….after laying down random splashes of watercolour
Once I saw the pig I couldn’t get him out of my mind so I knew that I had to include him in my next intuitive art piece. After I drew the pig I started to see other animals and of course more flowers appeared.
…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.
….finished way too late last night to post my finished piece
Yesterday I was inspired by Lisa Congdon after watching one of her art videos. I really enjoy making line drawings of flowers and Lisa takes it a few steps further by adding lots of mark details and another thing that I love, collage. Adding all the marks is very time consuming but also very meditative and I think that’s why I lost track of time when I made this piece.
The second photo is the piece that I just finished today. After not being very happy with my last ‘family portrait’ for Carla Sonheim’s class I decided I would try another. I’ve discovered that if I take my time and let things dry before moving on I get a much better result. Also this time I really enjoyed the assignment where as with the first attempt I wasn’t having much fun.
….and back to drawing flowers
I’ve just started another year long course with Carla Sonheim. Lesson one started on Friday.
The first lesson is to draw a series of made up characters that represent a fictional family. We were to use a variety of media and techniques but the most important part was to have fun. I don’t know why but I wasn’t having fun and at one point I really wasn’t happy and I added water to my painting. I made quite the mess but I decided to let it dry and make something out of it with more marks and layers. Like I said it’s a bit of a hot mess but I don’t want to give up so I created a smaller piece with fewer characters. I’ll try a larger family later.
I’ve also gone back to my floral drawings. Today I drew a peony.
….instead I’ve been encouraging my husband to start painting
My husband studied art when I first met him and his first job was as a graphic designer. Over the years he contemplated making art as a hobby but life always seemed to get in the way. In the last two weeks after years of encouragement from me he finally picked up a paint brush and started painting. He’s hooked and there’s no stopping him.
To facilitate his painting I made room for him on my art table in my studio. I gave him my acrylic paints and when he ran out of canvases I gave him mine. Right now I’m looking at a mess and am waiting for him to clean so I can work on my own art. He’s actually been pretty good about cleaning up after he finishes a painting but for some reason he’s forgotten this time.
Before his journey started I did manage to complete a couple of assignments from Carla Sonheim’s on-line class that featured six different artists.
….30 days to fill an entire art journal with messy pages
I know it sounds a bit strange but the challenge came from Kara Kramer, one of Carla Sonheim’s guest artists from her year long class called 2020: Words and Pictures. The idea is to be loose and free and fill the book and then come back later and using prompts add more to the pages. I’m still in the filling the book stage. Here are some of the pages of the 42 that I’ve done so far.
58 pages to go!!!!
…yesterday I showed you two blobs of colour that I would transformÂ
Today I completed a cat that looks like it was crossed with a mouse and a leaf eating dragon. Here’s what I started with…..
….and this is what I ended up with
….when you don’t know what to paint start with a blob of colour
Today was the first day of Sketchbook Revival, another on-line free series of classes to get your creative juices to flow. The program is hosted by Karen Abend and today’s guest artist is one of my favourite teachers, Carla Sonheim.
Carla started by encouraging all artists to journal daily with what she calls box journalling. Basically she draws a box in her journal and divides it into sections and writes and draws in the different spaces. She writes random thoughts, to do and idea lists and draws doodles in one of the smaller squares. All of these help give her inspiration for the rest of her day. She also finds it very meditative.
Blob drawings are a great way to start making art when you’re in a rut and don’t know what you want to paint. You literally lay down a blob of paint onto paper and smear it or spread it in a random fashion with a credit card or palette knife. Here are two examples of blobs that I have laid down on the pages of my sketchbook.
Later this evening I will probably turn then around and see what animal or creature I see and start adding detail with a black marker or with ink. For the one that I just finished I used a water based ink so that I could go back in with a wet brush and add shading by just going over the black lines.
In my first blob I clearly saw a bird flying through the air. Here is my finished piece.
….thanks to Rainee for introducing me to the 30 Day Creativity Challenge
Lesson two of 2020: Words and Pictures was taught by a new instructor, Martha Rich. Our assignment is to draw or doodle a page of thoughts and pictures of things we hear and see. We are suppose to use a black brush pen and just go for it. It’s not the quality of the work that matters here but the quantity. Once I got over the insecurity of drawing without being able to erase and using such a bold marker I started to enjoy the process. Here are the first four pages from my sketch book.
…thanks to Rainee for getting me going on the30 Day Creativity Challenge
I’ve just completed my third art piece around the saying ‘This is impossible to read but it was fun to make.’ My inspiration came from watching Lesson two for the 2020: Pictures and Words year long class hosted by Carla Sonheim. The teacher for this class has us doing something very different but I was mesmerized by her glasses and decided to use her as my subject for this drawing. Thanks Martha.
Mama Cormier 