29 faces - 5/10/12

A week in and I'm already getting tired of the faces. Not so much the subject matter but the fact that I end up putting it before other things I might want to do. Which also happens to be late at night at the last minute, ha!



Next week, Sketchbook Project 2012 is coming to Vancouver! I will probably show up on Tuesday to see what all of the fuss is about.



When I went to pick up a frame for my chickadee painting I came across some tiny decorative tapes and a set for five bucks! It's probably not really worth five bucks, but since I get to bypass shipping charges I decided to try it out. So far it feels just like all of the other washi tapes so I'm pretty pleased.



The colour/patterns were pretty much irresistable.

Could this be the start of finding decorative tape locally? I really hope so! This is a Recollections low-end brand, so if it starts showing up in Walmart I would be doubly pleased.

Journal Post 5/8/12

Feeling a bit slow lately so here's a basic journal spread. I'm soooo close to finished with this journal! I think there are only 2.5 spreads left. After that I'll probably go back to the kind I sell in my shop, unless something new catches my fancy.



I'd like to start a new thing today but I feel like things are getting away from me just a little bit. My chickadee painting hasn't been framed yet for a show happening in three weeks, I haven't yet applied for Arts2012 and it's about that time of year I send cookies and gifts to my sister.



I'm usually so organised. Ha ha!



Today I'm just chilling out, tidying up, planting my new plants (strawberry, tomato, and some kind of clover). Perhaps it's time to get that frame. Perhaps it's time to make those cookies. Perhaps I should decide whether or not I'm going to replace my phone since I lost it yesterday!!!!! Sheesh.

29 Faces 5/6/12

Dumping some faces here. There were a couple of days I simply did not want to draw. Above is a random, generic face that I doodled onto my journal.



Cats have faces too! Though they usually make more sense than this one.



Self portrait from a teenage photo of me skipping rocks.



Another random photo (of someone I hardly know).


BTW: Thank you for your lovely comments that have been (or have yet to be) left. They are appreciated :)

Journal Post 5/4/12

I watched a video on journaling deep this morning about playing with blocks of colour and I decided to try it. It's not as great on glossy magazine paper (never again?) but it wasn't too terrible this time.



When the paint was dry I went over some things with my box of stinky markers.

It seems like a good exercise when you really don't feel like doing much of anything, and it's true, though I can't say that my imagination started kicking in during the process. It's been a really low ride the last month or so and it kinda feels like some of my brain connections are dead.

 

Oh man so yesterday I assembled a cake, and because our friends are all vegans I had to use vegan frosting (which is really just vegan fats mixed with a ton of sugar) and it was a total jerk! I'm so accustomed to the shiny, fluffy meringue buttercreams that switching to american style buttercream was so not cool at all.



It was like covering the cake with wall plaster! And all of my piped roses looked shredded and when I put them down they would sort of settle into unidentifiable blobs. Hate hate hate.

Pretty cool how it dries into a crunchy thing, though. I like that.

Faces 5/2/12

Here's the face I did for yesterday. I'm having one of those late mornings where I really don't feel like doing anything.

So I'm working mostly from photos I have around the house because I need practice with realism! I think this one turned out closer to reality than the first one. Maybe it's because her face is actually right-side-up? Hahaha.

It's really hard to turn off that part of the brain that wants to tell me what I'm looking at, instead of telling me what I see! 

This week I decided I would begin a sort of month-long experiment; once a week I will go and do some kind of art in a "public" space (shops aren't really considered to be public, but we'll go with it) and see what happens.

Me, I am a shy type who always hated when people watched me draw things. It's a natural thing, I don't know anyone who actually likes to have a live audience.  Yesterday I bought a sugary drink and claimed a table near the window and doodled for a bit. Two interesting observations:

1) It was surprisingly crowded and full of people just milling about and socializing. Extremely socializing. The weirdest part to me, was how professionally dressed they all were. It was, like, 9am or something. Business dress but no one was working. Where do I sign up?

2) Sit around long enough and you'll end up with free samples of things! Look at that baby frappe up there! So cute! I am also so incredibly buzzed from the coffee and the sugar that everything is an exclamation!



So anyway, if you ever follow me on the facebook, you might know that I signed up for some kind of Mystery Project from the Co-op. They send out a prismacolour marker and participants make some kind of art with it and leave it in a public place for some stranger to find. I haven't heard much online from other participants except that someone got Cinnamon Toast colour. Lucky! I got Crimson Red.



I have no idea what I'm going to make with it. Even less idea of where I will leave it. I don't much want to litter, and also this is Surrey. I don't think anyone will find a drawing and go "omg this is cool I'm going to keep this, I'M HAPPY!" I'm pretty sure a more realistic response would be "What is this? Who left this here? Into the recycling bin with you!" Which is kind of a shame. 

It's such a vague project and the theme I got was also so incredibly uninspiring ("The Future of the Year" - wtf does that mean?) so I decided just to sit and play with the pen and some watercolour paper.

Which, btw, is probably not a good paper for markers. It sucks the ink right out of that marker.

 

I love the brush tip because of how "stiff" it is, I guess. I've had brush markers in the past that were just too wobbly, but this one is pretty easy to control. It has a medium tip on the other side as well.

I made a large zentangle and now I don't know what to do with it.

29 Faces Challenge

It has come to my attention that there is an art challenge upon us, starting TODAY! Auuggh!

Anyway it sounds interesting enough: 29 Faces Challenge.



The month of May will be a month of practicing with portraits. I have embarrassing sketchbooks from high school that are nothing BUT pictures of people. Haha, to be specific, I have one that is entirely winged people. How embarrassing. I didn't even notice that until after it was completely filled up.

The point is that this should be a fairly simple challenge. I don't normally like the challenges that shame you into doing something every day (nanowrimo anyone?) because sometimes I just don't want to do it, and when you don't want to do it, it ends up crappy anyway and not very useful. It sounds like a challenge that would be very easy to cheat, actually.

One face. Every day.

BRING IT.