Tulips and Lunch

Yesterday I got to do alot of work in the afternoon. I started playing with some of the tulip images I had taken last week. And playing with media I haven't played with in a while.

This first drawing is with coloured pencil in my sketch book. I'm happy with the way it turned out because it's been over 20 years since I've used coloured pencil this way.
Independent Tulip #1 (5x9 coloured pencil drawing)

This second image is the same tulip but done in mixed media. I have watercolour crayons that I haven't had a chance to fool around with much and wanted to play with them today. This went through several stages. I painted the tulip first and then worked on the background. I wish I had masked the tulip and done it in reverse but oh well. The tulip originally was quite nice but I used too much water on the background and the tulip ran because there was alot of pigment and I wasn't patient enough to let it dry well enough. I had a much lighter background at first but again with the running pigment I decided to go dark instead. I added in some coloured pencil and some ink as well. Not too bad I guess.

Independent Tulip #2 (5x9 mixed media)

The third image is a line drawing I did of the group of tulipe I want to work with and my intention is to use this a the basis for some other things. Perhaps some block printing and maybe some painting. We'll see. This I am happy with because I think there is some perspective in it.

This last drawing is also from my sketchbook and it got too large (well I started too large) and had to glue in another set of pages behind the initial sketch in order to finishe it. I'm happy with it and took some reference photos of it so that if I want to work in colour later on then I can.

I have to say that I really like that little coffe cup. I like the whole thing but that little cup just makes me smile because it was soooo quick and simple. Well that's all for now. Enough tulips for tonight. Gotta get to bed so I can get up and make lunch tomorrow (well this) morning.

Bandit Sleeping (2.5 x 3 inches) Ballpoint pen on sticky note

I did this picture last night when I was sitting on the couch and watching TV. My cat is pretty cuddly at night time and he snuggled down with me and I thought I should sketch him. But as soon as you move to get something a cat is up and going and won't settle back down for awhile so I decided t be a bit sneaky and just use whatever I had at hand. Which was a blue ballpoint pen and a pad of sticky notes from Meyers. I'm actually pretty happy with this sketch because it captures him at that moment.

These guys below are my second set of Easter goodies I made. They are from an accucut die and I really just assembled them and added some colour and ribbons and candy but they are cute and everyone seems to like them. Marchant Paper Products in Kingston has a die cutting machine that uses accucut dies and if you buy the paper there you can use any of the dies for free. I however was lazy and just bought them pre-cut but I'm not going to beat myself up about that.

Happy Easter!!!!

Talking Turkeys and Tulips Etc

Late last week I was on my way to Ottawa and looked into a field to my right to see a cat stalking through the old corn stalks and wondered what he was trying to catch. About half way down the field I saw these guys....

I'm pretty sure the tomcat was not going to be able to bring one of these wild toms down for breakfast but he was sure concentrating on them. I've seen this group of wild turkeys in that field a few time but this was the first time I'd ever been able to get a picture of them. Never got a picture of the cat though. Too bad!

When I stopped to take the photos this guy walked across the road right in front of me...He's a bit blurry because I was sooooo shocked to see him there and that he stayed close enough for long evough for me to even focus. Normally when you stop the truck these guys are GONE!!! Very shy from being shot at I guess and smart enough to say so long.

Today I made two sets of Mini Milk Cartons for gifts. I got the idea from Inking Idaho (http://www.inkingidaho.blogspot.com/) and if you want the instructions you can purchase them from Becky there. Great value and very clear with diagrams and colour photos.

Yesterday I bought myself some lovely orange tulips and took some photos of them today in the half light from the front window. Nice a cloudy and supposed to be ideal right??? Well I'm particularly happy with this one and hope to do something more with it eventually but for now I'm just gonna toss it out here.
It's nice to have something lovely smelly and pretty and sunshiny to look at after two days of spring snowfall here. These tulips remind me that spring is almost here.

Watercolour Over Gesso Sketches

Both of these sketches are done in my sketchbook in Peerless Watercolour over gesso as an experiment of sorts last week at the urging of my friend Glenda. It was a way to get me painting without having watercolour paper in the house. It was neat to try and I will definitely do it again but it was hard to get as much contrast as I wanted to have, especially in the asparagus painting. I'm not sure if it was the watercolour medium or if it was the gesso. Doesn't really matter though because they were fun to do and got me painting.
Asparagus (6x9) peerless watercolour on gesso (Mar 26, 2009)

Bananas and grapes (6x9) peerless watercolour on gesso (Mar 27, 2009)

Waiting (9x12 watercolour)

This is the first "real" watercolour that I've ever done. I've done watercolouring with watercolour markers before on cards but I have never done a painting with watercolour paints before.

This was done for a challenge on http://www.differentstrokesfordifferentfolks.blogspot.com/ which was to make a painting based on a photo of a beach scene.

This girl was painted based on the gentleman in the baseball cap after my friend Glenda told me that it was cool to change things up and do your own thing. So I also made it a sunset scene rather than a mid-day scene.

I like parts of this painting but I'm not totally happy with the pregnant girl. Of course I don't really ever draw people so... it isn't too bad considering that I guess. I actually quite like the water and the sky, although if I did the sky again I might do it a bit differently but overall I think it's a pretty good first effort.

Just Do It

One of the things I need to overcome with my art is the fear of it not looking good and accept that not everyone creates the same way. I also need to overcome a lack of motivation. And part of that is tryng to do something artisitic every day if possible. That isn't always possible but I want to try. Sometimes and especially lately I've been making my cards (and not posting them here) but I've been toying with the idea of doing some watercolouring and block printing again. My friend Glenda told me that I should try some watercolouring other than on cards and my other friend Sophie just told me to stop being afraid and basically just suck it up and do it. Those aren't her words they are my translation of a much more encouraging email.



But I need to take baby steps and start again with something I'm more comfortable with - like black and white and shades of grey and sketching.



So today I decided to just do a sketch and work from there. I need to start to with a drawing to watercolour anyways and so I decided on a tree frog for some reason. Somewhere around home I have photos I took of a local tree frog on our glass window one night in the dark but I can't find them right now so I sourced a photo on the internet and used that as inspiration for my sketching. The top sketch of the entore frog is the first one I did and was all I really intended to do. The lower one in the right corner was my second sketch. It just sort of happened and adapted and morphed into what you see. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.

Now the next step will be to put the image onto a piece of watercolour paper and then see what I can do with it. Also I'd like to try block printing this little guy which is more inside the comfort zone. But either way I'll have to translate him into a line drawing.

Maybe tongight after work or maybe tomorrow I'll do that.