Two Goddesses of the Moon and Spring

Hello friends!

I'm excited to start out by telling you that everything in this blog is my own original artwork and not done or guided by any online lessons.

I promised one of my friends that I would share my process with photos. So here is the latest piece as yet untitled. I had my 4th Covid booster inoculation on Thursday and due to a serious underlying medical condition, I was advised to rest for Friday on Saturday even if I didn't feel poorly or have a reaction, which thankfully I haven't. So, I had to find something to do and decided that Friday I would paint another fantasy portrait.  I will be resting again today as it is Saturday and I'm still following doctor's orders. So quite possibly I will do another painting.  Or maybe bake a cake. That's not exactly strenuous, is it? Mind, I do need bread. Oh dear, this could get complicated.

As yet she's untitled, she is painted on and A4 journal 90lbs paper {which really should have been a lot heavier, see below***} and is in mixed media using Neocolours II, Sakura koi watercolours, gouache, shimmer paints, and Derwent waterproof pencils.

First I made an edge to the paper using low tack sellotape. You can see this more clearly on the second photo, where it is resisting the dark blue paint. Then I set in my image and used a compass to draw the circle which would later become the moon. Because I try and work intuitively at this point I hadn't finalised the design in my mind and was uncertain whether this was going to be the moon or a halo.

When I was in school, I was taught to paint the background layers first and work forward so that the top layer of paint is what is closest to you in your subject.  so I started with the background which I knew I wanted to be a night sky and I painted this in Neocolour II water soluble crayons.

Next I painted the eyes and lips using gouache. Normally I don't do the features until later but I'm finding that I'm losing the definition by leaving them until later, so this was an experiment painting them in early to see if I could help maintain definition.  We'll know soon if it worked or not.

She certainly looks fierce now, doesn't she?  I begin to question whether or not this this was the right thing to do. Have I ruined the painting at this very early stage? Only one way to find out. Onwards and upwards!

Next I started adding flesh tone in gouache.  Suddenly, her eyes seem a little less fierce.

I always build the colours up in thin layers so a couple more layers of flesh coloured paints and some more colour added to the eyes and lips and she's starting to look much better. That fierce look has now been muted and knocked back.

Sadly, I do feel I have lost some of the. Definition around the eyes, nose, and lips. They are not my strong point, and I must practise more.

 At this point I have to decide is that circle behind her going to be a silver moon or a golden halo.  So, working intuitively I roughly block in the colours for her hair and her dress.  I can tell immediately that gold is not going to work so silver it is and we have a moon in silver shimmer paint.

The final outcome, with which I am happy.  However, I may add some spatters of white paint on the dark areas of the sky.  Hopefully they will add a an extra. air of magic to the painting.

Here is another one I did last week, it's in the same journal {as the one above, and is also mixed media. I wanted to have a little play with my gouache and inktense paints just see how they interact and basically just to get a better feel for how to use them, so that is the mixed media for this one.  she started out life as a doodle I'm just kind of grew from there, organically and intuitively.  I didn't want to draw hands. It's not something I've done yet, and I didn't want to ruin the piece with ugly, badly drawn hands as it was developing well. Consequently, she's holding a bouquet of flowers!

Is something extremely wistful and maybe melancholy in her expression. I feel she has a story to tell, don't you?

A couple of people have asked me what is mixed media. Basically, it's anything where you use more than one type of medium. So for example if I paint a picture using my koi Sakura watercolours that is a single medium work. However if I introduced even just one more elements of medium, for example watercolour pencils, then it becomes mixed media because I have used more than one medium. Some mixed media projects are quite elaborate because people use all sorts of things in their work, not just flat work which is what I tend to do.  I hope the people who asked are reading this and I hope I've made sense.

*** I know I should be using better quality paper than 90lbs, mainly because of the amount of water that is used and the absorbency of the paper, but after all I am just learning and starting out on this painting journey and it's easier on the wallet to make mistakes on cheaper paper than it is on the 140lbs, or 300gsm weight paper that I should be using.

Until next time
Stay safe stay well
Debbie xoxo

Art Soul Gathering {part one}

Hello Friends!

***Important Announcement***

I am no longer allowed to say I cannot draw.

