Colored Pencil Portrait

This time I just used colored pencil on a page from "Gone With The Wind". No gesso at all. Sometimes it's just fun to sketch something while watching/listening to a video on YouTube. Have been obsessed with Abraham-Hicks lately. Now "you create your own reality" from the Seth Material feels a lot more do-able. It sure would be a lot more fun to feel as if I create the reality I want by choice and not by chance or habit. Been working on this since 1985 when I first discovered Jane Roberts' Seth books . I have to learn to feel my way as well as think my way to what I want. And, imagination sure is important for any goal, any desire, any, any, any....

Photo Artista and Watercolor

 I seem to be spending an awful lot of time playing with the photography apps on my i-phone.  Photo Artista - Haiku  is endlessly fascinating to me. I especially like it because I can take any photo stored in the camera and play with it - over and over and over, getting all kinds of effects going.

 I dream of making art like this app does, so lately I've been using the photos as a guide. I print one out on Ink Jet Sticker Project Paper and stick it to the opposite page in my journal. Then I get my number 4 pencil out and do my darndest to get similar lines down. I like having the photo as a reference and will look at it in the future and know what I was working with at the time.

 I used  Inktense Watercolor Pencils thinking I didn't want the water color to run if I splashed layers of color over the drawing. It works well, but this weight paper in the journal is really only for dry media, so I'm not too happy with the watercolor effect. It just does not run down the page when it is wet and it is very hard to blot color up for highlights. Oh well, the drawing part is really what interests me now.

 Next time I'm going to do a very messy background page first, and then draw the image. I'm sure I will like it so much better because it will be a lot less controlled.
Draw and learn. Over and over, draw and learn.

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?

Playing at faces

 

Sometimes just having a page of text with gesso on it begs to be used. And, a number 6B pencil smudges so nicely, it takes me a long time to decide to add color to a face. I really like drawing a simple line and running my finger over it to sculpt the shadows. This drawing sat around for several weeks, just being itself. Not asking for anything more. Floating from pile to pile until one day I glued it into a journal. Big mistake. I was sorry it stopped floating the minute I saw her surrounded by all that white space. 

A tin of Stabilo chalk pencils arrived last week and this is what happened. OK, so she is more colorful, but is she happy about it?

One more Whimsical Painting

This is the third painting I have fooled around with in the Whimsical Style taught by Mechelle Harrison at Creative Workshops.

I really enjoy using a piece of chalk to make the outlines for the forms. I don't feel as if I am doing anything serious because it's just chalk and can be erased with some spit. Cool!

But often times, when I am nearing the finish, I begin to feel sad because I like, really like, the way the chalk looks.

I mean, look at this moon! The chalk adds so much to the etherial beauty of this shape. Oh! And the texture under the black paint shows up under each stroke of the chalk.

And, here the white contrasts with the red in such a nice way.

It looks all skewudgelly. This is a new term. I just made it up. It's how it feels to be white chalk on black paint, surrounded by red and purple. Say it out loud. Ske...wud...gel..ly. See?  A very feeling term.

This window! Oh, this is the kind of window that needs to be looked out of. It turns an entire landscape into a frosted fairy wonderland and makes everyone smile for the rest of the day.

This is today's moon, it is a waxing cresent of 3% in the sign of Libra . We can't see all of it because the Earth is still somewhat in the way, but it is there alright. I know it because I painted it. If you wait a day or so, you will see it outside your window, too.
Or, if you ask nicely, it will follow you into your dreams tonight to light your way in a rainbow kind of way. You can ask it for a wish. Ask for something dear to your heart. And, if you say, "Thank you" everyday for 30 days, your dream will come true.

A fun workshop.

 One of the fun things I did during my year of contemplation was a workshop over at Creative Workshops  given by Mechelle Harrison called Whimsical Landscape Painting. Several nice videos shows her process and it was a lot of fun. Starting from a textured surface painted a dark color, I chose black, we then drew a simple landscape with chalk.

 From there it was a matter of painting color in layers to bring the landscape to life. I live in South Florida and am surrounded by beautiful palms , so I made my landscape painting of those lovely trees. Mechelle paints delightful, happy and colorful artwork that just makes me smile every time. I hope you go over to see about this workshop and have fun creating with bright colors and simple shapes.

Back after a long break...

Really did need time off to evaluate stuff. If you like to play around with numerology, as I surely do like to do, I finally realized I was in the middle of a seven year. It's a time to rest and reconsider what you are doing in your life that you would like to change or stay the same. It's a time to think about all the good things you have, are, wish to be and intend to do. The year started out with a lot of personal chaos, dipped into an abyss of self pity and then headed into a tunnel with a sparkling, tiny, but sparking light drawing me onward. The light is now all around me and I am in bliss. The bliss of being comfortable being me. The bliss that feels so hopeful. I feel the bliss of life newly born and I am grateful.