filling up a couple of lines. But he didn’t see how much it upset me. And I still feel it, even years later!
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was musical instruments, I drew a recorder. I have a plastic one, but when I was a kid I had a lovely wooden one. The wood was golden and had an amazing grain to it. I’ve tried to remember how it looked. I didn’t do much music as a child and it was one of my sisters that tried to learn more complicated instruments such as the violin.
Sometimes my pen drifts
Across the paper
Black pen and colour
Shading over the lines
Faces and a donkey?
Why not play
Create a design
Learn and develop
Experience and experiment.
Sundays #bandofsketchers prompt was Antarctica. As penguins live in Antarctica I decided to draw one swimming in the sea. I did think about drawing them huddled together with chicks but they look so streamlined in the water. As usual a felt pen drawing.
I can’t spell Sicilian…. Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was defence. I didn’t want to draw an army or war image, so I looked at chess. I don’t know how the Sicilian defence works but it seemed like a good idea. Just a felt pen drawing.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was Vow. Hard one to do, I didn’t want to draw a couple at a marriage do I drew two gold rings and adapted a pattern I’d been drawing to try and make it look like lacework. I only spent about ten minutes on the rings. Felt pen drawing again using some metallic pens.
Art is complex, it can mean anything. Art can be good and bad, but one person’s good art is something someone else might loathe. I just edited this image to crop a smaller area and add a circular frame. Now I look at it I can see a series of stacked triangles that look like graffiti. It could represent a Christmas tree, or a forest, or rain on a window distorting an image outside it. It could also be a Christmas tree bauble. The digital filter distorts my linework, and adds textures and pattern to my drawing. The colours were originally felt pens but they to have been altered by the digital filters.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was fish. I drew a Sixty Seven pound goldfish caught in a lake in the UK this week. It was the largest one ever caught. I think it was a world record weight. It was released back after it was weighed. Quite difficult to draw in felt pen, the colours are a bit off and I should have done a better job of the background.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was lateral thinking…. I don’t know or Eye know…. A pun and some thoughtful eyes. Love pattern and colour and this was all about being spectacularly ‘spectacular’! Felt pens and fine line black ink pen.
Mallaband-Brown