I'm ready for my close-up ...

Following on from my experimental Mr Hare (see here), I wanted to have another go using the same media, and this time Mr Cheetah is in the spotlight!

I started with the drawing, and used a dip pen with India ink over the pencil marks. I then flooded the paper with water and dropped in some acrylic ink. I also dropped in some granualation medium, but it is quite difficult to control, so next time I'll leave it out!

When thoroughly dry, I added the detail with coloured pencils and Neocolor II crayons.

My next project is a kingfisher!

Happy September - hope it is a sunny one!

Retrospective ...

... posh word for what have I been up to this year?

I've been looking through my past posts, and thought I would do a review of 2015 of my favourite creations and other things! There are links to each original post if you want to know more.

Brushos have featured quite a lot this year, and I still love them, I like the random-ness of sprinkling and spritzing (or vice versa), but they are also very useful as straightforward watercolour paints.

This card featured in January, here.

I posted quite a bit in February, and it is difficult to chose just one, but I've gone with this little canvas (see here), as I really enjoyed combining different materials and paints ...

and I've still got a load of metal off-cuts to use up!

In March I got the Crazy Birds stamps; I don't think I've used a stamp set as much this one.

They appeared for the first time on this card ... (see the original post here).

During the year I've participated in a few online blog challenges, one being the Craft Barn Calendar Challenge, which was really fun, and I did managed to stay the course and complete the 12 months.

To see all the calendar pages go to the final post here.

This is the page for April.

May saw a complete revamp of my craft room (a long time coming!), and I am still completely in love with it; I feel happy just being there - though it is not quite so tidy as when first shown here.

I've tried my hand at a few things over the years, and June saw me don a visor and get up close and personal with some welding equipment!

I love going to art exhibitions, and try to get to the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition each year.

I did a post in July which included details of this year's visit, but also this canvas, which is still a favourite!

August saw the start of a series of art courses, and the first one was all about drawing - great fun, but very intense!

I'm now using what I learnt in my current watercolour course.

This was the final drawing.

September brought the super moon total lunar eclipse, which I thought was awe-inspiring - so I had to include one of my photos in this review!

It's October now, and I had started my second art course all about collage. This was the second exercise - to create an abstract collage. I loved using all the different textures. The full post can be found here.

There is something very pleasing about creating simple, easy Christmas cards (and useful too if you have a load to make!), and this one is from a November session I devised with the craft group I run. He is such a happy chap!

Now we are in December and I had to revisit my favourite collage, which was the final freestyle one I created on the collage course, using only magazine images.



















I discovered Haiku at the end of last year (the Japanese poetry form), and continued to write a few throughout this year. To find them just choose Haiku from the categories list. I've written another one -

Earth's midnight slumbers

Birdsong echoes of sweet hope

Trees whisper - new year

I'm going to finish by thanking all my friends, both on and off line, for making 2015 a good one, and I'll leave you with one of my crazy bird cards - nuff said!

Happy New Year - I hope 2016 brings all you may wish for.

Bee confident ...

The new art course I have just started is "Collage, watercolour and mixed media" and is only partly structured - so room to do my own thing! It is run by the same local artist - Kay Mullen -  as the drawing course I've just completed (see this post).

I love collage, so that is what attracted me to it, but it would also challenge me on the drawing and painting front too!

The first week we concentrated on making the collage background.  I'm using an A3 piece of watercolour paper, which I had to pre-stretch, but I will be moving on to half imperial size, which is 22" x 15". I have never pre-stretched watercolour paper before, but it was quite easy, though I had to use the bath as I don't have a receptacle large enough for A3 - and certainly not for half imperial!

The paper is fixed to a piece of thick MDF board with brown paper tape.

So, here is the first stage; I've used book pages, sheet music, Japanese newsprint and paper pattern tissue - oh - and a raffle ticket! And no knocking back with any kind of wash - scary!

I then did some stencilling with modelling paste which I coloured with acrylic paint.

Our second session was mainly taken up with drawing, and I chose a bee as my main focal point - done with pens and coloured pencils.  The wings are painted with clear Wink of Stella. Having done the drawing course I feel more confident about drawing, but this was another scary moment for me - drawing on top of my collage!

I finished off with a bit of foiling, and also some hexagonal pieces to give it more balance.  I've photographed it at an angle to try and catch the wing glimmer and foiling.

The Craft Barn challenge this week is about masks/stencils - good timing!

So ... Bee-lieve in yourself!

I think that is enough bee puns - unless you can leave me an appropriate comment!

2B or not 2B

I recently completed my intensive drawing course - which involved every Monday for 5 weeks.  Each day we covered a different aspect, and each day was mentally exhausting - but worth it!

I started off using just an HB pencil, but did progress to using 2B, 4B and 6B.

Each session involved quite a few exercises, but I have only shown one piece from each day, as I don't want you to get too bored!

The first thing we covered was line.  Now this course is all about using the right side of your brain, so for our second exercise we had a Picasso line drawing which we had to up size and copy, but do it upside down.  I was quite amazed at the result.  Here is my effort right side up!

Quite difficult to photograph drawings, so click on each picture to get a better look!

The second topic we covered was negative space.  Again, producing a drawing upside down, but only drawing the negative spaces.  I had no idea what it was looking like right side up, but after shading all the negative spaces I had drawn ...

Next was perspective.  I have always found this tricky, but I was starting to realise the key is only drawing what you actually see; using kebab sticks for getting the angles also really helped.

Here is one of my home work pieces, which involved drawing a corner of a room, in this case my stairs.

Session four concentrated on tone. This was one exercise we did, which was to randomly fold a length of paper, and draw it.

And this was a piece of homework - a rose.

The final session was to draw a still life group and we could choose the subject matter.  Now I don't have much in the way of ornaments or knick-knacks, so decided to raid my craft room and took along some brushes, my bee vase, pots of medium, a brayer, some tubes of paint and a rag.

This took about 5 hours.

I am quite stunned at how far I've come after just 5 days, and that is all down to my teacher. I now feel equipped to develop my painting skills further.

Happy drawing!