A Long Winter's Nap

Yesterday's project was informative but tedious, so today I wanted to do something more fun, and to me "more fun" means "involving figurative art of some sort".  But I also wanted to put to practice some of the skills I've been learning over the past week, so I decided on structured fun.  We'll get to process in a moment, but first things first, I wanted to show off the finished project, because I'm actually quite pleased with it:

"A Long Winter's Nap", indeed.

The main thing that would make it better would be stronger,  more dynamic line-work, but since the point of this piece was working on my newly-learned color technique, I'm content to let it remain basic.

It took me a few tries to figure out what I wanted to do.  I knew I wanted to use a gradient wash in the background, and I felt like I needed a wintery theme, so I was leaning towards blue and gray.  I thought I  might do a tree of some sort, but with the small size of my sketch book, I ended up doing a pretty lady bust:

I did a light under drawing in pencil!  So fancy!

I'd still been thinking vaguely tree-related, as though I might turn hair into branches and her heart/chest into roots, but then I just sort of... went a different direction:

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

And then on to the wash!  Thanks to yesterday's glaze chart, I knew that to get the colors I wanted, I'd need to lay down the gray first:

Go gravity, go!

And then came the blue!  Or, rather, turquoise:

Ooo, gradient!

I got kind of frustrated because I accidentally flicked a drop of water onto the page (upper left side).  I tried to fix it, but as you can see in the next photo, it bloomed horribly and ruined the gradient.  Oh well it's still pretty.

Then it was time for a little wet-on-wet technique, which I figured would be excellent for the storm cloud:

I was SUPER correct about this, although as you can see in the next photo, it didn't stay this contained.

After that bit of triumph, I moved on to a flat wash:

Look at that big dumb splotch.  Grrr.  But I like the highlights on the cloud!

And then started glazing my brains out!

Colors, colors, everywhere.

Then there was more glazing, and some wet-on-dry, and I finished it off with some china white for the snow.  And like I said, I am quite pleased with the results.

"But Jenny O," you might wonder, "how did you find the patience for all those billions of layers?  That looks like two hours of work right there!" to which I would reply, "Very perceptive, Gentle Reader, it was about two hours of work!"  And then I would explain that I found the patience by literally walking away from my desk in between each layer, and reading my new, Christmas-gift-to-myself book.  It was a highly effective technique, and I plan to use it in the future, as well (although I will need new books...)

I think the best thing about today's piece is that finally, finally I'm starting to see how I might actually achieve the luminous-effect of watercolor that drew me to it in the first place.

Love Fest 2017

It's that time of year again, Gentle Valentines!

YES THAT'S RIGHT IT'S VALENTINE'S DAY WHAT GAVE IT AWAY??

Ha ha ha ha hah who am I kidding?  It's Second Best Holiday time, and I can't even pretend to be coy about it.  I've been sitting on this blog entry for almost two weeks now, and I'm super excited to share it with you, because this year, for the first time ever, I exploited my child for my own nefarious crafting devices.

Behold!  The Valentine Process of 2017!

I got it into my head that I wanted to do something with Neeps's foot prints.  I didn't know what, exactly, but something.  So when my good friend Kayla came up for a visit the other weekend, I took advantage of her presence to create a scenario in which the adults actually out-numbered the toddler (true fact: a two-to-one adult-to-kid ratio is actually an equal match) so that we could wrangle him into walking about on some poster-board with painted-up feet.

Looking suspiciously like evidence in a crime scene...

It was a good call on my part, and you'll notice that there are no photos of the actual Event, because Gentle Readers it legitimately took all three of us to make it happen without too much of a mess (Kayla and I still ended up with paint on our pants.  But that's why I bought tempera.)

We cleaned up his adorable little feet...

...mostly...

...and then I hurried up and waited for things to dry.  Once that was done, I armed Neeps with a marker and let him (somewhat) loose:

ACTION SHOT!

Yes, yes, nice use of linework to bring visual flow to the piece.

And then Neeps and I had a bit of a disagreement over whether or not markers are for eating:

This is the face of Ultimate Betrayal, in case you were wondering.

At which point he rage-quit over Creative Differences, and I finished the project up on my own by creating a heart template and placing it with Intention...

Oh-so-faint pencil lines.

...and then cutting and cutting and cutting.

I MAY have gotten carried away.  Maybe.

Ooo, ARTISTIC shot.

Then I came out of my Crafting Trance and realized I'd literally made over 70 little paint-splotched hearts.  Which turned out to be a good thing in the long run, but that's another story.  For now, let's take a look at how some of the Real Actual Valentines turned out!

Glue sticks and card stock are our friends, kids.

