Category Archives: Art

365 Days of Art – Mostly Red

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…..day 10…playing with patterns

I’ve subscribed to Creative Bug for a few years now and I love the variety of classes you can take. There are knitting, quilting, watercolour, acrylic, sketching, photography, weaving and sewing classes, just to name a few. You can try it out for free and if you like it you can subscribe for about $6.00 a month. Classes that you really like you can hold in your own personal library to pull up whenever you want.

The latest class that I’m following is demonstrated by Lisa Congdon and I love her work. Every day for a month she is filming a video challenge on pattern drawing using watercolours or gauche. Yesterday I worked on a chevron pattern and a harlequin pattern.

https://www.creativebug.com/classseries/single/daily-painting-challenge-31-patterns-to-paint?auto=1

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365 Days of Art – Day 7

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….I’m a day behind because my new computer was uploading 23 000 photos from the cloud

I’ve continued with the theme ‘threading lightly’ from Carla Sonheim’s year-long class. For this abstract piece I used yupo paper and inks for threading. I love the acrylic inks because they are so vibrant. I filled the spaces with watercolour. The piece is 9″x 12″.

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365 Days of Art – Day 5 Threading Lightly

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….this comes from the first prompt of the new year long course that I am taking with Carla Sonheim

Threading lightly is a technique where you run cotton thread through wet watercolour and randomly lay it onto paper and press it with a brayer. We could leave it as an abstract piece or look for a shape within. I decided to find a shape and discovered this quirky duck. Tomorrow or later in the week I’m going to try this technique with ink and perhaps try a landscape.

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365 Days of Art – Day 4

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….decided to switch it up a bit

Today I found some leaves pressed in one of my sketch books and I decided to use it as a collage element. I was also inspired by Herma from Studio Mastarre who draws very whimsical portraits. I haven’t tried to copy her style with today’s post but at some point I’d like to try my hand at it. I did use pencil to start with and I added some watercolour to finish.

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365 Days of Art – Days 1, 2 and 3

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…..meditative and fun to do 

I’m loving my personal challenge so far. Three days in and I’ve managed to produce three pieces of abstract art. I won’t always do the same type of art and I will eventually move onto larger pieces. I may even take some of these smaller pieces and use them as inspiration for a larger piece using a different medium, perhaps acrylic or ink.

January 1st, 2018

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January 2, 2018

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January 3, 2018

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Time for New Beginnings

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…..I’m not a believer in New Year’s resolutions but I have set a challenge for myself for 2018

With all that went on last year in my personal life I felt that my art suffered. Once I stopped teaching I found little time to pursue my art. Ironic isn’t it that retirement was the reason for not making art but rather than go into all the details as to why that happened I want to focus on the now and how that will change.

Recently I complained to one of my followers that I couldn’t find time to make art because my studio space was still in a shambles from the renovation. This very wise woman suggested that I take my sketchpad and just start drawing anywhere in the house. So that’s exactly what I did and when everyone had gone to bed I would open my book and start making marks. Then I added some watercolour. I’m loving the process and have decided to make art every day, even if it’s just a doodle.

I started the challenge on New Year’s Eve. Here is my first piece of art made on the last day of 2017.

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I will try to post a work of art every day or if I start on something larger I will post the progress on a daily basis.

 

Trying to Get Back to Painting

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As some of you know, we’ve gone through some major renovations in our home. Last May my 91 year old father moved in with us but before that was possible we had to create an apartment for him in our basement. That meant moving my husband’s office (he works from home) from the basement to the the second floor where my art studio used to be and moving my art studio to the far end of my bedroom.

I managed to rearrange some of my art and actually got it up on the walls but I had boxes of paper that needed to be shredded and filed. My art supplies are in piles all around the drawing table and the drawing table is covered with more art supplies and my computer. I’m purging my closet of clothes I don’t wear anymore and some craft supplies that I will never use.

A few weeks ago I got my filing cabinet built and I’ve been slowly filling it up with only the essentials. I’ve literally shredded enough old bills to fill five recycling bags. I’ve bought a new desk from IKEA and now I need to assemble it. That’s my next project. Once that’s done I’ll have a new space for my computer and writing supplies and a new surface to sew from. Wish me luck. I’m hoping to get this all organized before Christmas.

Do you have a renovation that’s keeping you from doing what you love to do? Maybe you have some tips to share with those of us who are struggling to get things done. I don’t know what my excuse is, especially since I’m retired.