Chillies in acrylic

Another journalling spread of chillies on black gesso. I’m not finished with this chilli theme. I’ll do some more small ones for studies and then a large painting. It’s far more vibrant in acrylics than the Conte crayons, and quicker too.  In using an altered book, I’m glueing pages together and removing some, so that it doesn’t get too thick when I gesso all the time. This means that the pages have a bit of a ripple sometimes, and that the gutter is very pronounced. This means it always has to be worked around in some way. This is why I have a border down the side of this page, otherwise my gutter would be down the centre of the centre pot.

I’m still not convinced about this ‘art journal’ business. I am just pressing on till the end of September in the hopes that I create some good habits that I’ll use in my sketchbook. My ‘main’ sketchbook is handmade from Stonehenge paper. Nearly all the pages have been prepped in some way – mostly by just sloshing on a wash of whatever is on my palette when I’m painting. So that is not new – I just want to write more, though without turning it into a diary, and to compose the page spreads with more thought.

Drawing from the fridge

Persevering with the journal challenge. When in doubt I look in the fridge. I’d realised ahead of time that I would be short on inspiration and in a rush, so I shopped accordingly.

This is another gessoed page in my altered book of dreams. I drew very fast, almost like blind contour drawing. I used  an Artline pen (which I’m starting to prefer over the Pigma Micron) then coloured with watercolour pencils. The background was done with Aquash watercolour crayons, blue & yellow, then wet. Note that the collage has gone by the wayside. I’d had to get out too much stuff and spend too much time sorting through it. I’m 100% decided that collage in my sketchbook must be relevant, like this one. Then it’s easy – you have the stuff on the day & just glue it in.

Chillies in pastels

This is a spread from the journalling challenge. This time on BLACK gesso. Earlier this year, Mignon Parker came into the office and did a demo on black gesso and I’ve been longing to try it ever since. (Mignon is doing a free workshop at the Derivan Open Day, but sorry, it’s full).

Just after that I spotted some gloriously coloured pots of chillies outside the local florist, photographed them with my phone, and have been longing to draw them ever since.

This is conte crayons and conte pencils, two layers. Unfortunately the fixative spray deadened the colours a lot. Not sure why. I haven’t had that happen before, but then in pastels I’ve always worked bigger. This is a first study for a painting on black gesso. There’s second one done, but haven’t had time to put it on the blog yet.

In my courtyard – journal challenge.

This was Saturday’s effort for the journalling challenge. I was uninspired, but for the first time it was warm enough to sit outside. My courtyard is going to be completely redone, so it’s a mess at the moment, except for the geraniums. A little bit of collage on this page, from the magazine that comes with the Saturday paper. Gesso, Artline pen, Peerless watercolours, water soluble oil pastels.

I had a browse through one of my other journalling books -1,000 Artist Journal Pages: Personal Pages and Inspirations (1000 Series) not many with drawing, but some people are amazingly inventive.  I came across the work of Amanda Kavanagh who is also in Danny Gregory’s book  An Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration from the Private Sketchbooks of Artists, Illustrators and Designers too. I must say I like EVERYTHING she does. A quite different one I like because it’s really different and inventive is Judy Watt’s work.

Virtual Paintout – Lisbon

I went to Lisbon many years ago. I remember a beautiful city, with a castle on a hill, the Belem Tower on the water, and wonderful squares and boulevards with triumphal statues.

This drawing is in watercolour pencil. It is for the Virtual Paintout – we’re taking the little yellow man for a walk in Lisbon in September on Google Maps. He couldn’t get near Belem Tower. We were on a motorway it seemed, and there were trees blocking the view. At the castle I saw the queues outside, but only walls other than that.

This is a view in Alameda Santo Antonio dos Capuchos, looking across a park at some wonderful mansions.  I chose this view because I’ve done buildings and only buildings for Florence, London and Barcelona. Somehow I KNEW it would be Lisbon this time – where will it be next time?  Somewhere I haven’t been, for the first time?

As a reward for reading so far, I’m telling you that I can swear fluently in Portuguese. In Jersey, CI, when I worked at Hotel de France all the domestic staff and some of the management were Portuguese. We were IMMEDIATELY taught to swear by the hall porters.  I worked there for nearly 4 years, and in that time I learnt quite a lot of Portuguese. As I already spoke Italian,  once I learnt the pronunciation (which is VERY different) I could understand almost everything (which the hall porters learnt, to their cost.) I can still do swearing & food very fluently.

The journal is progressing – it’s just the blogging I haven’t caught up on. Watch this space.

Journalling Challenge

I am confused about journalling. What is it? Journalling is not a word we use in Australia, however I have a number of books about ‘journalling’ or ‘art journals’ that I got for inspiration & techniques for my artists books. Some of these books are really excellent, particularly this one  of Lynne Perella,  Artists’ Journals and Sketchbooks: Exploring and Creating Personal Pages which is worth buying for the page on image transfers alone. Her other one is pretty jolly good too  – Alphabetica: An A-Z Creativity Guide for Collage and Book Artists (Quarry Book) – it’s more a catalogue of lovely artists books/art journals by various artists, but with a showcase of unusual and interesting techniques.

What sparked this, is that I recently bought a book by another author, True Vision: Authentic Art Journaling which has similar techniques. Not that I mean they overlap, more that I mean they are collage, layering, other art techniques. These are just two of the authors that I have, but they ALL use these collage/layering techniques and I just don’t get how they’re a JOURNAL. Perhaps in some cases they may be a journal in the sense that the artist is sharing their innermost thoughts with the book.  Where I don’t see them as a journal is that the layers are very time consuming, so the ‘daily’ aspect of a journal must be missing except for the fact that, yes, you could work on them daily, but not finish a spread daily. And there is very little drawing.

Through an on-line art mailing list, I came across another artist in the USA who also remains ambivalent about journalling. We have a challenge to ‘journal’ every 2nd day in September. This is my first spread. I’m re-using a book about dreams, which is why I started with a dream I had.

My aim is to DRAW in every journal spread, but to use some of the techniques from my myriad of books to create an integrated page spread.