I'm now doing a short online course, rather than a challenge, hosted by the very talented artist Ida Andersen Lang {link below}. It's only 10 days long with two art lessons a day for six days presented by a variety of artists. I won't be able to do all the lessons but here are the first three that I've completed.

Warm up Lesson by Ida Andersen Lang  "Kindred Spirits ~ Horse"

background drawing freehand, coloured using Caran D'Ache and Royal Amsterdam watercolour pencils with Posca pen detail.

Lesson 1

My goodness!  This was the most amazing lesson from renowned Squamish artist Melanie Rivers. I've never done a portrait before and I haven't painted with acrylics for a very long time so to have to remember that they dry out and work quickly on top of drawing a face has really pushed me this evening. I had to improvise a little bit as I had to add gouache to my acrylics to try and get some of the right colours but I'm very pleased with my final outcome

Lesson 2

Eulalia Mejia, aka  Happy Chinchilla {don't you just love that name?}, was the host for this lesson "Finding Your Inner Garden" which I found very relaxing and fun to do. It's not something I would normally do, but it's really good to think outside of what you're used to doing and it becomes part of an holistic learning process.

rubbish colour reproduction in this photo!!!

I think it's fair to say that I'm finding this challenging in different ways. Firstly, it's exposing me to a wide variety of techniques and mediums which will expand my repertoire. Some of these techniques are quite challenging and the work is less than perfect simply because you need to practice for a long time, many maybe years in order to master them. Secondly, I'm finding it challenging mentally because it's making me do things with art that I haven't even thought about trying before, and some of them also make you look inside yourself and explore where your art is coming from.  So, in its own way it can be quite stressful but in a good way because you come through the other side having learned something about yourself and about your art that you can apply to your practice.  It's very different practice altogether from the last three months when I've responded to prompts and do my own thing.

In a couple of days, another short challenge begins, so I will be busy!

Until next time

Stay safe, stay well

Debbie

Index Card Art Part 3

Hello Friends!

Here's my midweek ICAD catch up.  I think these constitute my least exciting or inspiring group of cards.  There are two or three half way decent, but I hit a dry patch on inspiration.  It happens.

This one was made for the Summer Solstice with swooping swallow in a blue summer sky with a hint of ripening corn.

ink background with ink lifted using a surgical spirit soaked cotton pad

I used the aforementioned pad to make a 3d moon

A similar removal process enhanced with doodling.  Very underwater feeling!

Doodling and bubble wrap printing

ink removed using surgical spirit on a cotton bud, doodling

I call this one Bubbles in Chains

Mixed media

Drawing 3d bubbles

    

I hope you'll say if you have a favourite one!

Until next time

Stay safe, Stay well

Debbie xo

Artful August Part Two {the good, the bad, and the downright ugly}

 Hello Friends!

Thank you for all your lovely words of encouragement last week.

Here is what I did for the second week of Artful August.

Day 8, prompt was Circle.  This started out with a plan which quickly went wrong before plummeting into the abyss of What Was I Thinking.  Still in the interests of honesty I'm sharing it, ugly art though it be.

So, to save face, I made this one.  I've always wanted to give this a go and I really enjoyed the process so will do more in the future.

Day 9 Prompt was Box.

Lots of little squares and rectangles, deconstructed boxes; mixed media.  Not in the zone with this and not sure if it's finished either.  At least I'm happy with the colours.

Day 10 and jumping ahead to the prompt Metal. Spectrum Noir metallic pencils on some horribly cheap black paper.  Metallic media always work better on black substrate.

This just sort of happened, popped up on it's own doing, a doodle page testing, or sampling, gel pens on black paper

back on track

Day 11 prompt was Foliage.  Alcohol pens, gel pens, Posca pens

Day 12 Paint.  Inspired by the online art course "Flow and Line" by Robin Sturis, on which I was lucky enough to win a seat.  Quite a departure from my usual!

Day 13 I skipped ahead to the prompt Shape, quite by accident, so will add today's prompt of Building to my list of skipped prompts to do later.  Just random squares and rectangles using a set of Derwent Graphitint paint pans.  I love the muted tones of this particular set of paints and this turned into a sort of sampler piece for the paint.

