From the Depths of My Orphan Drawer

This is a project that I started many years ago - painting the lid of a wooden box meant to hold 2 decks of playing cards. I was working in acrylic craft paint and got as far as completing the background and laying my drawing down. And then I stopped.

Until today, when I was in a really pissy mood - something is draining my car battery and I thought I'd figured it out. Apparently not! 

Anyway, I needed to channel all of that negative energy into something much more productive and this is what I picked. For a first layer I'm really pleased with it. I'm at the standing back and making some more decisions stage. I could tidy it up a bit, paint the rest of the box solid black, sign it and seal it. OR I might put some muted poppies in the background. Seeing it here, I'm leaning towards the first. Cleaner that way. 

Spring Cleaning

Yes, it's that time again - the temps are warming, grass is greening. I did a major purge of my art supply cupboard just last month so no need to change anything there. My studio is pretty darn tidy if I do say so myself, well, within the parameters of being functional which is key. 

So what''s left to be done?? That seemingly never ending problem of the cat hair to pigment ratio in my watercolour palette. It finally got the better of me while I was playing in my paints this afternoon. 

So, time to scrub it out and lay out fresh paint. This is also the time that I make brutal decisions as to what pigments stay and which are relegated back to the cupboard. 

Indigo has long been a favourite of mine when you need that perfect hit of dark but sadly, it just doesn't play nice in my palette. It somehow manages to ooze it's way into the other paint wells during the wee hours of the morning and continues to do so even as I try and clean it up. So, back to the tube for you!

Undersea green is another one that may be put on time out, especially since I plan to bring Q gold back to the palette - mix it with some ultramarine blue and boom howdy!

But the cat hair really has to go.

Cyclamen

Came across a lovely painting of cyclamen in Ros Jenke's journal and I was inspired to try and paint my own version. 

This was both drawn and painted very loosely - it wasn't a completely blind contour drawing but pretty close LOL. Colours used are Sap green, ultramarine blue, quinacridone magenta and just a few touches of raw sienna. Took about 30 minutes in total, including drying time. 

Quick sketches like this are an excellent way to warm up my painting brain and to remember to not take myself so seriously sometimes. I need to remember to do more of this. Yeh, yeh, I've said it before but I'm going to really try and remember it this time LOL. 

Day 2

Poppy seedheads (C)2015 Susan Langdon - 5x7 Strathmore CP

Today's drawing done with Pilot V-pen, which does wonderful things when you wet it. 

I may or not post every day, I'll see how it goes. I may choose to do a mass posting once a week of what I've drawn.

Inktober

Decided to participate in InkTober this year. I've read about this daily drawing challenge in the past but usually well after it's over. This year I put it on my calendar ahead of time so my aging brain wouldn't forget and it worked! 

In 2009 artist James Parker started the InkTober drawing challenge

My participation serves two purposes though - I do a pen drawing every day during this month which then provides me with at least 31 drawings that I can paint in January, a time of year that I often find myself lacking in motivation because it's not Spring yet. Win-win in my book.

Mason jar flowers pen and ink (C)2015 Susan Langdon 8x10 Strathmore CP

This one doesn't count towards the challenge as I drew it quite a few weeks ago but it gives you the idea of what I'm hoping to stockpile for the upcoming Dark Time.  Hey, it's no secret; I'm not winter's biggest fan. 

Started working on today's entry and ran into a little problem. Since I've been busy lately planning an upcoming bathroom reno and mucking out my closet, I haven't had my paints out for a couple of weeks, so of course I had to throw some on. I'm writing this post while I wait for it to dry LOL. Oh well, will just have to do another drawing to put away for January. 

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.

Moving Forward

While I'm extremely satisfied with my efforts and commitment to last month's challenge, I'm looking forward to the flexability of choosing my own subjects for my daily art. And breaking out of the sketchbook format, today's piece notwithstanding LOL.

I'm going to continue to do something creative every day but I'm relaxing on the daily posting for now and just see how it goes. If I find over the next week that one spurs on the other then I'll put that back in to my routine.

I have checked out the Every Day in June prompts and can fall back on them for ideas if need be. There's also another blog group that I want to check out that posts a different prompt every two weeks. They've been around for awhile so will have an archive of past prompts to pick from as well. Plus the Virtual Paintout visits Estonia this month. A plethora of riches awaits!

