Week 49 of 365 Challenge Pen Week

Pen week mmm, when I realized last week what this weeks theme was, I groaned out loud. I'm surprised you didn't hear me lol. This week turned out to be a good week though. 

My kids are home from school for two weeks holiday and we've spent a fun week watching movies and playing games together. Even catching my son's head cold hasn't bothered me too much. Hopefully they will chase away the winter blues completely before they go back to school. My kids are great like that.

Pic one is of my gel pens that I use for journaling. I have two sets of seven colors that I bought just before we moved house a year ago. 

I don't think I've used them this year at all though. I'm happy writing in my journal with a blue or black pen at the moment but I have no urge to sketch anything in there with the writing. I've just discovered that over the years I have either painted/sketched or taken photos. I don't seem to do both together. So if I'm working on a painting project I don't touch my camera and if like now I'm working on a photography project my art muse disappears. If I have no set projects on the go, I swing easily between the two without a thought. I have no idea why.

Pic two is of my daughter's pen that her Grandma brought her back from her last trip to Scotland to visit Great Grandma.

Pic three is of some of my Pitt Artist's pens. I like the sepia color and have this color pen in both fine and brush tips.

Pic four is of a group of pens that I have sketched with in the past. I did trials with various pens in my art journal to see which pens are water resistant, fade resistant etc. I like keeping a mixture of water resistant and non-water resistant pens around. Sometimes it's nice to 'paint' with water over a non-water resistant pen to add shading to a sketch and other times I prefer to use water color paints over the pen so don't want the pen to bleed.

Pic five is of my daughter's pen cup with her favorite four color pen sitting above the rest.

Pic six is of a pen I bought from Avon to fund-raise for breast cancer.

Pic seven is of my daughter's connector felt tip pens.

Next week is Red week. 

Have a great week :)

Art and hobby supply cleanup part 2

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler ~ Albert Einstein

In the first part of my art and hobby supply clean-out I went through the 'easy' stuff first, such as the hobby stuff I knew I wouldn't be using again and the photography and computing stuff that I knew wouldn't cause me too much trouble. Tip- Anytime I know I've got 'sentimental' or ' I'm sure it will be useful when I do decide to do this hobby someday' type clutter I work through the easy stuff first. That way I get the positives of seeing an easily cleaned and organized space to help boost my confidence in working on the harder more sentimental stuff later. If I started with the hard stuff first I'd keep things I don't need, make bad decisions and end up getting discouraged and not wanting to continue. Start easy. Start small.

• Art Books. I share a love of art and an art space with my two children so the art book section needed to be looked through by all of us. We have a number of beginner 'how to draw' books that used to belong to my son before his skills outgrew them. However, my daughter is now starting to enjoy using them so they are all staying for now along with two origami books that she also enjoys. There was only one book in this section that no-one wanted so out it went. I'm new to watercolor and my son draws cartoon characters and usually colors them in pencil but has expressed an interest in trying to color them with watercolor instead. So it makes sense to keep these books and the books on how to draw animated figures. The book on perspective is also staying, as is the calligraphy book and my daughter's favorite book on using rubber stamps. The woodblock printing book also got a reprieve as my husband was interested in it. He's the woodworker in our family.

• Scrapbooking. This left the largest section of books on scrapbooking. Scrapbooking is a particularly bad area for me. It's my kryptonite. I really like the idea of scrapbooking. I love looking through and collecting the goodies that go hand in hand with this hobby but that's as far as it ever goes for me. I collect papers and supplies and books on this subject in the hopes that one day I may give it a go but honestly I'm fooling myself. If I was really going to start working with this stuff I would have already. So as hard as it feels to part with these books, I'm going to. Now you might be thinking that I should keep these books, that I might use them now that I know they are being wasted but I find them to be a nagging distraction. Whenever my eyes glide over the art books looking for inspiration or a new technique, my eyes catch on these books and the little voice in my head says "What a waste of money. Why did you buy these books you don't need? You could have bought blah blah with the money you wasted on these books!" and then I feel bad instead of excited and inspired. I guess it's like walking into a cluttered room to look for something and your brain scolding and nagging you for not cleaning up the mess. It's unpleasant and distracting from the people and things that really do matter, besides, there are enough people in the world shaking your confidence without you doing it to yourself too.

• Art journaling. Art journaling is something I really do enjoy so I've kept all of those books and wouldn't mind adding a few more to that section. I love looking through other people's journals. You get to peek into their inner world for a little while. I guess this is why some of my all time favorite photographers are street photographers. They capture little glimpses into other people's lives and worlds. I've also kept the book on how to bind your own handmade journals. I haven't made one yet but I hope to soon. 

• Magazines. This brings me to the magazines. I've kept stacks of different types of magazines to use in collages etc but they're getting in the way and they weigh a ton.(most of them were given to me so at least I didn't lose money here) I'm halving them for now and may reduce the number again if there's still too many.