So are clever little quips.

And now, of course, the Annual Sharing of What I Did for Nathan's Valentine!

I used one of the more abstract images- it kind of reminded me of leaves.

Kind of a little throw back to 2015's Valentine*.

Our House Motto is "Secrets and Lies".  We're a strange family.

So there you have it- another Valentine Triumph.  And who knows?  Later today I might actually have some more to share, like whatever Nathan does for me.

EDITED TO ADD:

THIS awesomeness!!

(Nathan won Valentine's Day this year, the jerk.)


*In case you missed that year's entry

We Go By the Will of the Black Rabbit

Richard Adams was an old friend that I never met, and I regret that I never sent him a thank-you note for all he did for me.

Head Doctors

Earlier this year Nathan said something very wise to me, regarding the importance of seeking health-care for mental-health issues:

"Look, if you had an antler stuck in your head, you'd go to the head-doctor, right?  Like, an antler that was making you mean..."

Sure, it sounds silly, but it really stuck with me.  I found myself doodling it today:

Owwwww

I Make It Snow On Them... Drawers?

Lately I've taken to making snowflakes while I'm hold at work.

I've been on hold a lot, lately.

Like, a LOT.

That one on the left is actually from about three years ago... I found it when I was cleaning out old files, and it's what kick-started this year's snowflake industry.

They're just super-satisfying to make.

Every time I unfold a new one I feel like a freaking artistic genius.

Azrael's Children

It's getting to be That Time of the Month Again:

Nathan gave me the Highest Praise on the special one in the corner: "I'd put that on a Trapper Keeper"

Jiggins!

Inspired by Neeps's love affair with Chicken TV, I give you the next illustration:

("Jiggins" because last night, when I told my Katie what I was drawing, that's what she thought I said.  Confused hilarity ensued.)

Cloud Warrior

Neeps did more art:

The title, appropriately enough, was "Clouds"

 I really liked it- felt it was appropriately Pacific-North-Western, a nice little reminder of of the silver-grey days that will soon fall across our current shimmering summer sun.  So I added a bit to it, because that's how he and I roll:

Pew pew pew!

Slow Swinging Sea

Made a little more progress- added just a hint of color to the background, and laid down the basic seal shape:

lurvely

Snow Mother

Yesterday the daycare gave me a piece of artwork Neeps had done:

Splashy Splash Splash

"Very nice, son," I said.  "Very minimalist.  I like it."

And immediately my mind began to whirl with how I could add to.  So tonight I sat down and did just that:

Fluffy!

It was a lot of fun- I look forward to when he's making more deliberate, purposeful marks, and the stories and drawings we'll do together throughout his life.

Bath Sketch

A boy and his duck

Sparkled So Green

Hey, remember this piece?  Well I started actually working on it.  Behold!

Not much to look at just yet.

Greeeeeeen! (and a little blue)

Now I let it percolate for a while, as I decide how I want to illustrate the seal, and whether or not I want to embroider any part of it.

Eight for a Wish

I've been making little drawings for Neeps's monthly portraits, and in light of recent activities, it shouldn't be super surprising which animal I've chosen for the swiftly-approaching Eight Month Mark:

I miss having a functioning scanner.

I'm thinking of making them a veritable rainbow of colors...

Doing It However

My mom's back in town (hooray!) and tonight we had a ladies' bonding night with my aunt.  And what did we choose to do?  Drink wine and paint stuff, naturally!

I've been to a variety of these "sip and stroke"/"paint and pour"/"drink and dab" things over the years, and although I do have some issues with them, by and large I enjoy the hell out of them (even if it takes all of my willpower not to break my canvas over the "instructor's" head) (okay that was only once)(but seriously: willpower.).  Obviously I have the unfair advantage of having already been trained in the fine art of painting (hah!) but I would say my advantage lies not so much in skill as in attitude- I'm not afraid of "doing it wrong", because I know that you literally cannot "do it wrong" as long as you like what you do.  And you have a better chance of liking what you do when you let go of the whole "doing it right" thing.

I say that somewhat flippantly, but I do recognize it's not as easy as deciding not to care.  Which is why the wine helps.  I feel like maybe they should put more emphasis on the drinking, well before the class actually starts.  If I was ever going to run one of these, I'd probably do it with hard liquor... "bourbon and brushes"!

The sad remnants of our cheese plate.

Literally my favorite part of my painting. (I was maybe driving the instructor a little crazy with my extremely liberal application of paint and general lack of caring about the lines she'd drawn)

My finished product!  Transparent petals be damned!

We want more wine.  And ice cream.  Please and thank you.

