Flower Angel

 I decided to draw a face while watching a movie and had a really neat face drawn in watersoluble pencil. I'm sorry I didn't take a photo of that now because as just a face on the watercolor paper, I was really happy. However when I took a small brush with just a little water to the lines, they suddenly got very black. ugh!  I was not happy that I had fooled around with her face. Two days later I added wings and some water color to her eyes and lips. And, still I was not happy. Grrr. It's amazing what changing a line does to a drawing! I should have left it alone! grrr! Feeling like I could rip it out anyway, I just added hair with water color and left her alone till morning.

 Somewhere along the line, maybe while dreaming, I decided to draw some flowers in ink and color them in to add to her hair, TO COVER IT UP. An improvement, but I long for her graphite only face. No hair, no wings, just white space all around her fair face. sigh.

Done. Sprayed with fixative. Destined to live in my watercolor journal. But she is growing on me. A face from my imagination who led me into choices filled with resistance.

More i-phone fun

 Yesterday I got an order from photojojo. Lenses for my i-phone! What fun! These lenses attach to the phone with a magnetic ring that glues around the i-phone camera lens.  Today I took advantage of the sunshine and snapped a bunch of photos using the wide angle lens. At first I couldn't see what the lens does, but on closer inspection of the images, I see how the lines bend on this photo of my front door. OK. Interesting.

 This is the same lens and the Hipstamatic app with the X grizzled film which makes the border ragged, and the Bettie XL lens which is like a leaky plastic camera. It adds warm colored light streaks which show up in a random manner and makes the film look over exposed.

 This is the next shot and is noticeably different than the one above. Cool! No way to know what is going to happen next. I love that!

 This brass plaque is next to our front door and looks very nice in these soft colors.

 However, this is the photo that showed me how that wide angle lens works. This is a "gallery" of left handed drawings I've done that are on the wall at my desk. The line on the left is curved. That is my window and it shows me that this lens is bringing more stuff into view by bending the angle of the view.

This is the same photo without the lens and there is a little less of the wall to see here. Interesting.

paper bag lady

This weekend I found a few heavy duty paper bags from the Whole Foods Market and decided to make a journal. I found really good instructions for a paper bag journal from a November 2, 2007 blog page by Judy Wise .

 I added white gesso to each page. That took a couple of days to dry. I didn't put any kind of cover on this collection of paper. It's nice to have a really undemanding format to work in. These pages are not smooth and pretty and do not scare me one bit!

 This is my attempt at an oriental face. I find the eyes so intriguing! The lid line is so much fun to do because the skin folds over the crease in such an interesting way.

I used a #8 graphite pencil so I could smear some grays and carve out shadows. Once satisfied with the overall look, I took some CarbOthello pastel pencils to add just a bit of color. Because the paper is so textured, I have to accept the imperfections where they arise and I really like that! This photo was taken with my i-phone 3G using the camera that is provided and really does a nice job. The page was lit only by my desk Ottlite and no flash.

This face just begs to be touched. It's like drawing on a granite mountain or tree bark.

Even the crater in her cheek doesn't bother me. When I was adding shadow and color, my eye did not even register it as a problem. All I wanted to do was make her face just a little more colorful. Rosy cheeks denote joy in life, and I felt joy-ful as I watched her emerge.

Now this photo was taken with the Hipstamatic app using the Jane Lense and Kodak X grizzled film. The colors are yellowed and the edge of the photo are ragged. I like that effect.

If you have an i-phone you get to play with an amazing array of tools. I would never have been able to access so many different kinds of lenses and films even if I was a professional photographer. This is so much fun!

i-phone fun

It's raining too heavily to go for my morning walk, so I'll post a few photos taken with my i-phone 3. I have a few photo apps (OK - 37) that are very amusing. In fact, hours can go by without my noticing at all. Now I know why I see people staring a these things. They really are fun toys. Since I never call anybody, I now  think of this as my favorite camera.

 It was 96 degrees and I was sitting on our porch which faces west so I got some good contrast in the photos I took. This effect is from Camera Art Fx, a free app that changes a photo into a drawing or a cartoon.

 The i-phone lets you turn the camera lense face you so you can just snap away. Click. Click. Click.

 I wish I had the patience to draw like this. Look at those lines! The shading. The cross hatching. Wow!

 When I was absolutely too over heated to sit outside in the low slanting rays of the sun, I came inside and sat on the sofa with the verticales closed behind me. A softer light and an interesting background effect.

 Once you have taken a photo and saved it to your camera roll, you can open it up and play some more. This is now a polaroid!  I think I used Lo-Mob, an app that looks like a polaroid on steroids with about 42 different effects.

 Me with the ceiling fan. I got some cool pix of it spinning, too. No, wait. That was an i-phone movie.

OK, a little color and an interesting frame. This photo was taken through three different apps, but I didn't take notes, so I can't remember how I got here. But it is a cool rendition, don't you think?