365 Days of Art – Collage Character

Posted on February 17, 2018 by Mama Cormier

…..day 48

In Carla Sonheim’s class today we were instructed to take some of our art papers and with our eyes closed cut out random shapes. Then we were to create a character of our choice. We weren’t suppose to have a character in mind when doing the cutting. Instead the character would appear as we tried to arrange some to the shapes.

Gluing the pieces down was the last step in the process. As we created a character Carla recommended taking a photograph of each version and move the pieces around until you came up with a character you liked.

I found one piece of paper that looked like bird legs running so I build my character around that. Here is the process that I went through before gluing my final character in place.

On my final piece I grounded my little roadrunner with a strip of ground and put a cloud over her head. To me she looked like she was running off to a party.

365 Days of Art – Strips

Posted on February 16, 2018 by Mama Cormier

….day 47 and week 7

I’m a little behind with my collage art so I’ve posted two assignments back to back. This week’s assignment was to take two different images and cut them into thin strips of equal size and alternate them to create a new image.

For my first one I had two different images of snakes and for the second one I used an image of a tulip and one of my art papers that had similar colours.

365 Days of Art – Image Pairings

Posted on February 16, 2018 by Mama Cormier

…..day 46 and week six

I’ve returned to work on some more of the 50 creative exercises from Randel Plowman’s book The Collage Workbook. Evelyn Flint and her sister, Carolyn, have challenged themselves to work on one exercise each week and I’ve decided to join them in their challenge.

For week six we were instructed to take an image and cut it into two pieces and create two different collages. I found an image of a Joan Baez and Bob Dylan poster that I used for my two collages this week.

365 Days of Art – Happy Valentine’s Day

Posted on February 14, 2018 by Mama Cormier

…my gift to you on day 45

365 Days of Art – Flowers

Posted on February 12, 2018 by Mama Cormier

…..days 42 and 43

Yesterday I left the house at 8:00 in the morning and didn’t get home till almost 8:00 in the evening. I spent the day cross country skiing but almost five hours of my day was spent on a bus getting to and from the ski centre. On the way home I pulled out my phone and my sketchbook and looked up some photos I had taken of flowers that I thought might make good subjects for sketching.

It was pretty dark in the bus so it was a good opportunity to work on my blind or semi-blind contour drawing skills.

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Today I took those drawings and redrew them in a larger sketchbook, adding more detail and shading. With the rose I added colour with watercolours.

365 Days of Art – Pigs Three Ways

Posted on February 10, 2018 by Mama Cormier

….day 41

I love art work with pigs. I don’t know why but I’m drawn to pigs. I enjoyed the blind contour drawings of the cows so much that I decided to do some with pigs. Rather than show you all my weird blind contours I’ll show you the rough copy of a pig I did for scraping technique with acrylics.

I found that the scraping technique this time around lost a lot of the detail of the pigs.

With the middle one I went back over some of the lines with a light green marker. I then decided to take a chance with a black micron pen I added some more detail to all three pieces. Should I have left them as they were? What do you think? I know how I feel about it but I wouldn’t mind your input.

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365 Days of Art – Cows Done Blindly

Posted on February 9, 2018 by Mama Cormier

…..day 40

In Carla Sonheim’s year-long class we were assigned to draw an object of our choice. The hook is that it had to be a blind contour drawing. No peaking at all. I did that with the first three and for number four I peaked a couple of times.

Then without looking at the drawings or the photo the drawings were taken from we had to draw the objects again on a larger piece of watercolour paper using ink with a dropper or liquid acrylic poured from the bottle (with a small opening). Before the ink or paint dried we were then suppose to lay two more colours of paint across the top of the paper and then scrape it down the page with a credit card.

The first attempt I did on a cold press watercolour paper and I almost lost the image completely. I switched to a smooth hot press paper and the image under the paint was stronger. The black ink on the second painting was overpowering and I much preferred how the red and purple inks turned out. Do you have a favourite?

365 Days of Art – Chinese Brush Painting

Posted on February 8, 2018 by Mama Cormier

…..days 38 and 39

I started these late last night and then finished in the wee hours of this morning. So I guess that still counts as a painting a day.

I’ve always liked the simplicity of Chinese Brush Painting but there’s nothing simple about it. I can see why Chinese artists take years to master their craft. I took this book out of the library as a reference. It’s beautifully illustrated but I’ve discovered that I’m not very good at following directions from a book. I’m in too much of a hurry to take the time to read all the directions. I’m much better with a video demonstration but I did enjoy this process so I think I will go back and read some of the chapters.

365 Days of Art – The Bad With the Good

Posted on February 7, 2018 by Mama Cormier

…..days 36 and 37

Not everything that I make do I necessarily like. This is a journey of learning and practising skills in art. I started with watercolour still life and then landscapes when I started painting at 50. I’ve dabbled in so many different art genres that I haven’t mastered one. I’m going back to basics. Here are two studies of apples and bananas. I need to keep practising.

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365 Days of Art – Blue-Green Collage

Posted on February 4, 2018 by Mama Cormier

…..another collage for the ‘colour plunge’ assignment

I’m really enjoy making these small collages. Randal Plowman has written The Collage Workbook and has set out 50 exercises to build up our collaging skills. Evelyn Flint and her sister are encouraging artists to join them on their year long art journey by making a different collage each week using Plowman’s prompts.

This is the third collage I’ve made for this one prompt ‘colour plunge’. The idea is to create a monochromatic collage using mostly one colour. Todays collage uses mostly blue greens. I used some of my text papers and finished it off with paint on bubble wrap that I printed on top.