A Week Away

I'm having a week away from the PC, from the media & from the on line world in general. No blog reading, no facebook, no email and no news. I've done it before when I've started to feel artistically stale and it always works. You have to engage with what's physically around you for a week and that has fantastic repercussions in your art.

See you on the other side.

Trying on Robot Suits

Sometimes I need to create something completely different from my usual art. When I get this urge one of the things I do is to go to charity or second hand book shops and look through the visual books there for inspiration. Yesterday I found a Taschen book on old robots. Which inspired me to draw this.

It took me less than 10 minutes and is ink on lovely brown craft paper in my hand made journal from my arty friend Little Raven. A big departure from my usual work, so I added a pretty girl face inside the suit.

I wish this month's theme was robots & machines. Maybe next month!

Have you tried drawing something different from your usual subjects recently. What did you draw & how did it go?

August's Theme - Light and Dark

Setting the theme for the month is always tricky because I want leave as much open to your imagination's but still provide some direction for when you are feeling stuck.

This month's theme came to me when I was writing my morning pages and thinking about how much 'bad' stuff is happening in my life at the moment and trying to counter that with thinking about 'good' stuff too. I've heard - and I'm sure you have too - the idea that you can't see the light (i.e. good) properly if you don't have the darkness (i.e. bad) but I don't have much direct experience of that situation so thought it would be useful to explore the ideas in my art.

I hope you'll join the exploration. If you'd like your work publishing here please email me at kooky.makes@gmail.com.

A stone, or more easily a flower or a bird...

Art Journal Round Robin

I have the good fortune to be included in an Australian Art Journal Round Robin and my book will begin its journey around the country tomorrow. It's going to be such a treat and privilege to draw & paint & create in a fellow artist's journal and I'm a little awed at the talent that will end up contributing to my journal.

Here's an in progress shot of my cover. The theme of the journal is 'a stone, a bird or a flower' and I am asking contributors to create a page that brings them out of the every day and back to their true self. I'll post a scan of the completed cover when it's finished.

Exciting times!

Crayon Resist

Remember doing this when you were a kid? With Crayola crayons, copy paper & wishy washy cheap paint? I've updated it and used a white Neocolor II, Fabriano Hot Press watercolour paper & my Peerless watercolours. I see a lot of mileage in this background style!

Into the Wild Wood

I'm taking part in an international art journal page swap over the next 10 months and our first one is due to be posted on the 1st of August. Lots of people have chosen themes for their pages, but not the person I'm sending to first.  So I went with our theme of woodland creatures.

The Wild Wood is a place in English folk law where you meet your darkest fears and work beyond them. It's a rite of passage to take you beyond the every day and into more sacred things.The Wood usually provides you a guide in the form of a woodland creature or bird.

I think of art a bit like this. It's a way of going beyond the mundane and making things sacred. The act of creating is a form of worship, a way of making every day things special. Sketching your hand or a flower that's in front of you, or drawing from your imagination all makes you look and see the wonder that is our universe. And art usually provides you some guides in the form of other artists to inspire you, teach you & travel along with you.

I hope you come with me into the Wild Wood.

Instagram

Are you on Instagram? If not why not!? It's a great way to share your art and get inspired by other people's work. I generally search on the tags #art #artjournal #mixedmedia and #paint #painting #illustration and I always find something (or many things) I like. I'm not there to copy, but to see how other people are exploring the world they live in.

This piece, in my new winter journal, called Grumpy Cat in a Blanket, has received a heap of likes in the last few days. My husband says that's what the internet is for... videos/photos of cats and dogs. :-)

Baby, it's cold outside

Played around with a stencil, some Brilliance stamp pads, white Dylusions spray, a pretty acrylic & Prismacolor pencil face and some distress stains today. When my mojo is on holiday they're my go to supplies/basics and I usually end up liking the process of creating.

