Category Archives: art

Happy New Year 2024

That is another year gone.  Where did all that time go?  I am so good at procrastination and wasting time that I have become quite an expert.  This isn’t what I wanted become an expert in so I will have to change that and utilize my time more efficiently in future. I am not going to answer my phone (text/emails etc) while I am doing craft-work, and I am  going to set boundaries to make sure I am not interrupted.  I often feel that the universe is out to thwart my attempts at getting some craft time: the numerous bleep alarms for taking meds/eye drops,  tea times and pee times.  As soon as my hands get hold of a pen or paintbrush somebody comes to the door.  I just set up my craft table to do some macro photography only to find my husband has put his  washing on.  Great you might think – he has put his own washing on, however,  the washing machine is just in the other room and the vibrations mean that, despite using a tripod, I can’t get my subject in focus.  Ok enough with the excuses!!  Here is a wee doodle I did to make a greetings card.

abstract doodle
Abstract doodle

Happy New Year!

Finished painting with more layers, drips, shading and blending

Abstract a la Michael Lang

I love Michael Lang’s large abstract paintings and decided to have a go following one of his you tube videos and I enjoyed learning his blending techniques although I didn’t exactly master it.  I found it difficult to keep my circles round and my straight lines straight but it looks ok from a distance.  I also couldn’t get the drippy technique – partly due to the buckle of the paper (he used a flat board) and I just couldn’t quite get the right consistency.  I used mainly acryics and acrylic medium, but also pens and finished with gel pastels to brighten a few areas.  The camera didn’t pick up the aqua colours and made them look a bit blue.

Here are a few photos of some of my layers:

the 1st layer of the abstract - mainly blacks and browns, circles and lines.
1st layer abstract
2nd layer abstract adding colour and shading.
2nd layer abstract
More layers abstract adding more circles and lines and blending.
More layers abstract
Finished painting with more layers, drips, shading and blending
The finished painting.

Well I think I am finished the painting.  It will probably sit in my folder and I will pull it out every now and then to see if I  want to add anything else to it.

Doodle rectangles with Ecoline liquid watercolour.

You know that feeling when you are anxious and overthinking and you just want your brain to stop.  Mindfulness and breathing are useful tools, but then doodling can be pretty good too, at allowing yourself to be in the present moment.  This is what I was doing yesterday after watching linaforrester on instagram.  I loved the colours she used (bright green and yellow) but I wanted to try my own colour combo.  I have a few Ecoline liquid watercolours that I haven’t touched in years so I made up an orange and a purple and gave it a go.  Sadly my ‘Delicate surface Frogtape – low tack painter’s masking tape’ ripped my paper in a couple of areas when I was very carefully peeling it back.  It may be that the paper pad I was using was too old (the cover had come off so don’t know what it was) or that I was leaning on it too hard while doodling. Hey – ho these things happen.  It was fun to do.

small rectangles with doodles and watercolour
Doodle rectangles

 

Tangled art journal pages.

It has been a while since I last did anything in the way of art so just to get my little grey cells thinking creatively again I got out an old art journal, that I hadn’t filled, and randomly put down some colour for the background across 2 pages.  Next, I doodled about with some black lines and filled some areas in.  It was way too black so I brightened it up with white dots and just had a play.  It isn’t quite zentangle but it was fun to do and a good way to get me back into doing some art.

2 art journal pages with black lines, black filled in circles and white dots, on a background of magenta and turquoise toned down with white wash
Tangle journal pages

Neurographic art

The last few months I have been concentrating on the garden and keeping it alive during the hot weather.  Lately we have been having the conservatory fixed so all the plants that lived there had to be kept on every available table in the house so I didn’t have access to any table.  I finally got my table back and had a go at some neurographic art.  There are quite a few you tube videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtKSOUV7U8U   that show you how to do it and although there is an actual therapeutic method,  I just did it for fun.

watercolour and pen painting with interlacing circles and rounded joinsThis is the painting,  and I took a photo of it and shrunk it to make a greetings card with a black border.  The card is white but as my scanner wasn’t working I had to use my phone camera to photograph it and the card wouldn’t sit flat so I just cropped the white of the card out.

