washy little girls
I painted these figures loosely, intending to add detail afterwards. It’s a thing that Alexis Deacon likes to do in various ways. It’s a great idea and I’ve been meaning to have another go at it. But once sketched in, I felt they were finished and didn’t want any more detail. So here they are.
Woman mourning the loss of a Giant Pomeranian
Having decided to do an illustration onto plain paper (gasp!) instead of a printed book page, I grabbed a fine liner (the nearest one to hand) and proceeded to do a slow and deliberate (double gasp!) outline.
It was when I was about to apply the first watercolour that I thought to look at the pen to see if it was waterproof. The pen shaft was mute on the subject. Oh well… My first dab of watercolour revealed the truth and the ink began to run enthusiastically. However, I have long been a fan of Sally Rippin’s beautiful ‘Fang Fang’s Chinese New Year’ that features profusely bleeding ink outlines so I continued on and really enjoyed it. (I must ask Sally how she did this.)
I also liked the fact that the ink bled a deep purple colour, which has infused the whole picture with blackcurrant tones.
When I tried to invent a new breed of dog (a kind of Giant Pomeranian) to accompany my character, it didn’t work. But that’s another story. So my costumed lady was cut out from her page and collaged onto a new background. And I enjoyed that too, including the bright, undisguised cut edges remaining around her.
And lastly, Brain Pickings had a great post today on creativity and taking risks and it’s worth a read for any artist. Yaaay!
Theme for this week, ‘selfie’. I am looking a bit Holly Hobbyish here with a large, collage head of differential calculus hair. It would have looked better with darker hair, but I didn’t want to lose the lovely calculus curves under a heavy load of ink. So I’ve left it lightly tinted.
I liked the way the little numbers and mathematical figures here and there remind me of insects or seeds that the chickens are constantly seeking.
The smooth paper of a vintage book reacts completely differently from the way proper watercolour paper should react to paint. But there’s something rather nice about it. It sucks up the ink in a thirsty way, remaining very smooth and composed all the while.
Scott discovered the word ‘groke’ the other day. We all like it in this house and think it deserves constant and affectionate use. It reminds us of Tove Jansson‘s Groke and it means this: to ‘stare at someone in the hope that they’ll give you some food’. (The Groke in Jansson’s Moominpappa at Sea visits Moomintroll every night to beg him to show her his lantern flame, because she is a lonely creature craving warmth and light but unable to get either. So it’s a poignant form of groking after all.)
With six pampered chickens and a dog, we get plenty of groking around here. Speaking of which, better go and lock the girls up.
A little pick-me-up / warm-up session this morning for Tania McCartney’s 52 Week Illustration Challenge.
(funny how sometimes my post headings don’t show up… It could be just at my end. Who knows? Now that I have typed the heading into the body of the post, no doubt it will come up as a double heading. Oh well :-)Lovely to have a day off yesterday, and to spend it with Dad and the boys, (as well as Scott when he wasn’t on board his yacht admiring seals in the bay). Dad suggested we do some monotypes, and we finally got around to it in the late afternoon. It was really pleasant in the garden, and we could use the hose to easily clean off our plates without messing up the bath as I usually do at home. Boy, you should see it after a printing session!
We didn’t get too fussed about what we drew, and we were mostly messing about trying to find a paper that would take the monotype process and a bit of ink added afterwards.
Unfortunately I didn’t get a photo of Dad’s pictures, but he probably wouldn’t have let me post them anyway!
This little dark girl was taken from a photo and was an experiment in drawing with big, angular shapes and using high contrast. It’s so tricky to draw children without the results looking sentimental, because the subject of children is so heavily laden with very strong human emotion, and many pictures of children actively seek to communicate those emotions. This drawing probably looks sentimental too, just because the child is thoughtful or pensive. She certainly wasn’t meant to look like she’d left her favourite teddy in the park. I just loved her blocky haircut and the shapes her interlocking arms made. Oh, and the reason I was drawing a child (on my day off, ha ha!) was because I decided to join in a Facebook group with a weekly illustration topic, just for fun. This week’s topic was ‘children’.
The paper was medium weight, and was fine with the monotype process, but didn’t cope with the ink wash afterwards. Buckled all over the place. Earlier, we tried with 300 gsm watercolour paper and couldn’t get an ink impression because it was too stiff. Wetting the paper didn’t work too well either, because our block printing ink is water based. (I think the ink used in intaglio printing onto wet paper is oil based. Somebody tell me if I’m wrong.)
The cat was a bit of fun for me as I suddenly had the happy thought that I could combine altered book art with monotype. Although the page was rudely removed from the book, as you can see, it did cope perfectly with the ink, and also coped rather well with the wash afterwards. Strangely, it has a fine, sparkly thing happening in the dark areas when I hold it to the light. It must be to do with the paper, as it isn’t the ink, I’m sure.
This little guy was done on very lightweight paper and the monotype line is rather delicate because there was not a heavy load of ink on the plate. I added chinese ink, Prismacolour artstick and soft pastel afterwards to give him a bit of contrast, and the original monotype line is barely there. The paper of course, buckled.
Thanks for an enjoyable afternoon, Dad!
Judy Watson 