….lesson with Helen Wells
Today I listened to both videos but only had time to follow along with one of them. If I have time I will pull out my Geli Plate and make some papers for future collage projects.
Helen Wells was the first guest artist today and she took us through a fun drawing project that was focused mostly on colour. I follow Helen Wells online and have one of her books for inspiration. I’ve done similar assignments before and I always find them very meditative and relaxing.
….I’m not committing to doing the art each day but today’s lessons intrigued me and helped me warm up for my next painting
Today’s lessons were both focused on creating art around a blob of colour. Koosje Koene gave the first lesson using watercolour and Mike Lowery used markers. Both were fun to do and got me ready to paint on my next painting for my solo show in May.
…thanks to Amy Maricle for getting my hands moving again
I continue to fill up my little handmade art journal with slow drawing mark making. Sometimes I start with splotches of watercolour or I glue down some interesting pieces of collage or previous squares of slow drawing exercises. I’m enjoying the process and hope to fill in my journal in the next couple of weeks.
…thanks to Amy Maricle for hosting this free on-line challenge
After making my handmade art journal I decided to fill it with drawings from Amy Maricle’s drawing challenge. Her process is very meditative and her emphasis is on moving slowly. I’m not very good at either but I love the process and I’m working on slowing down. Here are a few of the pages from my art journal.
…results of yesterday’s free on-line class
I’m always getting offers for free on-line classes to make art. Some of them are good and some have way too much talking and not enough ‘making’. Yesterday’s class was one of the good ones. It was hosted by two artists, Amy Maricle and Ali Manning. I’ve taken classes with Amy before called Inchies but this was my first class with Ali. Ali instructed us on how to make books. I’ve done this before but it was a good refresher and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think I may make more books over the weekend.
After the books were made, Amy took us through a process of using India ink and a bamboo brush to make botanical marks in our new books. It was a way to experiment with ink and diluted ink. In the past I’ve used Micron Pens in her classes, which is much more controlled. I enjoyed learning from both artists. Here are the results of the hour spent with these two lovely ladies.
….I haven’t posted any of my art in recent months
…the reason for that was because I couldn’t find a space to make my art. Yes I have a studio space dedicated for my art making but in recent months it had become a dumping ground for my bills, Christmas cards, craft supplies and more. All my supplies were unorganized and I didn’t know what worked and what needed to be thrown away. A lot or reasons excuses to not make art.
Last week I finally put aside time to start organizing my space. I cleared the art board and the extra table I had for my sewing machine and making my mono prints. I went through all my pens, pencils, crayons, paints and brushes and threw away those that were dried up and cleaned and repaired those that were worth saving.
During the cleaning process I came across a pile of small ink line drawings of mugs. I made them years ago and two years ago I took one of them and added colour and more line detail. I found that one in one of my sketchbooks and I decided to take another one and do the same. The one above has a bird perched on the rim of the mug. I made him before Christmas out of a strip of paper that I folded and cut into the shape that you see. I added some line detail to the mug and then some watercolour to the coffee in the mug. Like I said earlier, I’m taking baby steps to get back into making art.
To inspire me I’ve enrolled in another year long on-line art class with Carla Sonheim called Year of the Rabbit….how appropriate. I’ve already made a few sketches of ‘rabbits’ that I will share later in the week.
….after producing art pieces for my solo show at the end of June it was nice to just paint for fun
I’m currently taking a free course with Louise Fletcher called Find Your Joy. For the first assignment we had to tape off a large sheet of watercolour paper and choose three colours of paint plus black and white. I divided the paper into nine rectangles and then randomly started to add colour to the paper making sure to ignore the tape and go over it as if it were part of the painting.
The process is very intuitive, which suits me to a tee. After 30 minutes of mixing my colours and randomly laying down the paint and some black ink I stopped and carefully removed the tape. I was very happy with the results. Some of these pieces may end up in my show or not but the point was to have fun and escape from the realities of everyday life.
Thanks to Weekly Prompts for hosting this challenge: https://weeklyprompts.com/2022/05/21/weekly-prompts-weekend-challenge-escape/
….really enjoying this very zen-like exercise of slow drawing
I’m a follower of Amy Maricle at Mindful Art Studio, amy@mindfulstudio.com. Every week she hosts a free workshop on slow drawing. I love the exercises and find that the mark making comes in handy with my paintings. Here are three exercises that I finished late last night.
….back to making ‘inchie’ art
Thanks to Amy from Mindful Art Studio for hosting the slow drawing parties. She literally takes us through some very slow drawing activities to get our creative juices flowing. After doing the line drawings I added watercolours and more marks. This is very relaxing and I literally get lost in the process.
…here’s my second book made with painted papers
In this book I used the theme ‘wishes’ and I added collage, pencil, washi tape and ink marks and text to add interest.
Mama Cormier 