….day 4 of Sketchbook Revival with Tamara Laporte
In one of today’s Sketchbook Revival classes we meet Tamara Laporte. I’ve watched some of her classes before but I think this is the first time I’ve completed an assignment. It was a lot of fun and I think I may go back to her site and try some more.
This owl was first sketched with pencil and then watercolour was applied. Along the way marker, ink, pencil and acrylic paint pens were used to add detail.
….on day 2 of Sketchbook Revival we meet Leanne Oliver and Sarah Matthews
Leanne walked us through an exercise she calls Cracks in the Road. She loves to make marks in her paintings and she finds that this process helps her with her art. The steps involved wetting some watercolour paper and adding a little bit of neutral acrylic paint over part of the surface. Then she took a charcoal pencil and drew lines from a photograph of cracks in the road. Then she wet the lines so that the charcoal would bleed out a bit. After that she took Gesso and applied a coat over some of the areas and while it was still wet she went over the lines again but this time with pencil. Then she added some colour using a soluble coloured pencil or pastels and more water.
The whole process was a lot of fun and I can see how I might use this technique in my next painting. Here are the two samples that I did.
Sarah Matthews is a print maker and she makes her own stamps. I thought I had a block of material to carve into but I’ve either used it or couldn’t find it. I’m hoping to order some more so that I can try her art lesson at a later date. Stay tuned for that one.
…some wonderful finds in High Park, Toronto
Today was another beautiful day in Toronto; sunny and warm (for March) and the paths and roads were dry and clear of ice and snow. I was in search of the red tail hawk that I saw last week but I saw no signs of him. Instead I spent the two hours taking photos of trees, squirrels, broken bits of picnic tables, stadium lights, fences and birds. On my travels throughout the park I came across some lovely sculptures a statue and a memorial stone cross.
Thanks to Susan Kelly at No Fixed Plans for hosting Sculpture Saturday, https://nofixedplans5.wordpress.com/2020/11/14/sculpture-.saturday-9/
…yesterday I started the Sketchbook Revival lessons
The first lesson is with Danny Gregory who is the founder of Sketchbook Skool. He had us find an interesting shoe to draw and we had to gather up a variety of drawing tools, like markers, pencils, crayons, pastels, watercolour, etc.. Then he timed us as we were drawing our shoes and we had to change our drawing implements about every 30 seconds. It was actually a lot of fun. Here is my finished piece.
Our second teacher yesterday was Carla Sonheim. I’ve taken dozens of classes with her and love her style. Her lesson was based on one-liner drawings where you quickly draw and object with lifting your pen off the paper. We had to draw cats, flowers in a vase, an elephant and a toilet.
Then we had to pick our favourite drawing and create a new drawing but this time we didn’t have to make it all in one line. She also encouraged us to use bits of paper to collage into our books and draw one of our characters around the paper. Here are some of my cats and my elephant.
We were also encouraged to add some colour to our final characters.
….oh Tonguely you should never upset those Wacky Birds
After Tonguely hijacked Wacky Bird Wednesday to wish you a Happy St. Patrick’s Day he encountered the wrath of some of those birds. Should we feel sorry for him? Do you think he learned his lesson?
…I haven’t posted any art for awhile
I haven’t worked on any large pieces lately. My focus has been mainly on drawing in my sketchbook. I signed up for two classes. One was with Lewis Rossignol called
Sketchbooking and the other is a two week class with Karen Abend called Sketchbook Revival. The latter is a free set of classes with 27 artists that each give a lesson that takes about 30 minutes. Sketchbook Revival is free and you can still sign up. https://www.karenabend.com/sketchbook-revival-2021/
Lewis’s focus is on being loose and not too precious with your sketchbooks. In fact he encourages you to mess up your pages a bit so that it is easier to start drawing. He likes to work in ink, pen, and pencil and he uses collage to add interest and balance.
Here are a few of the sketches that I did after watching his lessons.
I will post my art from Day 1 of Sketchbook Revival in a post tomorrow.
…on St. Patrick’s Day
Normally a wacky bird appears in this time slot but Tonguely just couldn’t help himself and hijacked this page to wish everyone a Happy St. Patrick’s Day.
Looks like Tonguely got into the green beer a little early today.
….thanks to Sami for hosting Monday Murals
When the subway train comes out of the tunnel and travels above ground for a ways there are always interesting murals on the back of buildings that are only visible when you’re on the train or if you’re parked in a lot next to one of these buildings.
….no witty comments this week but maybe you can think of a caption for my husband’s latest monster
…for this Funky Frog Friday we catch Tonguely dipping into the doughnuts
Mama Cormier 