Art Soul Gathering {Part Two}

Hello Friends!

Here are the rest of my pieces for Art Soul Gathering.  I knew I wouldn't complete all of the lessons as some are very time consuming, two a day for a week.  After ten days, all access is removed, so I do what I can whenever these free opportunities present themselves.  In a few weeks I shall begin Tamara Laporte's renowned LifeBook 2023 taster fortnight.

This piece is in the style of Ida Andersen Lang and is called the Dream of Nimuë. It went horribly wrong from the get go, for two reasons. First I need to work on larger card stock as her head is not much bigger than my thumb so when something goes amiss there's no room to manoeuvre to put it right, and second I wasn't paying attention and picked up my aquarelles instead of waterproof pencils, so as soon as I applied water everything bled instead of staying put.   Other than that, I'm happy with it.

Freehand drawn

In the style of Dawn Vander Stoep, "Inner Wisdom" lesson.
I don't have anything remotely like the pan pastels used in this lesson, so had to do some proper improvisation, not even in the right colours, using eye shadows and cotton buds. It wasn't particularly easy to get the finer details and I ended up using some dress making pencils.
Freehand drawn

In the style of Tamara Laporte "Mother Earth" mixed media.  I loved doing this one so much, I love the outcome and it's now my social media avatar.

in the style of Marie-Laure Delage-Carlson this is Dryad – Spirit of the Forest. I don't think I'm done with it yet but it's this closest I'm going to get for the time being because I'm still learning to manage the copious amounts of water needed, which have started the disintegration of the paper so time to put the brushes down and let it go. I wanted to honour the spirit of the Redwood Forests near Ferndale CA

This one isn't following a lesson per se, but it has wording written underneath the artwork as shown in several of the lessons, but it's too heavy and showing through in places.

I'm not sure if I'm going to do any more of the lessons, partly because they don't appeal to me so much, and partly because they call for materials that I don't have, and can't come up with an appropriate substitution.

At the end of the month I'm taking part in a two week online taster course for Life Book 2023, hosted by Tamara Laporte.  It's an annual event.  I bought lifetime access to the 2019 LB course, but Mum died and I didn't get into the course, so I'm planning to work on that soon.  I think my next entry will be sharing one of those light bulb moments, but I just realised I'm well behind with ICAD sharing too!

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

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

Index Card Art Part Four

Hello Friends!

It's been a busy week between doctor appointments and dental, so I forgot to post this week's ICAD catch up yesterday, but I'm here with it now.

First up, neurographic art using Chameleon ink pens.

more neurographic art using gouache and metallic pens

A few now using mixed media in my signature ribbons by muse 

my first piece of "flow and line" 

before getting back to more Ribbons by Muse

one random one, doodling around shapes detected in letting the paint do it's own thing

Until next time

Stay safe, stay well

Debbie xo

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