• Paints.This is one area I'm not too bad in. My watercolor paints are all fairly new and in good condition as are the brushes. Even my acrylic paints and brushes are good so just a quick tidy around and a new container for the paints worked a treat. I've created space in a cupboard for the paints, gesso and other chemicals etc. Somewhere safe and out of sight.

• Pens. I replaced my gel pens and felt tip pens recently so they're all okay. I did change my storage of them to horizontal instead of vertical though because I read somewhere recently that they work for longer if you store them that way. Apparently the nibs can dry out if they are stored point up and they could leak if stored point down. So horizontal seems the way to go. I'm now storing my tech pens this way too.

• Colored pencils. All of my colored pencils are in good condition and I don't have huge sets as I don't use them a huge amount. I changed their storage to a pencil tin made from an old cocoa tin wrapped in wallpaper scraps. (See picture above)

• Paper and journals. The spare journals are new. I buy a couple ahead before I finish the old ones incase they don't have what I want in stock when I want to buy them. I decided to store the watercolor paper inside the tilt-top box I paint on instead of on a shelf. It just means that it's closer to hand when I want to use it.

• Canvases. My daughter painted on some of the spare canvases that I had which only left two 12" square canvases to store. I'm planning a couple of inspirational paintings that will look great on the wall above my desk area. From now on I'll only be buying canvases as I need them. I want to paint bigger on canvas but don't want to be storing oversized canvases in my lounge/art space. With kids and a dog it would be too easy for them to get damaged.

I think that's enough tidying for today :)

Have a great week :)

Watercolor experiment part 2

All art is but imitation of nature.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Since yesterday's watercolor experiment worked out better than I'd hoped I decided to retry an earlier attempt at painting a kingfisher. The photo above is used with the permission of my Mum. Thanks Mum :)

The image below was painted the day I bought my first set of tube watercolor paints, on the 2nd of May this year. I didn't water them down enough and tried to use them like acrylics, rather unsuccessfully.

I wasn't very happy with the results from my first attempt but I figured it was a first attempt after all. So we learn and move on.

This was today's result without any pen detail. (above)

This is today's result after the pen detail was added. (below)

I still think the pen is way too thick, I'll have to buy a .1 or .2 pen sooner than I planned but I definitely think the second painting is a vast improvement on the first though I'm glad I took a scan copy before I added the ink. I forgot to do that on the thrush yesterday.

So what do you think?

Experiments in watercolor part 1

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better

 - Ralph Waldo Emerson

I've been in and out the last two weeks on holiday with hubby and the kids. We've had lots of fun but I'd have to say that my favorite day of the holidays was a trip we took to Tauranga and Mt Maunganui. Hubby and Master 13 wanted to check out model shops, they're working on a project together and needed supplies. Miss 7 just loves exploring and I really wanted to check out an art supply store I found online called "The Red Studio". It turned out to be a great store with a very helpful salesman that introduced me to my new favorite art journal. A Daler Rowney Ebony A6 hardcover sketchbook. 150gsm off white paper, delicious and not badly priced either. 

Today was the first day of the new school term so I took advantage of the peace and quiet to try out the new sketchbook. The picture above is the result. It's in watercolor and ink.

I'm still fairly new to watercolor, I usually paint in acrylic, so I thought I'd use this new sketchbook for my watercolor experiments. My old journal only has 100gsm paper and buckles quite badly when it gets wet. I'm happyish with the end results. The paper stayed flat and was lovely to paint on. But it's going to take me a while to get used to working with watercolor paints though. They flow very freely in places I don't want them to at the moment lol. Still, I'm okay with the look of this painting but I think the pen work is too thick though for the size of the image. So I'm going to have to invest in some different sized pens, a .1 or .2 would have been better than the .4 that I used. I'd even have preferred a dark brown pen to the black but I have no idea if I can get different colors. That's something else I need to explore. Overall though I'm quite happy, I broke the first page jitters without too much hassle even though halfway through I wished I was painting a penguin or something easier instead. All up I think I spent about 45 minutes to 1 hour total on it. So it was a pretty quick job.

I'm really looking forward to filling this little book with more watercolor experiments and if they work out okay I think I'll invest in some better quality paints too to see what difference that will make. 

So what did I learn?

1. Practice, practice, practice. I need to build up my experience using watercolor paints. There are lots of tutorials on youtube to help with learning the different techniques so I have no excuse not to try.
2. The type and quality of the paper makes a huge difference! I need to use the right materials to do the job well.
3. Small images require finer tipped pens to really make a positive difference.
4. Shopping in new art supply stores is lots of fun! :)

Have a great week everyone!  :)

Overcoming Mental Blocks

 Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success.  - John Keats

I've had an up and down sort of week this week. I've had lots of ideas for drawings and paintings but when it's come time to start them I've stalled. Each time I've lifted my pen a voice in my head has told me "that's a stupid idea for an image" or "you can't draw that it's too hard". I'd developed stage-fright since I discovered that some people are actually reading my blog, shock, horror, giggle.

