Working hard, drawing and painting Katrina Germein’s picture book Thunderstorm Dancing. I might post some random weather fragments occasionally but can’t show you much until it’s finished…. and I’ll come out from under that cloud ;-) hopefully very soon.
Wish me luck!
Just a simple one. This is for another teacher who loves dogs. (Imagine that!!)
Run! Christmas is coming!
We love to hand-make all of our birthday cards for family and friends. Sometimes the card is a hurried affair, slapped together moments before deadline; sometimes it’s a painstaking endeavour. But all the family enjoy this tradition.
Sometimes a fairly quick creation turns out well. And of course all art practice feeds into and informs the other art that you do.
Here’s a card done this morning for a friend turning 50. Her alter ego (so some of us decided in our wisdom ;-) is Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.
Later I’ll post a selection of cards made by all of us.
and inside…
Swimming again, or rather, watching the swimming. Here were some of my more immediate neighbours on the spectator benches at swimming lessons this week.
My fine-point pens had died of exhaustion, so I enjoyed using a thicker felt tip instead, and later adding a bit of pencil colour at the drawing board was fun.
auburn haired swimmer – this little boy has a spectacular head of flaming orange-red.
blue sibling – she found Ollie the Octopus’s antics amusing
green sibling – same sibling, different colour
Mum with mobile phone – most of the spectators spend a lot of time watching their phones. It’s a funny world we live in now. I do it too sometimes.
Investing in her future – felt tip, indian ink and gouache on book page
This drawing (or is it a painting?) goes with the Bactrian Camel. Both are painted in the same book about financial management. This sea lioness with her pup appears on a page about investment. As with the Bactrian Camel, the photograph that formed the basis of the drawing comes from The Wonder Book of Animals.
There is a second sea lioness on the drawing board. She’ll have to wait until I’ve finished ‘Poppy is the Thunder’, the current page in progress for Thunderstorm Dancing.
The Wonder Book of Animals: drawn in and drawn from. My copy is much more dilapidated than this one taken from an ebay listing.
This painting sprang from two books and a sudden urge to paint something in a mid-century modern way. An urge indeed! It got me up out of bed and I had to clear the drawing board!
I wanted a larger book than a novel format, so I grabbed a delicious weighty tome from the shelf, Raymond Chambers’ book Financial Management. Weighty in two senses.
As the book fell open on a page about Obsolescence, I decided to flick through The Wonder Book of Animals to find a subject who would fit the bill. I was vaguely thinking Dodo until my brain kicked into gear and I realised that the poor Dodo did not in any way become obsolete. Its very desirability (and perhaps amiability) caused its downfall. At any rate these mournful observations ceased when I set eyes on a photo of a lovely, shaggy Bactrian Camel. Not entirely obsolete, I’m pleased to say, for those who do not own a motor vehicle. But his lovely curvy form said ‘draw me!’ So I did.
A cutaway book with temptingly delicious stick buried within!
Update: more mud added! (It was much too neat and tidy for such a muddy topic.)
This book has just flown to Italy to live with David and Fran who own the lovely Jack.
Barnyard gossip
Carousel galloping horse over galloping mustangs
• Should I add any colour? I think I like it plain black….
(added colour)
• Yep, I think I like it plain black.
• Funny how the illustration of the galloping mustangs has made a shadow under the back leg where one would want a shadow, and put an interesting pattern over the carousel horse’s head.
• Should I add white gouache to the horse? If I do, I’ll lose the background mustangs and the flat, outline effect which interests me, but I’ll gain a milky, layered quality and a more three dimensional effect, which might also interest me.
• Should I add white gouache to the coloured bits to make them pastel toned? … maybe…
• Perhaps I should leave it as is and paint another carousel horse on the next page and add all sorts of white and stuff to that one… or this one… depending…
• Should I stop soliloquising and go and do those other urgent jobs?
Another soliloquy seems to be forming in odd moments… ‘The Tale of Two Horses’ went on the train into the city the other day as a sketchbook, and came back with several new horses in it. More will come when I have a little time.
In wondrously poor condition on the outside. Inside, the pages are smooth and lovely to draw on.
This one is taking its own shape more easily than the last one. Sort of ambling along.
Some pages I will start by liking, and then not. Some the other way around. It won’t bother me. It’s contemplative. And because they are horse doodles, it’s a bit like climbing cosily back into my childhood for a while. (And I draw them exactly the same way now!)
Fun drawing a foal dance over other horses. Then a squiggly cameo shape and brushy, brushiness all about.
I’ve just done a page that is more interested in pattern, shape and contrast than in horsey correctness. It was very freeing. But I’ll play with it some more another time, and take the shapes and tones further into pattern.
This page reminds me of the poodle wallpaper we found on the walls of our 1950s house after removing the 70s wallpaper. It could be much better if it went further away from the horse shapes I think.
Another little digger. A stalwart, he endures a social engagement with a hated aunt, and only his least favourite weed on the menu. Poor lad.
Judy Watson 