Faces

Simple Faces

In Week 5 of the sketchbook class Alisa taught us techniques for rendering stylized faces.  Mouths, even non-realistic, stylized ones are still hard for me.  

As is drawing more realistic faces.

(pen and watercolor on watercolor paper)

Not exactly there yet.  Still need to work on the drawing and watercolor.

 Two options come to mind.

1. Practice, Practice    and

2. Go back to simpler, more stylized drawings.  Or . . .

(pen and colored pencil on watercolor paper)

Revert to the Familiar

When the drawing gets tough I fall back on familiar styles and techniques

to put the fun back in the sketching.

Create Daily - Final Projects

Day 21 - Be Messy!

The Create Daily class is now over and here are the final results. 

 It was a fun class!  Each morning I eagerly looked forward to reading Alisa's newest prompt.  Not only was the class fun but it extremely helpful because it taught me that I can create room in my life for whatever project I want to focus.  We all have stress and lack of time in our lives but this class taught me to expect more of myself and simply to get busy and do, whether that doing meant meditating, reading, creating art, writing travel stories, exercising, whatever.  When I expected more of myself I found that I wasn't as prone to waste time and instead focused my energies.  This is a perfect class to take at the beginning of a new year when we all make resolutions and need help keeping them. 

Day 22 - Raid Your Closet

Alisa suggested cutting up old clothes and looking to clothing for patterns, then incorporating the fabric and ideas in art projects.  Not having any old clothes that I was willing to cut up I instead raided my stash of fabric bought for scrapbooking and collage projects.  The smears on my paint rag reminded me of Africa so I developed that as my theme, searching Google Images for typical African patterns.

Day 23 - Go Big

Since I'm used to working small this prompt was difficult for me.  I went from using a 5x8 sketchbook to a 12x18 watercolor pad.  I didn't know how to fill such a large space so I started by splashing acrylic paint on the paper.  I then went back to the Channel Your Inner Picasso prompt and used some initial line squiggles to give me an idea for an image.  I finished with some black line doodles and watercolor washes to give definition to some of the larger shapes.

Day 24 - Look to Architecture

It was tough trying to capture such a complex image but the prompt was good training for 

future travel sketches.

Day 25 - Go Graffiti Style

Another fun prompt.  Once again I went to Google Images, this time to learn how to do

letters in graffiti style.

Day 26 - Hit up the Hardware Store 

(both for supplies and inspiration)

Day 27 - Use Dots

Day 28 - Think in Layers

I was getting behind on the prompts so I did the last two in one day.  The easiest way to create something quickly was to use previous prompts, such as doodling and layers, as my inspiration.

Day 29 - Find Your 'Go To' Place

No drawing required, simply think about the places that inspire you.  Since I work small, I can find inspiration simply looking at objects around the house.  Lord knows, I have enough stuff in my house to keep me supplied with drawing and art opportunities for eternity!

Day 30 - Apply it to Your Life

Simply taking the class has taught me to do this.  Hats off to Alisa Burke for being such a fun, inspiring teacher.  To paraphrase a popular bumper sticker: If you're viewing this, 

thank the teacher.

Create Daily

(Following Jane LaFazio's tip about learning to sketch outdoors.)

As I've mentioned to some of you, I signed up for two online creative

courses, both of which started this month.  The first one is

Create Daily by Alisa Burke

http://www.alisaburke.blogspot.com/

It's been a fun class and, so far, I've been able to keep up.  The premise

is that Alisa will give us a creative prompt each day and then we 

work on it as best we can and upload our results to a class 

Flickr group.  The prompts range from fairly easy things like 

look for inspiration in common places such as at the grocery store or

while taking a walk in the neighborhood to harder things, for me, 

like creating abstract art.  I'm finding that a loose style is harder

for me to accomplish than I thought.

Here are some of the results.

Day 1 - Organize your work space.

Been there.  Done that.  Always a

work in progress.

 Day 2 - Hunt and Gather

We were to find odd objects to create

 with.  I chose Post-It notes, a found 

washer, a highlighter pen, and

packing tape to hold it all down.

Day 3 - Use a Ball Point Pen

The prompt was to use a ball point pen for doodling.

The doodling was so much fun I did another one

this time with felt tips.

Day 4 - Play with Your Food

Day 5 - Go for a Walk

This day was so busy that the only walk 

I could manage was to the mailbox.   

I used the paving pattern for inspiration.

Day 6 - Explore Abstraction

My least favorite piece.

Day 7 - Play with Drips

Day 8 - Look Down

The caption says it all.

Day 9 - Time Management

This was a day off from having to create something 

so I just did something easy and playful.

Day 10 - Cook with Fresh Eyes

Day 11 - Doodles with Borders

My inspiration pieces: a Crate & Barrel

catalog, book cover, napkin, and the

inside of a Yogi Tea box.

My other class is Dave Fox's 

Globejotting: How to Write Extraordinary Travel Tales

http://www.globejotting.com/

It just started Tuesday and already I have writer's block!

The funny thing about taking Alisa's Sketchbook Delight

class and now this Create Daily class is that what used

to be hard for me, drawing and watercolor, is now not

only easy but also pleasurable.  That's because most of what 

I draw now is starting actually to look like what I was 

attempting to draw.

And what used to be easy for me, writing, is now harder.

I'm a bit intimidated by having a professional writer critique

my work.  But having learned from Alisa's classes I know

that the more I write the better and faster it will be. 

Loving the Internet and my home creative space.

Junk Mail Artist's Book

Having so much fun with Alisa Burke's online

sketchbook class I enrolled in a quick 5-day

online class with Carla Sonheim.

www.carlasonheim.wordpress.com

She has many online classes but the one I chose was the 

Junk Mail Artist's Book

http://carlasonheim.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/junk-mail-artists-book-online-class-starts-nov-28/

First, Carla has us do warm up drawings like the one's shown here.

Next, we collect pieces of junk mail and gesso them so that 

they'll have a paintable surface.

Then we paint them using only two colors of watercolor paint.

The limitation is helpful when you're confronted with all of the

pretty colors in the paint box.

Book pages 

Assembling the book.

I couldn't resist going outside the assignment and adding some

other items discovered when cleaning out the craft closet.

Next, we start the difficult process of overcoming the fear of 'making 
a mark' on the blank page.  I finally started drawing some simple
flower shapes since the watercolor blobs didn't spark in me
any sense of an imaginary creature that Carla suggested we draw.

The idea that Carla had for this book was to carry the drawing over
several pages so that when one turns the pages one sees a 
new image.  This is much harder to do than it appears when
you look at Carla's example book and video examples.

The three photos above are my attempt to create new images 
from the original image that was drawn over three pages.


My Junk Mail Artist's Book is still a work in progress and 
not a particularly appealing work of art but taking the 
class was useful for helping me to loosen up and 
simply play with materials and drawing styles.