First I used the stamp pads (the tear drop shaped ones) to go roughly over the stencil. I wasn't looking for perfection, just some shiny colour. Then I drew a face & hair shape and painted the face in with flesh tone acrylic. Next I shaded and played with the face using Prismacolor pencil. I really enjoy watching it appear from the flatness.

Finally I painted the hair & the background with Ranger's Distress Stains.

Nothing new or revolutionary here. Just something I enjoyed putting together while my mojo packed her holiday bags and got on the next flight home.

Before You Art...

...find a place to lie very still for 5 minutes. Listen, see, smell, breathe, feel your skin. Do not judge.

Now go and make art.

My Favourite Doodlers

I really like doodles. Zentangles. Curly swirls. Industrial stuff. Anything that looks detailed and complex but is made from 3 simple things. Ink, substrate & imagination. Amazing complexity from simplicity. Just like life.

You can find my favourite doodler on YouTube here. And I also like this doodler.

I'm not very good at it myself and, in particular, find it difficult to start. Zentangle is very good if you feel the same way. The other thing I've discovered is that I just need to keep going. Past where I think it's done and add more. That's what the two doodlers I've linked to above do really well.

Here's a zentangle of mine from a few months ago. And a more recent free form doodle.

Do you have a favourite doodler or doodle style to share with me?

Winter Journal

It's winter here in the Southern Hemisphere so I thought my new journal should reflect the theme. The first piece I completed was an ice princess and today I painted a penguin.

The ice princess is acrylic on thin canvas with prismacolor pencil for detail, shadow & highlights. I really like the texture coming through. She was quick and easy, not least because I didn't have to match her eyes!

I drew my penguin from memory on some scrapbooking paper. When I wasn't sure of things like colouring and how their feet looked I checked online. Once the penguin was painted using acrylics I added rub ons and washi tape and stamps and stencils to the background but allowed them to leak onto the penguin to help integrate it into the page. The words took a long time to do as it was hard to make them stand out from all the busy background. I wrote them with a blue glitter sharpie, then shadowed them with tombow markers, then added snow on the top, then went over them with a yellow glitter sharpie (to tie in with the penguin's yellow), then wrote them again in very fine black pen. Phew! Last of all I went round the penguin with some grey watercolour to give set him off from the background a little.

I'm looking forward to more winter themed work in my new journal and plan to tie it in with woodland creature theme for this month. Owls in the snow anyone?

Hand Made Journal Love

A lovely art friend recently gave me a hand made art journal and now I've got the making bug too. I scour local op shops for hard backed books I can remove the covers or pages from to give them a new lease of life.

Favourite finds so far include books of old black & white photos, books about artists and some old atlases.

I'll show you how to make a simple journal from old hardback book covers, any papers & duct tape later this month but in the mean time here's some iPhone shots of one I made earlier.

Deer Girl

Look who I found in the forest.

Her face, ears & antlers are an acrylic base with prismacolor pencil for detail, shadows & highlights. The background is pencil & distress stain, as is her hair. Last of all I added some gesso through a stencil for some texture.

The colours are paler & more muted than I usually use but I like it. She has a winter feel about her that works well.

Have you been exploring the woodland/forest theme this month? If you'd like your work to be featured in our monthly round up please post a link to your piece in the comments below.

Sketching

Yesterday I went to a food court in a mall and did some people sketching. My sketches are awful. I felt uncomfortable and watched and out of my depth. People moved too much, too quickly, too often. I couldn't capture anything that resembled what was before me.

But you know what, I'm going to do it again. Because after about 20 minutes something happened. I caught the shape of a woman's head & hair almost exactly. In just a few pencil strokes. It was like magic. And I gotta get me some more of that.

Try it. And don't give up.

Laugh Kookaburra

This little ball of feathers and fluff came and sat on one of the trees in my garden yesterday morning so I made a quick sketch and photographed him before he flew off. Later on I worked the sketch in my Strathmore 500 Series Mixed Media Journal using watercolour.

