Something very different(ish) for me… a touch of life drawing! It’s been near enough eight years since I last had a go at this sort of thing. Pleased to see I’m not too bad at it… definitely giving it another go when I can :-)
Watercolour painting of a Prickly Hakea. I started drawing different plants last month from the area where I live. This month I am turning them into watercolours, with the Hakea being one of the first.
I was working on nighttime or dark themes and trying to get more contrast than the last piece I made. I wanted to also work on atmospheric perspective and depth with the clouds. Overall, I am pretty happy with the outcome. This is from a reference picture my husband took from our backyard. Painted with Rebelle 6 Pro.
A wonderful reflective poem from Wendell Berry entitled "How to be a poet" is a fantastic foundation for an art curriculum. The last of three stanzas reads as follows:
Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.
One last drawing before 2021 draws to a close...
There may come a day when I don’t get inspiration from Wings Of Desire, but today’s not one of them (tomorrow’s not looking good either), hehehe. Happy new year when it comes my friends!
To be perfectly honest, the latest lockdown announcement here in Scotland was bound to influence my art in some form or another...
Needless to say this is going to be one looooong winter, one that’ll have me blasting “Here Comes The Sun” by The Beatles once it ends, or at the very least stabilises.
"Billy gets there last, wiggles up a spot..." from the Graham's Up the Tree book. I grew to love these kids after drawing them so much. They sort of became real to me.
Sometimes, a good goodbye is also a fresh hello.
As we wrapped up our "Sacred Spaces" paintings, I asked our student teacher to design a one-day project—something playful, earthy, and engaging to ease the class into her care. She brought mud. Literally.
Using mud and simple stencils, students pressed images—flowers, insects, wings—onto the sidewalk behind our school. There's something timeless about making marks with the ground itself. It felt ancient and immediate at the same time.
These prints won’t last long, but maybe that’s the point. A fleeting image, a shared laugh, a new hand guiding the next phase of learning.
Art is about making marks. Not all of them need to be permanent.
First time coloring with markers since I was a kid. Couldn't sleep last night so I started drawing this. No idea what it is. Just let the pen do the work haha organized my art supplies today and decided to finally try out my markers.
Part of a personal project I'm working on right now, to experiment with new art styles and practice lettering skills by drawing animals. The color palette and symmetrical motifs in this one were inspired by the boats on Lake Xochimilco in Mexico, which is the last remaining place wild axolotls live.
It totally bypassed my mind that last night I would be off to see Gary Numan with my uncle. The perks of having both an over-active work life and a social one too...
