Goals for Artist Journal course & testing papers

In just a few days Kate Johnson’s Artist Journal class begins. In the past I have been sceptical about “art journalling”  – maybe it’s a language thing. I think that a ‘journal’ (US English)  is a diary, which is why I don’t see the work of many art journallers, wonderful though it is, as journalling, or keeping a visual diary, as I’d put it . Much of the work is so labour intensive, with all the layering, that there is no way there can be an element of a regular entry. I’m sure these artists do work on their ‘art journals’ regularly, perhaps even all day every day, but I do feel that the ‘diary’ element is missing. Maybe I would call them an artist’s book.

My goals in this course are to .. (1) improve the way I treat each double page spread (2) draw or paint, with only minimal relevant collage (3) find a way to speed up my drawing (4) form the habit of drawing more regularly (because faster).

These drawings are preparation. I have a number of handmade books all ready to start, but I wasn’t sure which to use, as I have a Stonehenge one, a BFK Rives one, and an Arches Medium one.  I plan to use the full variety of media in this course, so I wanted to test the papers. I ruled out Stonehenge as my current nearly full sketchbook was of that paper.

First, I tested watercolours on the BFK Rives. I know it takes wet media well, but just wasn’t sure about watercolour. It has a bit of a woolly look, but generally acceptable. Then  I tried watercolour pencils on the Arches Medium. Again, reasonable, but I prefer smoother for a diary, so I’ll put that one aside for when Kate does her watercolour course.

Both these images were from Google Maps street view for http://virtualpaintout.blogspot.com The first one is Belfast (which I missed the date for), and the second is Halifax Nova Scotia which is the November  location.

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.

Orchid with watercolour and watercolour pencils

This image is mixed media. I masked the orchid, the main stem, and the green bud behind the orchid, then I put the background on with watercolour. I painted a wash of raw sienna with some dirty ultramarine in the sky area. While it was wet I painted a lot of narrow vertical strokes in greens and browns. I dropped in a few pieces of urea to break up the background. When that I was dry I drew more vertical strokes with watercolour pencils, drew the orchid and the bud, and very much darkened the stem – all with watercolour pencils.    This is the photo I was working from.

World Wide Sketchcrawl Cockatoo Island

Saturday was the 22nd Word-Wide Sketchcrawl (my 3rd). It was the perfect day for going to Cockatoo Island – not too hot, not too cold. Cockatoo Island is a large island in Sydney Harbour. It is an old shipyard with amazing machinery and old buildings. Everything is rusted and distressed and there were a lot of photo opportunities. There were eight of us. We caught the 10 am ferry out there, and my friend and I were last to leave catching the 3.15 ferry back.

There is a lower and upper area to the island, with the dock facilities being on the lower part (of course). There were many shapes of these old cranes, and one of the sketchcrawlers drew them in a way that each had their own personality. Fantastic. I wish I could do that.

It is always interesting to meet the other Sketchcrawlers and I enjoyed looking at everyone’s work over lunch at the Muster Station. I always learn something – every time. This time I learnt that there is free Life Drawing at the Sandringham Hotel in Newtown on a Monday – maybe 15 minutes walk from my house.

Cockatoo Island is easy to get to – once that you’ve been once. I’m sure I’ll go again. I took many photos, though the light was not great for photography. Maybe I’ll go out early and get some images with long shadows.

Where are my drawings? They’re in the preview. I’ll try again later – maybe there’s a glitch.

Dr Sketchy’s at the MCA

Dr Sketchy’s came to the MCA again a couple of weeks ago. Fabulous again!  The link above will take you to an image where you can see the setup  – we’re all in a big u-shape with three models to draw. That image is from last year, and you can see my drawings from last year here.

This year was related to the current exhibition of Yinka Shonibare so the models wore some interesting outfits. That exhibition finishes very soon, but if it comes to a place near you – don’t miss it!

Again, there were three models, so it was easy to see well, but I must say we were awfully close and that’s a challenge in itself.

These first two drawings were only two-minute ones, which were a lot better than the ones I did a year ago.

The next two drawings are 5-minute ones.  That’s not a nipple – it’s a flower stuck there.  I was happy enough with these two, but the ten-minute ones were not great.

After that,  I decided to be very daring for the 15-minute ones & just go for it with a pen!

I just scribbled & scribbled as fast as I could go, then dabbed on some watercolour- though my waterbrush wasn’t co-operating so well.

I was working in an old A4 sketchbook – leftover from college. Last year I did a myriad of ghastly one and two minute drawings in a ‘good ‘ sketchbook, so I decided not to make

that mistake again.

Missing Monet

On 2nd January we went to the Art Gallery of NSW to see the Monet Exhibition. We thought it was so quiet, everybody away, what a good day to go. Wrong!

We arrived just after they opened at 10am and there was an enormous queue right around in a circle. OK, coffee now, we thought. But it was no better after the coffee, and people were still pouring in the doors. We did the Japanese exhibition and an Australian Landscape exhibition – no change – they were still arriving. Round the shop (no purchases this time) and they were still joining the queue, so we gave it a miss.

We went to the gardens, had lunch outside (hoping to draw birds, but they weren’t co-operating) so we went to the lotus pond and drew that. Well, I wish I’d just drawn the leaves really. The flowers make it look too ‘pretty’ and I was more interested in way the light felll through the leaves to the ones below.