New paintings and regular art updates.
Abstract of seed pods, made with spray ink, off cuts of post-it notes, bits of black monoprint and a fine line pen.
I made this during our singing class tonight, it’s just a bit of fun. I’m playing with different ideas and the circles of monoprint looked like blueberries or seed pods. The coloured bits of paper are there to add highlights in pinks, orange, and yellow. I like the chaotic complexity of it.
Today’s college workshop, we had to create an image from random bits of things we had around us. I made a motorbike with mine! Can you see it?
Post it notes and bits of monoprinted paper, and a bit of maroon tissue paper as a bit of foliage. Is that a small white wheel at the front or a square orange wheel? Green handlebars, pink headlight. Black and white seat.
The monoprint was made by rubbing paper onto black paint brushed onto silver foil and then scratched through a bit. I then cut out a shape to fit to the shape of the woman body and arm, side of the face and hair, (basically the shaded side of her face and body). This was a bit nerve wracking as I only had ten minutes to do the cutting out, sticking, and drawing the rest of the portrait. I used the monoprint from a stock of them I’d made already.
Another post-it note and monoprint collage, drawn over with fine liner ink pen. The subject I found was mythology. The unicorn/ zebra/pegasus is adding all the elements I like together, the merman is holding a cornucopia from which fish are leaping. A bit of fun.
You can make a collage with almost anything. If it can be glued you can use it. You can also colour match things like felt pens with coloured paper to extend the image. I also add black pen to mimic the patches of black monoprint and shade the picture more. Experiment, learn, enjoy art.
When you are on zoom upstairs and your hubby is deaf so can’t hear you shouting. I find the best solution is to ring from my mobile to the land-line downstairs! Does anyone else do daft things like this? The result was a nice cup of tea while I didn’t miss any of the practice. And no I said thank you when he brought it up to me, not after he’d gone back downstairs.
Thursdays #bandofsketchers prompt was new. OK, I struggled with this, then drew a new self portrait using monoprint paper and silver foil, then adding my face as if in a cracked mirror. The mouth is down, but that’s what happens to me when I’m relaxed!
With a bag? She was staring at me, getting into my mind, so I decided to do a collage with her. This seems to be my creative ‘go to’ at the moment. Photo, then draw onto monoprinted paper, copying the photo. Two holes for her orange eyes. Then stick the paper down. Next post it notes for the bag that holds a couple I’d packs of felt pens. I cut out shapes then drew over it to give it more shading. Finally the mat… Another bit of monoprint. It’s hard to cut out the negative shape of the cat, and the mat is red and green, but I wanted it to stand out from the cat and my red and green pens have just about run out, so I used pink and what was meant to be a pale blue instead. It’s a bit scruffy, I didn’t have enough pattern to extend across the whole page so part of the mat is just coloured in. Anyway it was fun to do. Ignore the date by the way, I hadn’t done anything on the 18th so I filled in the gap.
I doodled a tree in felt pens (four of them held together for the greens, and three for brown and grey), then I added a black patterned monoprint for the fence and clouds. #bandofsketchers prompt…. Catching up..
I decided to use bits of post-it notes and monoprint and combine them in a tangle of colours. Do they link up with each other? It is a representation of my MA land. When you work on a college course there is so much to absorb and take in. Lots of information that needs to cross the book/ brain barrier via your eyes. The ever expanding reading list tries to force you to take in knowledge, but it’s not always easy to sift the relevant from the irrelevant. The clarity of words is not always there. I try to write clearly when I’m blogging, but if you have to take a dictionary with you when you try and read a piece of information, then you have to ask whether the author is being elitist.
Other problems with online courses are the lack of face to face contact. You can try and have zoom meetings or their equivalent. But it does feel sometimes like you are working in a vacuum. My desk is tiny, my pc and keyboard and screen take up about 75% of the space. It’s hard to find enough space to work in. My sketchbooks are getting smaller in proportion to the increasing number of them. So much drawing over the last year!
