A tiny house in a tiny village
It is no secret that we love Halloween in this house! Traditionally, I make a series of 31 tags to celebrate each day leading up to Halloween. This year, I am not entirely convinced that I will have time to make tags for each day.
Instead, I think I will spend some time building a tiny little Halloween village. Inspired by Tim Holtz and his village series of dies, my plan is to create a totally spooky scene. Hmmm, at least that is my plan. This little house is my first attempt at the grand building project.
Let the building adventure begin!
An anodised green apple
My painting class continues. This week it was blue and green week. Well, to be technically correct, it was yellow, blue, black and white week at my painting class.
We were challenged once again to paint the still life using a limited colour palette. I enjoyed the challenge. Interestingly, I found the oranges easier to mix. Turquoise proved to be a challenging colour (for me) to mix. Deborah decided in her wisdom to give us an anodised green apple to be the focal point of our still life. Actually, I am enjoying being pushed outside of my comfort zone. I would NEVER have attempted to paint an image of an anodised green apple. Equally I would NEVER painted an image of an anodised green apple on an A2 sized page.
I am being challenged ... and I love it.
Here is the still life composition we were working from (you'll note the yellow bowl disappeared from my painting ... don't you just love creative licence!) :-)
Pen, pencil, paper and meditation
I love colour, I love paint and I love combining them in some way. Sometimes, though, I just don't have the space available to be able to getting a canvas, me and the surrounding area covered in paint. On those days I turn to a pen and paper and I create patterns.
Zentangle is the name of the art style. Intended to be meditative as much as creative, I find the process truly relaxing. It is a wonderful way to intentionally slow down and focus on mark making.
I guess I could add colour but to me there is something cool about just using a black pen and the white of the paper. The designs can be complex; they can be simple. One more way to weave creativity into my world!
Daily art journal
And that is another art journal completed. This is my daily art journal - nothing complex just a way of recording the every day happenings and a prompt to make sure I keep my paints, my pencils or my ink out and ready to be used.
It is a habit inspired by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer. Thank you Julie!
It is not a perfect journal. The art is not perfect. The words are not searchingly deep. It is the everyday. It is my world captured. I love it.
Inspired by Mindy Lacefield
The fantastic Mindy Lacefield was the instructor for Week 15 of Wanderlust 2017. Mindy makes her art look effortless. I love it. As you would expect, the style is not effortless.
Inspired by Mindy's class I painted my girl with an umbrella. She is a work in progress. For the moment, I have set her to the side; while I work on some other journal pages. I'm a little frustrated with her and I needed some distance before I decide on how to continue. Still, it is a pleasant frustration. A part of my brain thinks about the painting while I go about my ordinary everyday. I love that about painting ... time to mull and ponder.
Courage to continue
"Courage to continue" is the name of the lesson taught by Dyan Reaveley for Week 18 of Wanderlust 2017. I enjoyed Dyan's class. It was fun to layer colours and use a leaf stencil from my Printmaking class as a part of the process.
I really love using blue, yellow and green; they are my happy colours. Perhaps I just feel that way because the school term is done and we have the time to regroup and be calm and happy.
A simple creation but an enjoyable one to make.
A square, a rectangle and two triangles
It is the end of term. I think we have reached capacity. I'm not sure that I could have handled much more by way of sport, exams, stressed children and just general chaos. So what to do? Enjoy my weekly dose of mental health (my art class) and screen print very simple images. A square, a rectangle and two triangles.
Actually I rather like the simplicity. I like the interplay with the basic colours. I like the tension caused by the triangles. I like that it represents my need to bring it all down to basics. No complexity. Nothing confronting. When all is said and done, art for me imitates and reflects my view on the world ... or how I would like to see the world. This week I sought calm in amidst the chaos.
:-)
Hmmm, I wonder ...
Last week I finally had a chance to print some of my linocuts. I first worked on my flowers and swirls lino back in April so it was nice to get a chance to print it.
I printed in black ink because I rather like the graphic look of a black print on white paper ... and that worked for some of my prints but not all. I'm thinking this flower and swirl print would look better in a bright colour. Hmmm, but as I give it some further thought I'm wondering whether this would be a good design to print in two colours ... perhaps as a reduction print with oranges and greens? I might go back and work a bit more on this. Aaah, such a lovely dilemma! Black, white, blue, green, orange ... the big decisions really.
Eye lines
A black pen and a piece of paper ... no yoga for me. I find drawing and doodling and mark-making meditative. I know other people use yoga or sport or music as their centre, but for me, pen and paper please.
This was drawn on a small Artist Trading Card sized piece of paper - 6.5 x 9 cm. A perfect size to use for just a short amount of reflective time. Short but effective.
Something about Alice
We are continuing to learn printmaking techniques at my Brisbane Institute of Art class. All of the public holidays have meant we have been slow to get started this term. (Still nice to have the public holidays for family time). We have made a start on creating masks for screen printing for the next part of the class. I am a bit of a perfectionist. I know, it is nice for handmade to look handmade and not mass-produced but I think I need some practice in using a craft knife ...
I decided to make masks using lock and key designs - something very Alice in Wonderland like and there is something about Alice that lends itself to a bit of creativity and madness. Well at least I think so. Hmmm, maybe I could make a few more masks with rabbits and cups of tea ...
Hopefully we will start to print with these masks on Monday. I need to see how everything fits together before I can really understand the technique and then begin to experiment with it.