Luckily I have a lot of very creative friends and I sent out a call for help dealing with mental blocks and guess what? Before anyone had even answered I was back drawing in my journal. I used the idea of a mental block as a way to kick start my creativity again and it worked! So after I'd worked that out of my system I went back to an idea I had earlier in the week, "what would make my home appliances perfect?" The image below is the result.

What a time saver this would be in the mornings, especially on school days! 

I'm not sure if my mental block will stay away but it's gone for now and I have a strategy for dealing with it if it happens again. Use the problem as a solution by creating an image about the problem and hopefully that will be enough to move through the block. :)

These two images were created using different colored pens and watercolor paints.

The child and the messy room

"Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the sidewalk before it stops snowing" - Phyllis Diller

I don't know whether it's my daughter's age, she's seven, or just the way she naturally works, but my daughter's room always looks like a tornado passed through it. My son is now thirteen and I don't remember him being that messy at seven but who knows maybe my memory is going.

Anyway today we had the "you need to clean up your room or I'll go through it with a rubbish bag" talk. Miss seven whined a bit and said it was too hard to do on her own but I told her she was getting older now and that I trusted her judgement on what she wanted to keep and what should go out. So Miss seven went into her room and started to tidy up. I checked on her after five minutes and things did seem to be improving so I made the mistake of wandering off to do something else and promptly forgot all about the mess. After about an hour Miss seven proudly came through to tell me she had finished tidying and could she do something else now. Feeling very pleased with her maturity I followed her through to see what she had done.

Well, what can I say?

The room looked worse, if that's possible, than it had when she had started! Instead of going through all her artwork that was scattered all over the room and floor she had created new drawings and pulled out boxes of toys to hide them all behind and under. It was really hard not to laugh at her ingenuity.

Anyway she won and I helped her go through her artwork, storing the good pieces safely and binning the rest. We also went through the toys and sorted out some she had grown out of to donate. On the plus side we had lots of fun and even found three pairs of socks and some other clothes she thought she had lost.

This week I've been learning to draw human body parts. Realistic and cartoon hands and eyes. Hands are difficult and I need much more practice. I like the expressions you can get with just eyes though. Today's sketch is just eye expressions made with a black pen.

I love scooters!

Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, "Wow! What a ride!" - Hunter S. Thompson

I am in love with scooters, scooter mad some might say. I'm always looking at them in magazines and books. I can never walk past one without stopping for a look. Even my favorite t-shirt has a Vespa on it and now I've started drawing them too. I guess I just need to get this scooter craze out of my system.

Years ago I owned a motorcycle, a Kawasaki 250cc. It was the first bike I owned and I loved the freedom I felt on it. A car has just never appealed to me in the same way. My brother-in-law had a scooter at around the same time and we started swapping rides some times. I loved it and actually preferred the scooter to the motorcycle. In the end I sold my bike to fund a trip round the South Island (New Zealand) with my husband. My parents were living down there at the time. Then time moved on, I had children and scooters and bikes seemed impractical and any thoughts of owning one again were pushed out of my mind, until recently.

I'm not sure when the thoughts about scooters started again but I've started thinking about touring around New Zealand on one. Who knows maybe one day once the kids are older they might join me :)

I thought I'd try tea staining the paper for this one. I wanted a more retro feel to go with the age of the scooter. I'm quite pleased with the results. A friend of mine uses coffee to stain the paper so I might give that a go next and see whether there's much difference in the finish. The bike is in pen and watercolor.

A Piggy Tale

"Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves" - William Lowndes

Wow what a week!

A sick child at home with a tummy bug and then an allergic reaction caused by the same illness and also Hubby home with a swollen infected leg. As you can imagine life has been a little busy and distracting so I've only managed one journal entry this week. 

It's that time of the year again when the IRD send you strange nonsensical letters about your taxes just to scare you before they tell you they made a mistake and they owe you money, fingers crossed anyway :D 

It's also council rates time grrr, so not really my favorite month.

Anyway I spotted our terracotta piggy bank high up on a shelf in the kitchen and thought "mmm I wonder if there's anything in there?". 

Short answer "No".

This got me to thinking about how many other empty piggy banks could be languishing in the back of people's cupboards and shelves around the world in this time of global financial unrest. Could the cute little piggy bank soon become nothing more than an empty ornament as governments gradually drop small value coins as prices go up or as we eftpos everything and therefore never handle money? Could our children end up with nothing to jingle in their little piggies?

What a horrible thought....

While working on this with some new black pens I discovered that they weren't as permanent as I thought they were. I suppose I should learn to test these sorts of things out before I start a drawing? Anyway this opened up a whole different way of shading as I just added water with a brush to see what they would do. Then I just finished with some burnt sienna watercolor paint and a brown colored pencil.

I also discovered something weird, when I started trying to draw this pig with pencil I just couldn't get it right. I erased bits here and there, redrew the pig twice and in the end chucked the pencil and picked up a pen. It came out pretty much how I wanted it straight away. No erasing, no second chances. It's like my brain said "Right, this is it, no chance to fix anything so get it right!" And it worked! The scooter from the next post was drawn straight off with a pen too. I think I might just lose the pencil for a while and see how things go ;)