I'm new to watercolour and still need lots of practice - it's so unpredictable! One thing I did realise though was that adding some ultramarine blue into my black/shadow areas really helped lively things up and make it more dimensional. All my mixed media/acrylic/pencil/collage playing with colour has its uses in this medium too!

As an aside, if you've ever heard a kookaburra you'll know they do laugh... but like a crazy thing that's just been given custard on their green beans in the asylum. :-) Just sayin'.

Blythe Doll Portrait

An artist I follow on Instagram posted a picture of her new Blythe doll with an outfit she'd created for her and I just had to paint it. I get my inspiration everywhere/anywhere.

She was surprisingly hard to draw, especially her face and I realised it's because she is so featureless. A lined/wrinkled/weathered face is so much easier to draw as you can make so many more shapes, measurements and comparisons. It was a worthwhile exercise though and I managed to catch her likeness in the end.

Why not try drawing a doll yourself? At least they stay still for as long as you need them!

Yellow Flower

Every wood needs some flowers and yellow is my favourite colour.

Giveaway Time - July 2013

Have you tried Faber-Castell's Gelatos? The company's write up says

Nothing on the market today compares with Design Memory Craft Gelatos®.  Compact acid-free pigment sticks glide on creamy smooth for vibrant color and coverage.  All Gelatos® blend easily with or without water.  Try this unique medium on paper, canvas, or wood!

Post a comment on this post before the 31st of July 2013 telling me what you'd do with them and I'll pick a winner to receive this set. I'll announce the winner on the 1st of August.

Fox in the Woods

I'm enjoying cross hatching. I think it's teaching me more about lights and darks and how to see them as shapes & I hope it will feed into me getting better at more natural shading.

Here's a piece I created yesterday. Instead of drawing on a pre prepared background I did things the other way.

First I sketched the outline in my Strathmore 500 mixed media journal working from part of a photo I found on the internet. I worked by drawing the shapes within the objects rather than trying to draw a fox.  Next I shaded the darkest areas as shapes and lightly marked out the lightest areas too. My drawing already looked like a fox at this point which was a good sign!

Cross hatching came next and my approach is to put my first lines over everything except the outlined white areas, but working within the shapes I've drawn as individual sections. I then add more layers of hatching as the areas get darker until I have all 4 directions of hatching covering the darkest bits.

Once I had the cross hatching complete I added some layers of watercolour to complete the piece. It's very different from my usual style but there's lots of things I like about it.

Have you tried doing things the other way from usual in your art? How did it go?

Mixed Media Portraits

Remember those backgrounds from yesterday? I made them into mixed media portraits of my parents to give to my dad for his birthday at the end of this month.

First I sketched them in pencil on each background, then, because the graphite pencil had a lot to compete with on those backgrounds, I decided to use cross hatching in ink to define the faces and bring them out.

I am new to cross hatching and, in the first portrait (of my dad), I just kind of went with it, not quite sure how to do it. It's a bit messy and I realised that I'd seen it done much neater. So I looked on YouTube and found a beginners guide to crosshatching and applied those ideas to the portrait of my mum. It looks much tidier and has a much more graphic quality. Both portraits, however, look a lot like their subject matter and my mum is definitely the neater of the two in real life too!

In a happy accident colour leaked from one side of my art journal to the other. I think it really ties the two portraits together even more.

What would you have used those backgrounds for? Have you ever drawn your parents? Would you like some instructions on how to draw this kind of image from a photograph? Let me know in the comments below.

Tomorrow I'll be practicing my cross hatching some more. I'm going to tackle something more complex... come back to see!

Some Backgrounds

I've been having fun with doodles, gesso, stencils & ink in the last couple of days. Here are a couple of backgrounds...

First, a doodle. With prismacolors because I want it to come through in later layers.

Then some gesso through a crafters workshop stencil to make a resist (I only have a photo of the green one but I did the same on the pink).

