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!

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.

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?

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.

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!

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!