A Trio of Faces

I've completed three new faces in my little book this week .....

 "Reflections"

 "Worn Out"

"Sunshine"

I've used mixtures of acrylic paints, pencils both black and coloured and Neocolor II wax pastels to create the pages.  When I start drawing I'm never sure where I'm going to end up so the results can be quite scary sometimes!  I was a little over-zealous with the Sunshine page and over-wetted an area around her nose particularly, so that the paper scuffed up badly - WHOOPS! - more patience needed I think!

Contemplation

Here's my latest face drawing effort, which I've entitled "Contemplation".  

I began by colouring the background with a swoosh of Neocolour II Water Soluble Wax Pastels in Salmon, Yellow and Malachite Green, spritzing with water to blend a little. I used a soft black pencil to sketch out the face using the shapes made by the blended pastels as a guide for placement.  I kept everything soft by colouring in the face and flowers with Derwent Artists Colour Pencils.  She's a bit sterner looking than I'd've liked, but never mind - it's all practise!

Yesterday was a very exciting day at Wimbledon - first, the incredible exhausting semi-final between Djokowitz and Del Potro, then followed by the Murray match against Janowitz - again, another "nailbiter" as Murray lost the first set then - despite the break for the roof to be closed - went on to win in grand style. Tomorrow I'll be over at Lindsay's so we can watch the Murray v Djokowitz Final - no doubt there'll be much shouting and shrieking going on if the matches yesterday are anything to go by!

Good Luck, Andy !!!

Let's Face It .....

..... They're not brilliant (it's ages since I've done any real drawing or sketching figures, so yes ..... practise, practise and more practise is definitely the way to go), but I do intend making faces of one sort or another as regularly as I can, time permitting, in my little journal book (which I measured and is actually nearer 6" x 8"). Here are my two latest offerings:-

"Flower Child"

(Drawn with a black permanent ink pen and coloured with Promarkers and Marvy Le Plumes)

"Simply Zentangled"

(Used several black ink pens with different thicknesses - it's quite tricky to come up with fresh ideas for zentangle patterns and I need to loosen up - ended up with achey fingers from gripping my pen too tightly)!

I aim to try out a variety of techniques for creating my faces, some will work better than others and hopefully my dabblings will improve as I go along.  Meanwhile, I still keep on adding snippets to my "Smash" journal - little reminders (ticket stubs, receipts, business cards, photos, jottings) of my everyday goings-on and trips out - the latest being to a regularly held Handcraft and Vintage Fair at the Winter Gardens in town, which Lindsay and I went to at the weekend.  Had a good browse, saw one or two items we fancied but ultimately didn't buy, then had a pleasant lunch at the local Noodle Bar.

Friday afternoon I'll be sat in front of the telly to watch Andy Murray's semi-final match -I believe his opponent is 6' 8" with a very powerful serve, so it looks like being another "edge of your seat" affair - Lindsay and I were exhausted after watching Andy's previous 5-set thriller on Wednesday (it was good to watch though)!  Let's believe he'll make it to the Final again and come out on top this year!

I recommend ........

......... a couple of good books I've acquired recently.  The first is "Stash and Smash: Art Journal Ideas" by Cindy Shepard.  It's only a small book, about 42 pages, but packed with over 120 ideas for using your stash and recycling everyday stuff into your journals. It's had mixed reviews on Amazon, so it's one of those you either love or hate.  Doesn't matter whether you're a beginner or an expert, I personally have found it a really useful source of inspiration for my journalling with lots of tips and good ideas.

The second book I'd like to recommend is "Art Journal Freedom" by Dina Wakley which is all about using colour and composition in your journals - love the artwork in this book and lots of techniques/page exercises to try.

Sites worth checking out are Dina's own blog and her website. Also, through reading her book I have discovered a couple of excellent sites - Create Mixed Media (which has loads of arty ideas/videos/links on it) and The Graphics Fairy which is a wonderful site full of thousands of vintage copyright-free images which you can download and use in your own work.

Whilst I was browsing these sites I came across mention of a project/idea to create 100 faces, plus Traci Bautista, in another book I possess (Doodles Unleashed), recommends practise, practise and more practise in making faces. I have a small plain journal book (about 5" x 7" - ish?) that I picked up from Asda some while back, so I've decided to fill it with my own face experiments - here's the first one that I did yesterday.  It's not titled "Feeling Blue" because I was feeling sad, but simply because I'd covered the page with a wash of some leftover blue acrylic paint from another project. I sketched the face first with a Stabilo All Black Pencil, then overdrew with a fine black pen. Coloured in with a mix of Promarkers and Marvy le Plumes.  On the facing page I've jotted a few notes as to what I did and what I used. I used to love sketching figures and portraits in my schooldays, so thought it would be fun to get back into it again.

Not being much of a gardener myself and Lindsay having discovered a big love of gardening in recent months, she decided to make up a lovely big pot of mixed blooms for Graham and I to brighten up our backyard - there's all sorts in it, sunflowers (I love them), nasturtiums, oh and a number of other plants I can't remember the name of now (got a list of them jotted down on my noticeboard though) - told you I was a rubbish gardener!  The tallest sunflower is now tied to a bamboo stake and growing well, but no sign of a flower yet - but this lovely yellow nasturtium flower appeared the other day and since taking this photo, more have appeared plus some gorgeous orange ones too.  I noticed this morning that something purplish was also  starting to peek out too - it remains to be seen what it will turn out to be!

Finally, the results of the test Graham had were inconclusive so he has to have a more invasive test to find out exactly the extent of his illness. In the meantime he has been given an inhaler which is helping with his breathlessness and is on a course of tablets which are definitely increasing his appetite and giving him more (mental) energy, so things are feeling quite stable at the moment.  

Consequently, I have been convinced by Lindsay and Graham to have a treat so - yes - I AM booked on one of Tim Holtz's workshops when he's teaching them in Coventry next month. Lindsay will be there also the day before, in her capacity as a P.I. designer, but we're both stopping over in the hotel that night and will be travelling back home together after the workshop ends. I've never attended any of T.H.'s workshops before so am really looking forward to this one and the tag book we'll be making looks fabulous !