Artful August And That's A Wrap

Hello friends!

Well, this ties up Artful August with the final three pieces of art for the month long challenge.  There's a few extras as well that I'd already done, and I might just as well show them to you as leave them in the box.

Day 29. Prompt Drips. Totally outside of my comfort zone with this one, so I just painted a quick background. I made some very watery paint mix and just let it drip down from the top of the paper all the way down, making drippy marks. I added some gouache paints into white acrylic and did the same process as previously to make some flowers just to go on top of it. Although it's not meant to, I think it's got a very sort of underwater tropical feel to it.

Day 30. Prompt was Book.  Initially I was at a bit of a loose end with this one. But then I decided to draw stack of books. Drew on some favourite titles and this is the result.

Day 31 Prompt was Vintage.  Maybe I've interpreted this more in the vintage colour scheme rather than something that looks particularly vintage. I like all the frames in the different colours and I think it would make a useful background for a journal page or for a scrapbook where you could put your own photos or images into the frames.  Someone misread "vintage" as "village" and thought it looked like abstract windows.  I can just see a curtain or two twitching, can you?

Now the extra ones I did just for the fun of it!

You must be wondering what happens to all the leftover paint at the end of the day? Well here's a couple of examples, what I usually do is end up painting onto some blank cards creating backgrounds that will be used in something in the future. Waste not want not!

and finally, "The Stack" of 31+ cards {it's a tradition to show them all in one at the finish}

I'm not sure what's next on the agenda but there are more online art challenges coming up so no doubt I'll be taking part in some of those. September 6 through September 16th there's a short challenge for drawing “inchies and twinchies” miniature works on pieces of paper no larger than two inches square. It should be quite challenging to go onto such a small scale, but I think I'll give it a go because it's something you can do quite quickly, and it's all good practice.

At some point in the future, I'm hoping to be getting back into sharing things in the garden but it's all in a state of flux out there at the moment as some of you know. 

Don't forget to let me know which one is your favourite will you?

Until next time

Stay safe, stay well

Debbie

Artful August Part 4

Hello Friends!

Here's this week's round up of  Artful August.  Only one more week of this challenge left now.  

Day 22 prompt is Watercolour. Copied from one of my own original photos {below} I really bodged the background by rushing. Otherwise, I'm very happy with it, considering I have no formal training in art. Fully self-taught.

Day 23 prompt Shape.  I have a fondness for hearts, so my shape was that.  I really feel this is a piece of two halves that don't click. tbh. drawing then shading in the tiled one gave me very bad hand cramps, so I ran out of effort for the galactic style one. I think each has merit, but not together. Heigh ho!

For one, brief, shining moment one of my pieces made it into the top 9 works on the 2,800 strong pieces under the hashtag #rachelgreigartfulaugustchallenge on Instagram!  Am I chuffed?  Am I ever!  So I had to do a screen capture.  There I am, bottom left!  Whoo Hoo!

Day 24 prompt Type. After books, the most important type for me is that which gives instructions for sewing and crafting patterns of all kinds. The colours are from a very favourite early 70's piece of fabric, the memory of which I still hold dear.

Day 25 prompt is Paste. As I can't find mine I improvised using heavy body paint instead. Mixed media.

Day 26 Prompt is Botanical

Abstract interpretation using Brusho ink and paint pens details.Each dot individually applied using a cotton bud

Day 27  prompt Travel. I love paper maps and this is the thought behind this abstract Flow and Line mixed media

Day 28.  Prompt Resist.

Instead of wax resist, I created a resist using acrylic paint which formed the basis of the flowers in this piece, with mark making using one of my wide flat brush is loaded with acrylic paints and pressing it down to make the shape.  Second photo shows detail.

So friends, that rounds up the third week of Artful August.   Next week it'll be just a half week 28 through 31st.

Don't forget to let me know your favourite.

Until next time.

Stay safe, stay well.

Debbie

Artful August Part 3

Hello Friends!