Day 14 Shape {take 2} I was curious after the previous painting to see what happens with a different shape and medium. While it has it's own merits, imo it isn't nearly as successful as the previous one.

Inktense, micron pen, gel pen

Don't forget to pop back mid week for ICAD updates!

Which is your favourite? And why?

Until next time

Stay safe, Stay well

Debbie xoxo

Index Card Art Part 2

Hello Friends!

Well, I almost forgot that I promised to do a midweek post to share the ICAD art from this year, so here it is.  I hope you'll pop back on Sunday to look at the pieces I've done for Artful August too!  Art is so therapeutic, as well as fun. 

This is another Neurographic piece, the reverse side is always interesting when alcohol ink is used.  In fact, all the cards I'm sharing today are Neurographic or variations on that theme.

The "right" side

Alcohol ink and micron pens

 

close up of above with light shining through looks like stained glass

water colour pencils, Staedtler fine liners and a water spray bottle

Acrylic inks

monochrome using grey mixed media

Gouache {gives very flat colour not easy to blend or shade} and Posca pens

Alcohol ink, Acrylic, and erasing areas using Surgical Spirit on a cotton bud

Variation of above

Well, my friends, I hope you like them.  Do you have a favourite?  I'd love to know, and why you like it.

Until next time
Stay safe, stay well

Debbie xo

Surprise!

Hello Friends!

Long time no see, but I'm going to give blogging a go again.  Little bit of housekeeping first of all.

1.  I apologise to anyone who has legitimately wanted to comment, but day after endless day I spent far too much time deleting spam.  I know many of you will understand, but it undermined my taking a break.

2.  I had to fiddle with Blogger, didn't I?  In doing so, I may have inadvertently unfollowed rather a lot of you, so if you read this, please leave a short "hello" to help me reconnect.

3.  Update on me.  As some of you who kindly kept in touch know, it's been a long, rough winter as I suffered many weeks of side effects to my medications.  Thankfully, I was over the worst by early February, but I still suffer from extreme tiredness.  Naturally, that is impacting severely on my day to day life.  I find myself experiencing sudden onset of going to sleep.  I sit down for a cup of tea and next thing I'm waking up two hours later.  This is not funny, it is very inconvenient and often I wake up in the arm chair after midnight, shivering with cold.

Onwards!

With low energy I haven't been going out very often.  Also, I have no walking buddy and so until this is resolved my witterings won't include much in the way of new photographs. 

This year, I did take part in the annual ICAD Daisy Yellow art challenge and was honoured to be invited to join a small, online group of sixty members taking part.  It's been my happiest, most productive ICAD experience ever!  It took me a week to find my stride, but then one of the other creative spirits introduced us to Neurographic Art practice and I flew with it!  

Here are my first week of cards, while I was following prompts

ASTERISK

PEONY

LABYRINTH

KEY {KEYSTONE}

FLAMINGO or PINK

DAYDREAM {Wales qualify for the FIFA World Cup}

ROOT

Then, I was introduced to Neurographic Art and took off running.  If you would like to find out more, there's plenty of information and examples on line, but here's my first week of exploring this new to me concept, it's the second week of ICAD.

My very first go

This was done using my non dominant hand, which also has the worst tremors.  You can see the difference, with more jagged edges and less smoothness.  There are some interesting shapes developing to which I can attribute personal meaning.  Consequently I decided not to colour it in, as not everything in my life is black and white now.  I can't go into more detail as it's too raw and personal.

Do you like them?  Do you have a favourite one?  It's no secret that I had the most fun ever this year, and it's the first year I actually completed on time!  I'm now doing another online art challenge, set by Rachel Greig, but more about that another time.  Oh, and I won a seat on Robin Sturis's "Flow and Line" art course too!

One of the last walks I managed to accomplish was a carefully paced stroll around the Cathedral at Easter.  I hadn't been there in two years due to both the pandemic restrictions and being poorly.  However, I wanted to see the Lilies of Remembrance which used to be at Christmas.  The list of names I submit is growing longer each passing year. 

I hope I haven't detained you, and that you've enjoyed my pictures.  I'll share more of ICAD next time!  

Until then, I hope everyone is doing well and life is being as kind to you as it can be in these strange days of continuing Covid, rising prices, and global climate issues.

Debbie xoxo