EDM2015 - an envelope

Envelopes don't have to be boring. For the few bills I still pay by snail mail, I try and use these - they brighten my day and hopefully the person on the other end too!

 

 



I used a combination of watercolour, watercolour pencil and pigma micron markers for this. Shadows continue to vex me.

Purple Flag Doodle

Just a bit of fun on a beautiful spring day.

This is what happens when you're not paying attention

SEYMOUR
 

So I set out to do a simple still life of a potted tulip. Seems straightforward enough right?

Well, I was focusing on the terracotta pot because one of my favourite things about watercolour is the lovely mix of colours you can end up with. I wanted it to look worn and slightly dirty; a pot with character not some newbie fresh off the shelf.

So far so good, until I looked up and my lovely clay pot suddenly had this mutant ninja tulip growing out of it LOL. It doesn't look as bad here on my monitor but trust me, in real life it looks ready to devour the viewer. The more I tried to tame it with shadow and light the bigger it grew.

I'm going to keep it, because if nothing else it makes me laugh every time I look at it!  As for the terra cotta pot - mission accomplished LOL.

It pays to tidy up

Decided it was well past time to reorganize my desk/studio area and found a couple of quick sketches I had forgotten about. Given that I woke up to snow falling fast and furious, I appreciated the cheery nature of my find.



Thankfully the sun came out, the snow has completely melted and it's like the whole thing never happened LOL.

It's beginning to feel like Spring

Poured Daisies (c)2015 Susan Langdon
7x5 in on 140 lb CP Strathmore paper

Temps are rising, snow is melting and it truly feels like winter is letting go. My personal challenge to do something art wise every day for a month is definitely working.

Some days it's new work and other times it's searching through my orphan drawer and taking out a half finished piece and working on it. That's what happened here.

This was a poured piece that I did last year, oddly enough during this same period of ennui. It was okay but didn't feel finished, yet I didn't know what it needed. This year, apparently, it needed a little ink work.

It's different for me but that's okay - I'm in a mood to break out of my norm and try new things.

Finally

It's been many, many weeks but finally I've put something down on paper that makes me happy. This is just the colour test done on scrap paper for a sketch I've already drawn but it pleased me enough to put it here.

I've also challenged myself to do art every day for a month in order to push through my own creative block. Sometimes I just need to get out of my own way, as a dear friend reiterated for me last night, and stop making things more complicated than they need to be LOL!

So Day #1 complete.

Lest We Forget

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

Coloured Pencils

This past week's instructor Koosje Koene prefers to work in coloured pencil so that was her focus, in addition to working outdoors. It's been ages since I've done anything in that medium and trust me, I won't be using it again anytime soon.

Turns out, my left brain is quite the know it all bully. When faced with the challenge of doing this new thing, he just bullied his way to the front and said come on, come on, get on with it already!

I found myself working with increasing frenzy, hardly looking at the flower (because Lefty insisted he knew what a flower looked like) and getting more and more frustrated with what was being put on the paper. Not a pleasant experience at all.

I also find no satisfaction in the slow build up of layers needed to achieve the colour depth. I have much new found respect for artists who choose to work in this medium but I'm glad we're returning to watercolour with the next lesson.

Oh and sketching in public is still on my to do list - there just wasn't time for it at lunch this week. Carol and I had way too much other fun stuff to catch up on.

New WIP

Yes, I started something new for a change. I'll be posting it in stages, although I missed capturing it in it's really ugly preliminary stage. It's now at the point where both I and any random viewers will have some idea of what it's supposed to end up like.

I'm really pleased with the ironwork on the window and the impression of geraniums thus far. The perspective as always is a little wonky but we'll see what I can do about that in the next stage. Also, where the window meets the wall needs to be pushed back and I can do that with colour and value (she says ever so confidently!). The arching bricks at the top of the window, well that may require some judicious cropping if all else fails.

I have also enrolled in summer school starting July 4th. Danny Gregory's "Sketchbook Skool" to be precise and I'm so looking forward to it. I've been sketching off and on for a number of years and most times I'm quite pleased with what emerges.

And of course, what does one need when one is starting school? New supplies!
I have ordered a Stillman and Birn Beta series 5.5" x 8" hardcover sketchbook. The beauty of these, or so I've read, is that they will lie flat so you can do a full sketch across two pages and not have a channel in the middle. This size also opens to fit the standard scanner glass.

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.