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!
A bowl of oranges
My journey into painting continues. I have never really painted a still life. Most of my drawing and painting just falls from my pencil with no real reference to reality. So painting something so it looks like the object I am basing it on is an interesting challenge.
This week in my "Painting 1" class we were looking at red and yellow. We had to paint the still life set up by Deborah but limited in our paint choices ... red, yellow, white and black paint. No other options.
This is the first time I have painted in a studio using an easel. I must admit I did feel rather painterly!
I still need to finish my painting ... there is some shading and finishing touches needed. Homework for this week. This is the scene we based our painting on:
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.
Blue, red, yellow and brown
Over the years I have painted a few colour wheels. It is a good exercise to do every so often; to remind yourself of the colour choices and options available even with a limited set of paints.
I do have to admit that I have not often continued the exercise long enough to consider mixing brown. It is very easy just to reach for a tube of pre-mixed brown and not give it another thought. Reminding myself of the options to mix the exact colour I want was useful.
The colour mixing exercise was part of the first class of Painting 1 (a BIA class). Interestingly I have never actually taken a face-to-face painting class. I have mostly learned via online class. It was very enjoyable to be able to sit and paint with other like-minded people. People who equally appreciated the idea of blue and red and yellow makes brown.
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.
On the grid
All lined up in somewhat ordered lines ... well that's the intention for this journal page. My page is based on a lesson in Wanderlust 2017 (Week 19 - Kate Crane). The class focused on filling a grid composition with a colourful patchwork.
I really could spend some more time filling the sections on the grid with some squiggles and other decorative mark making. I have to admit, whilst usually being a big fan of zentangles, I am not in the right frame of mind to do repetitive mark making work at the moment. It could be something to do with the house being in holiday-mode; or it could just be that I have so many possible projects floating around in my mind I just can't bring myself to sit and work anymore on this one.
(My inability to commit to any one particular project is a whole other topic ... for whatever reason I am very much in the "follow the shiny ball" mindset right now).
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.
Brush strokes and gel paste
I keep an art journal. (Ok - full disclosure - I have 4 art journals on the go at any one time). I do have one of those journals set aside as a daily art journal. I learned long ago that daily creativity and journal keeping is important to me. I keep a record of the day-to-day ordinariness of my world in this journal. It is not for sharing (only because my day-to-day meanderings don't make for particularly interesting reading).
My daily art journal of choice at the moment is a Windsor and Newton A5 (approx 8"x6") visual water colour journal. I really like it. It is a soft covered book and the pages hold up well to a variety of treatments. Usually the pages are on the receiving end of leftover paint from other projects. I typically prep the page first and then progressively fill up the leftover space with my daily ramblings.
My next prepared page is a combination of random brush strokes using paint from 2 other projects and tinted gel paste pushed through a stencil. I was experimenting with how the tint might work with the gel paste. All that remains to be added is some of my words ...
Paper flowers
And now for something completely different ... for two lovely hours carved out of the end-of-term madness I was lucky to learn the basics of paper flower making from the very lovely Jo Neville of Paper Couture fame. Jo was an excellent instructor and we finished the class with 3 handmade paper flowers.
Just quietly, I think I may need just a tiny bit more practice before I gain any skills in this craft. :-)
It did inspire me to find out more about paper flower making. There are some truly beautiful and inspirational bouquets made just from paper. I love it.
In the midst of madness, I printed a leaf
As we hurtle towards the ends of the school semester (and what is always the end of the busiest term of the school year), it was so lovely to step outside the madness for a few hours and just enjoy making art.
I wasn't produced finished pieces and I wasn't working with a particular idea or outcome in mind. I was purely enjoying the process of experimenting and creating. I was screen printing; using a mask and also experimenting with photo emulsion. Yesterday, the immediacy of printing using masks and stencils was more inspiring that taking time to set up photo emulsion screens and images but I suspect that was just because I was happy to just experiment and enjoy the process of printing.