Abbeydale xmas card

An Abbeydale Christmas (c)Susan Langdon 2015 watercolour and graphite on Strathmore CP paper 8 x 10 inches

Everybody made it in except for the chickens! From left to right that's Minx, Flora, Fauna, Tabby, Halle and Itty Bitty up on the roof. 

Something a Little Different

This card is done using a glue resist I had seen used on Pinterest. The pumpkins were 'drawn' with ordinary white glue which was then allowed to dry overnight. 


This allowed it to flatten out somewhat but in the areas where I got a little heavy handed it's quite dimensional! The glue is then outlined in ink and the rest painted in as desired. 

Doesn't really show it here but it's kinda neat in person, very tactile. I'll definitely be using it again with other subjects. 

Line drawings

 

 

Just needed to 'see' for myself these line drawings before I go any further. The one on the left is both front and back of a 5 x 7 in card. The image on the front of the card will be watercoloured; the remainder of the image, once it's completed, will either be coloured or left as just the ink lines. I've seen cards where the design is carried over to the backside and wanted to give that a go myself. Not sure I'm making my idea clear here but it will make more sense when I've posted the completed page.

 

I'm also fairly pleased with the whippet line drawing - trying to get the proportions right was a bit of a struggle but I think I got there in the end. 

More Card Ideas

Previously I've printed some of my work as A2 size notecards for use as either general notecards or xmas cards but lately I've been more focused on hand painted A7 (5" x 7") cards that will be one offs. Here's a sample of what's been swirling around in my brain of late.

  

I think the one on the left surprised me the most as it started out as dobs of pink and blue paint randomly placed on a cream coloured wash, with no idea as to what the final outcome would be. I stepped away from it for a few hours and Alliums came to mind when I revisited it. A few simple ink stems and I'm calling it done.

The Emergence of Orange

Didn't realize until I went to post this one that orange has suddenly made a more prominent appearance in my work lately. Definitely not one of my usual hues but perhaps I'm gearing up for autumn.

A Couple of Card Ideas

 

Playing around with some 5 x 7 watercolour cardstock that I had on hand. (It's always good to shop at home!) The one on the left incorporates some stamps I had along with some line and wash work. The puffin was painted from a photograph by a UK photographer named Gary Jones, with permission granted via the Paint My Photo website. You can see more of his work at www.portraitsofnature.co.uk

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays to all.

Thank you for stopping by my little corner of the world.

 

                                                                            

At the Printers

Finally got my cards off to the printers this morning, hopefully to be picked up tomorrow so I can get them packaged up for sale. If things work out to plan that only puts me 4 days behind where I was last year at this time. Considering my xmas muse was late arriving - I tried to book her in for mid October but she was having none of that - I'm quite happy about that.

I ended up with four new designs, just not the ones I originally thought I would. In the end, the row of xmas balls seen below just didn't speak to me when it came time to putting it into card format. Neither did Claire the Christmas sheep (sorry Alison, by next year she should be ready). However, I did manage a humourous snow man and a more traditional bit of pinecones, holly and ribbon that I liked. These two, along with Rudy aka One Cool Dude and this year's Nuki and Friends will round out the class of 2014.

Note to self: images for printing were scanned at 300dpi with contrast increased to 20 in the hopes that the colours will be much more true to life when they're printed. Last year's colours needed to be more saturated - hopefully they now don't come out too garish, yikes. Time will tell.

Sophie waiting for Santa

Another card

I'm certainly not the first to put a reindeer in sunglasses but I do like the look of this fellow. The white was masked out with ordinary scotch tape and the rest of the paper flooded with paint. I continued to play with it until I had the mottled background I wanted.

 

I think Rudy is going to make the cut for xmas cards this year. I've also been playing with a circle template that I bought recently and that led to thinking about xmas balls, which led to the next card idea.

 

Instead of watercolour, these are coloured with Tombow markers, a new medium for me since I started with sketching classes this summer. They easily retain their vibrancy and dilute well when hit with a bit of water.

I was attempting to get some sort of depth of field by varying the size of balls and thickness of line but it didn't really work. Oh well, I like them anyway. 

 

 

 

 

Lest We Forget

This is my rendition of Georgia O'Keefe's Red Poppy in watercolour.

Coming along

Nuki and I had a lovely chat this afternoon and most of the major decisions are made except we can't decide what colour his hat band should be. I'm pretty sure it's going to end up being a dull red but decided to let that percolate overnight in case I have a lightbulb moment. I just can't quite let go of the idea of plaid but am not sure it would look the way I envision it and I think it would be a distraction so it stays blank until tomorrow.

Looking at it here I see I also need to darken his hat. That, plus all of the shadows still need to be put in so fingers crossed he'll be finished tomorrow. Then I just have to get him into card format so we can go off to the local print store sometime this week.

Cat hair not included - dang stuff gets everywhere!

Conversation

Despite some long term neglect, it seems Nuki and I are finally back on speaking terms. There's still a lot more to do with it but I'm pleased with how things are going thus far.

I have a few other ideas as well but I'm not yet happy with the drawings for them so they'll continue to float around in the ether for awhile.

DC Rowhouse

Last fall, Kate sent me this picture of a house she passes on her way to work. The mix of left over fall pumpkins with bright sparkly xmas lights on a dreary grey day caught her eye. I decided to try a line and wash painting of a section of the photo.

Now the hardest part of this for me is keeping the colour to a minimum. It's meant to highlight the ink drawing only and knowing when to stop is incredibly hard. I had to put this away twice so I wouldn't keep adding 'just a bit here' because that doesn't end well. Not that the outcome is bad per se, it just ends up not being what I set out to do. So here is my result. For now :^)

The original looks better than this scanned version - the suggestion of leaves on the tree looks yellow here where in fact it's a light but definite green. The shadowed archway behind the shrub near the lower right corner looks nonexistent here. I do like the potted plants though so that's something. Not sure what it needs but it needs something. Will have to ponder that and report back.

Okay, I couldn't stop myself. Let's see what it looks like now.

Well that's better. It's hard to tell here because the paler colours ie the shadows under the windowsills and roofline don't seem to scan well. But I'm happier with the balance of coloured areas in this version.
 This is something I need to remember when I'm setting cards up ready for printing. I know at Xmas last year the colours weren't as saturated as I would've liked them to be and I must take care of that before I send them out.

And I really like the 'less than perfect' application of colour, something else that's hard for me to leave alone even though I like the look. I really need to mat it and frame it now.

A disaster remastered

This piece evolved over a period of many years. Originally the leaves were to have pink edges and blend into the green - that was the disaster part. I clearly didn't know what I was doing and it didn't work. Hard edges everywhere and no blending LOL.

So I painted the bud and cropped it digitally to use for cards. End of story or so I thought. Jump forward to yesterday when Nan was looking for something to take as a housewarming present for a mutual friend who had been asking about my artwork.

She liked this and asked would I give it a try and see if i could fix it. And this was the result. Not bad considering I didn't have a reference to work from, nevermind I was unsure of what colours I had used. I've cropped it again here in order to eliminate a big magenta blob that somehow had worked it's way onto the original - probably because it had been relegated to the scrap pile in my head LOL.

Nan is off to find a mat and frame so she can take it to dinner at A's tomorrow night. Hope she likes it. Can't deny I'm a bit chuffed with how it turned out, hence posting it here.