See how some of the pencil is dulled & some brighter? I really like the effect.

Finally spray on some inks. I used Dr Ph. Martin Bombay Ink because it's permanent and I don't want it coming through whatever I do next.

Tomorrow I'll show you what I did next.

Woodland Creatures - Squirrel/Fox Girl

This girl is a cross between a squirrel & a fox. When I sketched her originally I drew a big bushy tail but when it came to painting her it just didn't work with her hair & I liked the hair more.

I used Dr Ph. Martin's Bombay ink for the background (it's permanent so doesn't reactivate when you add paint. I put it in a little spray bottle) after I'd added gesso through one of the new pod series Artist's Cellar stencils. They are my new favourites and you can find them here.

The piece is OK, but I'm trying to add more depth and story so I worked on the background and the tale by imagining who this creature is and what she's doing.

And came up with this. Which I think tells a little more of a story. I can ask myself if she's asking me the question or if I'm asking her. And I can wonder what's behind the gate of that castle in the background and just exactly what is the creature girl doing here. I'm telling a story, I feel more engaged with the piece. I like that.

Meditation/Inspiration - Your Daily Bread

Visualize a loaf of bread baking in your oven. See it expanding and changing colour. Feel the warmth and smell the aromas. Imagine taking it from the oven, knocking the base with your knuckle to check it's done and setting it out to cool. Then envision eating the warm, comforting bread. Let it replenish you.

Now take a piece of bread, or a loaf, and draw it.

I sketched this hunk of bread with a 2B pencil on a journal page I'd layered and layered. The texture of the gesso and ephemera underneath added and helped with the texture of the bread. It took me about 20 minutes.

The Memory of Sketching

Yesterday I blogged about using a few techniques to help me create a piece in my studio and how, to my mind, the most important one is the memory of making a sketch. In my example I talked about sketching from life but I think this applies even when you're drawing from your imagination.

When I sketch, from life or from my imagination, I am seeing in a way that imprints detail and the uniqueness of a thing on my memory. Using my hand to reproduce what I see etches the experience on my mind and helps me remember. (My son attends a Montessori school and the teachers there use this 'muscle memory' technique to teach children the shape of letters.) As I look at that sketch I am reminded, not just of what it looks like, but of the time I spent drawing. All my senses are involved and I get to be in that moment again. And, if I can remember all those things, I can try and get them into the piece I am creating. My work will have life, will reflect my emotions & thoughts at the time, will have depth, and will be more than just a copy of photo or what's in front of me. In some ways it will be as real as the original. In some ways it will be more. That's what I'm aiming for when I'm creating and it is the memory of sketching that brings this to my work.

A Little Rabbit in a Wood

I've always enjoyed the nursery rhyme that I start with the words on this piece, not least because it has some great actions including using circles made from your forefingers & thumbs as glasses. However, when I came to teach it to my son a couple of years ago, I was surprised to find I had misremembered most of the words, including the first line!

Memory is a strange thing and often leaves me stranded, trying to recall someone's name or searching for a specific word when trying to explain myself. It is even worse when I try to draw or paint something from my mind. I need some techniques or landmarks to guide me or I end up with a simplification of the object I'm trying to capture.

One of the techniques I use when I want to draw something from life is to sketch it quickly 'in the field' and to take a photo as well to use as reference. Then when I work on the piece back in my studio I have 4 landmarks to help. The memory of the subject, the photograph, the sketch and the memory of making the sketch. It's that last one that I find most important and I'll discuss why in my next post.

Theme for July

This month's theme is woodland creatures. My favourites include deer, squirrels, tree nymphs and rabbits.

Rabbit illustration (from vintageprintables.com)

I'll be using this theme as inspiration for my art and journaling through July. I hope you will too. If you'd like to share your work with others please send an email to kooky.makes@gmail.com and I'll send you a link to our facebook group. I look forward to seeing you there.