Kingfisher mixed media painting.

Ali Hargreaves gave another fab demo  on Artist Demo Days on facebook, this time  a watercolour  (or mixed media) of a rather bedraggled kingfisher.  I had a go and made a small painting and it was fun to do.  I still haven’t found a way of getting the turquoise colour to be true on the photo.  I used some shimmering blue acrylic ink and some pearl Pearlex for some of the white flashes on a few feathers.  In other  places I have used white acrylic ink and pulled the ink out to makes the ruffled feathers.  You can also find her demo here.

mixed media kingfisher

Hellebores watercolour painting

I had a go at Ali Board’s watercolour of some lovely hellebores from her book (A beginner’s guide to Watercolour with Mixed media) .  I have many of these in my garden but they aren’t looking there best right now and, although I do have a few of my own photographs of my hellebores, they don’t look as nice as the ones in her book.

I quite like how it turned out but  I still need to get looser with the paint.  And the phone camera never picks up the subtle shading so it looks a bit bloby and patchy.

hellebores watercolour painting

Tompot Blenny Fish using coloured pencils.

I was reading a science magazine one day and found a fabulous photograph of a Tompot Blenny fish which looked so colourful and full of character that I wanted to have a go at painting it.  With kind permission of Alexander Mustard (the photographer) I had a go.  I did a rather scruffy, coloured pencil painting/sketch in my sketchbook.   I did not do the photograph justice, so one day I will do a better painting but perhaps with water colour, acrylics or mixed media. It needs some really bright colours.   As usual, some of the blended colours did not show up on the photograph below, especially the turquoise in the background.  It was fun to do but I am not happy with the result, it is too scratchy looking and not bright enough.  Must do better.

 

 

Abstract self portrait.

Over on Artist Demo Days on facebook, Ali Hargreaves did a few demos on cubism (it is also on you tube here .   Now, although I don’t like cubism, I thought I would give the self portrait a go as Ali’s finished painting was really good. Cubism uses geometric shapes and lots of straight lines and for someone like me, who likes soft and fluffy, this was difficult.  My hair had grown a lot during the last lockdown and was quite wavy so I used crescent shapes to depict the waves and so that meant it didn’t look too harsh and jaggy.  I used  my Bockingford NOT block 300g as I was going to be using watercolour but I should possibly have used a smoother paper to get smoother outlines.  I ended up using a mixture of watercolour, Marvy le Plume pens, Copic pens, Stabilo pens,  Posca  pens, inktense pencils, gold and silver Pilot pens.  In a few places I added a little sparkle using a gel glitter pen and the outline is in black Faber Castell Pitt pen.  The pale colours in some Copic pens don’t show up well in the photograph, and the dark English red Marvy le Plume looks almost black in places..

You start by jotting down a few things you like and try to incorporate them into your painting.  You don’t have to use them all.

list of happy things

 

You begin with a soft pencil sketch then go over the outline with a permanent pen.

abstract self portrait outline

 

One you have your outline, it is just a matter of colouring in and adding some patterns – great fun.

abstract self portrait

My abstract self portrait is almost zentangle and not really cubism in my opinion.  At the end I added a bit of sparkle and a few gold and silver highlights but they don’t show up on the photo.  The whole process was a lot of fun.

My husband really likes this painting and wants it framed and hung on our wall.  Even though I really like it, I can see all the wee mistakes that I made.  Also I have painted right up to the edges and a mount will cover the detail at the edges.  So my dilemma is: do I start it again using smoother paper and leave a border for a mount, or,  just go ahead and get it framed?  I am quite a lazy artist and don’t like the thought of doing it all again, but I don’t really want to hang something with mistakes in it.  Anyhooo, there is no rush to make the decision as we are in another lockdown, and as we are shielding we aren’t going anywhere.