Here's my weekly round up of  pieces I made for Rachel Greig's Artful August Art Challenge.  Gosh, there's only ten more days to go!  Where does the time fly when making art?

Day 15 the prompt was Ink

I did an A5 cardstock simply using all different kinds of ink, from stamping pads, to acrylic, to pens and more.  Just think ink!  Neurographica and Zentangle

Day 16 prompt was Splatter

Cheap black paper with Inktense, Shimmer paint, Acrylic splatter

I was so dog tired doing this, just cobbled together, took longer to dry than make.  Nearly didn't use it, then suddenly I realised I've achieved that look of galactic space that's been eluding me for many months!   Up it popped when least expected!

So I did another one to experiment with as I love what I've discovered here.

Day 17 Prompt "Quote"  

I kept it literal.  If you've ever read any of {the remarkable} books by Gladys Taber then you'll know her beautifully written prose continually throws out short passages that make the most quotable of quotes, several on every page.  I love her Stillmeadow books dearly.

Day 18 prompt is Fold.

If you've ever tried to stuff a courgette flower you'll know all about tightly folded flowers!  Inktense

Day 19 prompt is Abstract.

I chose Inktense with colour matched micron pen to outline.  However, yellow didn't do so good on its own so I switched to black to outline the yellow swirls, but it's just too heavy and unbalances everything.  Also, the black pen bled which resulted in me blending it out, leading to shading in all the white card, which was much more than I'd planned to do.

Day 20 prompt was Paste but I can't find my paste so did another little abstract doodle with mixed media.

Day 21 I've jumped ahead a few days on the prompt to Tissue with a mixed media piece using a tissue paper serviette as a base.

Hope you like them!  As always, I'd love to know your 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

Artful August Part One

Hello Friends!

Thank you to everyone who left such generous comments, so kindly welcoming me back.

After ICAD finished, I decided to work on another online art challenge, Rachel Greig's Artful August.  A month of 31 daily prompts using any mediums or substrates of your choice.  Unless otherwise stated, I'm using A5 student grade watercolour card.

I'll continue to share my ICADs separately from Artful August, so you'll know to look out for a midweek ICAD post and a weekend Artful August post from me for a few weeks until I'm caught up.

Day 1 Garden.  I reworked an earlier piece that I made in memory of a friend who had an underwater garden in Bermuda. She used to tell me of it's beauty, and how she would snorkel around to tend to it.  Mixed media paints and inks.

Day 2 Shimmer.  I used a set of new shimmer paint pans to emulate moonshine on the land and sea.  Aren't they yummy?

I made a short video to try and best show the shimmer paint effect.

I was very happy with how the moon turned out.

Day 3 Numbers  I was struggling with this and ended up being rather obvious.  I must add, though, that I did Not use a stencil for this, rather I bound two nicely sharpened pencils together to mimic italic script.

Day 4  Soft.  A mixed media collage on a Brusho background, using inks, tissue paper, silk paper, bubble wrap and more.  I'm very happy with this as it's not something I do often and it took me well out of my comfort zone.

Day 5 was Envelope, but I have set that aside for another day, so jumped ahead and picked Botanical from the list instead.  Another Brusho background {I do love Brushos} and then I looked for shapes within, outlined with Micron pen, and detailed using paint pens.

Day 6 "Linear"  A bit busy today so falling back on one I made earlier.  Once a Blue Peter Girl, always a Blue Peter Girl! 😁  A5 watercolour card with alcohol ink pens.  Nice and bright to wake me up.  Neurographic art.

Day 7 "Bright".  Well, I could have used that last one as it's very bright!  Sunflowers are my favourite. Freestyle drawn from memory, not observed. Brusho, Inktense, Sakura paint, Derwent Graphitint, and graphite pencil 

I've called this "Sunflowers Don't Just Come in Yellow"

I have promised myself to do sunflower sketches and paintings from direct observation.

Do you have a favourite one?  I'd love to know, and why!

Until next time

Stay Safe, Stay Well

Debbie