Not Quite the Thing

I've been working on nursery art here and there, and one of the things I was really excited to do was a piece celebrating Sandra Boynton's The Going to Bed Book- specifically the line, "The moon is high, the sea is deep." which has just so thoroughly captured my imagination (obviously).  I had a very clear vision in my mind, of something very graphic with bold blocks of gradient blues and a stylized yellow moon.

pencil and inks, with the idea that I'd go back over the inks after I laid down the color

 

before I went back over the ink.  note the lovely bleeding effect

refreshed inks and a brilliant yellow moon

As it turned out, I got inspired to abandon the gradient and instead use brush texture to differentiate between sea and sky.  I also went a little insane and did a fairly detailed silhouette of a frigate (because of course I did) which didn't really vibe with the stylized moon I had so clearly envisioned.

And now I'm stuck.  I got to this point a week or two ago, and I wasn't satisfied with it, so I let it sit, to see if I could think up what I want to do differently.  I do think I'm going to go over the words with silver ink, so they pop better, but other than that... I just don't know.  So I guess I'll leave it to percolate a bit longer.

Perhaps some thread embellishment?

Hwuii!

Neeps has this one particularly, ridiculously adorable baby-sound that he makes, and I've been trying to figure out how to spell it phonetically.  I put it into one of today's work doodles:

Hwie?  Huie? Hwuii?  Hwee?

Seals are also ridiculously adorable, so it fits.

Rainbow Nebula Fox Nursery

Last night as I was laying in bed, I had a bit of an epiphany:

I don't have to frame things.

See, I had all this art I wanted to put on Neeps's wall, and I'd been doggedly looking for appropriately-sized (and priced) frames that could be hung on the wall (rather than just stood on a shelf) since before he was born.  And of course I'd having zero luck finding any.

But then I had my great Epiphany, and so today I busted out my roll of painter's tape and went to town.  And then I liked it so much that I went digging through my postcard/greeting card collection and found still more awesome art for my son's walls.  This is the result:

above the changing station

Bonus?  No holes in the wall!  (well, except for where I hung the two canvases)


Next I'll work on the "dragon corner", which will be home to his very fine Targaryen print (which I actually do want to frame, since it's not on cardstock like everything I put up today) and a lovely little watercolor that Nathan did for me back in college (already framed, since it's a standard size).  And I may put the firebird in that corner, too (again- it needs to be framed to protect it, but I'm actually willing to pay to have that one professionally done, if need be).

If I continue at this rate, Neeps's room may actually be the first "totally finished" room in our house.  That we've lived in for near five years.  Don't judge.

Be Brave, Be Joyful

I've been working on a bit of Intentional Art for Neeps's room over the past week, and today I finished it up (minus spraying it with sealant, which I'll do tomorrow).  I chose to continue the vaguely nebula-ish theme I started with the heavenly foxes I did before he was born, which meant using a lot of purple and silver, with hints of blue and magenta.  It's basically a glitterific version of my own personal mantra, which I think is a good one (obviously, or I wouldn't use it), and appropriate for just about anyone, including little kids.

I started out by doing an under-drawing of the sigil I use to represent the phrase, "Be Brave, Be Joyful":

Kind of like a hula-dancing snowman?

I did this in black indelible ink, because I wanted it to act like the "bones" of the image, upon which everything else would hang.  I didn't necessarily intend for it to show through on the final image and more than our skeletons show through our skin, but it was an important piece of support.  I painted over the ink with silver acrylic, then sprinkled that with silver glitter, and finally went over the whole thing with a wash of purple.  Then I did my best approximation of a rainbow pull* with magenta, purple, and blue glitter:

(basically I just sort of tilted it and hoped for the best, then swirled up the corners with a brush)

Once that was nice and dry (and smacked on the counter a lot to try to remove excess glitter) I came back with black acrylic to write the actual phrase, "Be Brave Be Joyful".  It still needed something from a visual-weight standpoint, tho', so I added some horizontal lines (and thereby accidentally put the I Ching symbol for thunder, which is so incredibly perfect that I'm pretty sure my subconscious must have been in overdrive).

Then, of course, there needed to be more silver glitter over the letters.

But then it was too much silvery glitter, so I went over it with a wash of black, to take down the foreground bling and bring the focus back to the phrase:

Glitter is hard to capture in photographs.

I'm reasonably satisfied with the results, which are pleasingly graffiti-like (and, obviously, appealingly glittery) but I may eventually call this one a Rough Draft and do it again.  (Artists are allowed to do that, you know.)





*tracking that video down made me incredibly nostalgic for my silk-screening days.  ::sigh::  I need more free time/disposable income.