This started as some scribbling with Inktense pencils on large plain drawing paper. Then I was done, I wanted to wet the the drawing to release the "ink," but I found that the paper would not take water without drastic buckling. So, it remains a drawing rather than becoming a painting.
Annuals are encouraged to seed in the less formal beds in our large garden.
We tend them, photograph them, and I draw and paint them. This is a colored pencil (Prismacolor) drawing of one of our seedling poppies. It was an odd form. Not exactly a single, nor a double and lacked the common cross markings in the throat.
When I was planning this pattern I really wanted it to have a dark background. I built it in photoshop using hand drawn marker flowers but when I try to place them on a dark background it looks ridiculous!
This is the book I made which contains the educational paper I wrote and illustrated about my trip to China in the summer of 2017. I gave a lecture entitled, The Sketchbook: Let's Connect at ICON10, The Illustration Conference in Detroit, MI this past July. I gave a few of these books out along with pocket sketchbooks to the audience. Below are a few spreads from the 40-page book.
There's a big drop of black ink spilled near the center... It's like that bit of ink just couldn't wait to be part of the art. Sometimes a rough sketch takes on a life of its own.
Bearskullpine
A new bigger version of my earlier drawing
In the Finnish mythology killing of a bear was followed by a great feast in honour of the bear (peijaiset), where a substantial part of the celebrations consisted of convincing the bear's spirit that it had died accidentally and hadn't been murdered. Afterwards, the bear's skull was hung high upon a pine tree so its spirit could re-enter the heavens. The bones of the bear were then buried under the pine.
