A ‘FAIL’ and What Came Afterwards

Posted on January 24, 2015 by thecontentedcrafter

In case you haven’t caught up yet, I am taking Life Book 2015 this year. This past week we had the opportunity to watch an artist at work and then, if we wished, to follow her process and have a go ourselves. No instructions were given, so it was a case of wing it, be inspired and have a go.

First up I have to admit I wasn’t that inspired. It wasn’t the artists fault. I really enjoyed watching her process and what she made. I think I felt the process was finished right there. But as I want to try new things this year I decided to get stuck in.

I decided to use an already collaged A4 water colour paper – the fact that I didn’t like the colours on the paper should have been warning number two – but apparently it wasn’t and I pushed on doggedly.

I made this

It’s an epic ‘FAIL’ There is nothing in here that is pleasing in any way. Layers of colour turned muddier and muddier – the figure is – just awful. I certainly learned a lot about what not to do ……….

So I tried again.

The rest of this post is specifically for Frank, who asked me to document my process – I hope you will enjoy seeing the stages

First I sketched my whimsical walker

Then the first layers of colour are applied to the face and body

I worked with these three colours until I got the shading, shape and depth I wanted – maybe eight or nine layers of colour – I wasn’t counting. Next some red is introduced

The hair colour is ‘Payne’s Grey’

She’s well and truly in ‘the ugly stage’. I know to keep going, it’s just a phase!

I’m still working on the face, adding layers and details, backwards and forwards, switching between eyes, nose, mouth, legs …..

Suddenly and abruptly, she leaves the ugly stage and starts to come alive. I paint her tutu

Her underskirt appears and words are added. Later I discover I don’t like the word ‘Walk’ here

The background colour is painted in and I’m in the zone

I work for another hour and a half, collaging and adding in the background detail, painting layers over, toning down with gesso and bringing back up with more yellow and green. ‘Walk’ is discarded. The face and hair get final attention. I take no photos, I am too engaged with what I am doing. Finally I am happy, she is done

The Tightrope Walker, holds her heart in her hands and walks out onto the high wire. Her eyes are closed, she is intent on her inner world, her intuition, her trust, her faith and her knowing. The sounds and activities of the world do not pull her off balance. She is in the zone.

Thanks for coming by today, I love that you did!

All I Am – Another Art Journal Page

Posted on October 12, 2013 by thecontentedcrafter

Orlando the Marmalade Cat has been the star of the show for the last three posts, I decided it must be my turn again! And today I decided to work in my art journal again – I haven’t since September 14th [Be the Change …….] My how time flies!!

All I knew when I started was that I wanted to work with my new Monte Marte acrylics, which I’ve had since the end of August and still hadn’t opened. They are beautiful – rich, thick and creamy and as you will see, with a fabulous depth of colour.

I started by laying down some old book pages, which I gessoed over and then I painted.

When the paint was dry I used a couple of acrylic stamps – one with scratchy marks on it and one with words – and randomly plonked them around the pages. Finally a small Dyan Reavelly stencil came into play and I used a dry sponge with almost no gesso on it to dab out the spots and flowers.

With the background done I sketched the head outline in pencil then painted the area white. Once that was dry I could settle in and let the features begin to reveal themselves.

I had three colours on my palette for the face and added in some metallic bronze for the hair – in real life when the light hits the page the hair sparkles 🙂

By the time I had finished painting her the words were clearly in my mind, so I wrote them out onto book paper, cut them out and stuck them in before I could change my mind.

Close-ups for you:

Couple of detail shots:

I love my new paints!

Thanks for coming by today, I love that you did! 🙂

Spots Before My Eyes!

Posted on August 30, 2013 by thecontentedcrafter

Hello there 🙂 [waving and smiling happily}

Here I am with the latest episode of my adventure in learning to step outside of my comfort zone. Although, to tell the truth and ‘fess up, pretty early in this lesson I began by doing my own thing, as I wasn’t in love with the flowers the tutor produced on her page

I started well, laying down a coat of white gesso followed by two coats of black paint as I did not have to hand any black gesso.

Then the rebellion started. I didn’t like what I was seeing [multi-coloured scribbles of water soluble crayon to make three flowers] so I made my own flowers from design paper and a template. I made every flower two layers, off-setting the layers. I cut one completed flower in half. I outlined the petals with a black pen and then doodled dots and lines as the tutor indicated.

Day 1 the page looked like this:

So far, so good right? I was quite pleased with that ……

Next day I began by edging everything with a gold pen ………..

…….as I returned to the format the lovely tutor was trying to teach me and I edged, dotted, swirled and scripted with the paint pen over two days until the page looked like this:

Apart from the flowers and gold paint, this double page spread was made almost exclusively with a paint pen – which is really just a fat ‘Sharpie’ like marker filled with white acrylic paint.

Over these four days I dotted, doodled, scripted ‘Spring is coming’ [because it really is – Hallelujah!!] and recorded my thoughts on the process.

My thoughts on the process have settled into – I don’t really like this style of working in my art journal. Which is good to gain clarity on. I don’t use my art journal as a diary. I use it to try out ‘good ideas’ or to play about and see what happens and am not that comfortable with mixing up the two. I also tend to work organically developing and tweaking the original idea for quite a while before moving on to something different.

Having said that I feel I have been freed up a lot while engaged in the process, I’ve tried loads of different things, been introduced to radically different concepts [for me] and I’m pretty sure they will spill over in some way into my continuing work.

I’m also not a ten-minuter. I’m a sixty minuter or more! I have the time and I like to spend it carefully crafting and trying, discarding, re-doing and endlessly tweaking.

These are all really great discoveries to make and I am so grateful to have been able to take this workshop and find it all out.

I no longer need castigate myself for my slow and ponderous efforts.

I’m a plodder and proud of it!

I might have to rename my blog ‘The Happy Plodder’ – has a certain ring don’t you think?

Any hoo – I digress. Here is the completed spread – don’t look for too long or you’ll start hallucinating:

The keen eyed among my bloggie friends will spot that I am projecting myself a day into the future … [I’m publishing this Friday 30th – a deliciously spring-like evening in my part of New Zealand] I cheated, I just can’t look at the dots and doodles and swirls and spots any longer!

I haven’t finished my course yet – I think I’m just over half way through. And I think I’m going to ditch the ten minutes a day and work for however long I feel like it on each installment. Which means I might have it finished in a day or two. 🙂

Please do pop back and see what happens next. I know I’m curious to know….

Thanks for coming by – have a great weekend!