AEDM days 15 and 16, WOYWW 128 - nice parcels and some drawing

Line drawings on my 'workdesk' today (the arm of the sofa!) of a hosta leaf and a hydrangea flower.  I'm working in a large-ish square kraft notebook from Paperchase for a change (and also as I wanted to work in a sewn journal rather that a spiral bound one!).

These pages are part of an online course I signed up for called 'the art and design of surface pattern' with Beth Nicholls and Rachael Taylor.  I came across this via another AEDMer's blog and it just tugged at me 'til I signed up!  Beth's blog 'do what you love' is fab, and she mentioned how great the latest BBC documentary 'Frozen Planet' was.  So, with plenty of time in front of the tv today...

... I did some blind contour drawings of some of the penguins.  You just hAvE to watch these guys by the way, who knew there were criminal penguins!!!

My owls are coming along too...

And I'm pleased with yesterday's journal page playing with circles.  

This is based on a photograph I took a few days ago of the bubbles in my bath water!  I printed it out A4 size, cut out the larger bubbles and sprayed gold paint through this stencil.  The other 'bubbles' were traced onto the page.  Yesterday also brought me some goodies in the post...

... so now I can peruse your article Kate :)  I also received the prize I won in a raffle at the Great Northern Contemporay Craft fair.  These are so pretty!

And today's post brought these stencils I ordered a couple of weeks ago now from the US (and had forgotten about!)

Antibiotics are kicking in so feeling a little better, thanks so much for the well wishes :)  If you'd like to see more work in progress head over to What's on your Workdesk? Wednesday at the Stamping Ground, and you can keep up with the 'Art Every Day Month'ers over at Creative Every Day.

catching up with AEDM day 10 and Sketchbook Challenge

It's a very special Remembrance Day today as here in the UK we remember those in our armed forces who give or have given their lives in the line of duty at 11am on the 11th day of the 11th month of 2011.

Yesterday and today finds me poorly at home with some kind of nasty cold that has settled on my chest.  Yesterday was ok, doing a bit of blog hopping in the morning, but then the internet went down and didn't come back on 'til about half an hour ago today when I finally phoned our provider (turns out we have a broken modem) and he sorted it out for me.

So without the internet I sat in bed doing some blind contour drawings.  For these you draw around the image without looking at the paper, only looking at the image, and use a single line.  I couldn't use a real life picture of a seahorse to draw from (how much do we rely on google images!!!) so used this one, which I just LoVe:

Unfortunately I'd printed it out for my ideas journal and not noted properly where I found it!  Sorry!

This idea is from Carla Sonheim's fantastic book 'Drawing Lab' which I find I go back to so much for ideas to get me drawing.  Part-way through drawing some smaller versions of the seahorse I realised I could google an image on my phone!!!  I also noticed how like dragons seahorses are, certainly around the head area anyway.  No wonder I like them, I love dragons!!!

I then chose an image I liked, copied it and started some mad doodling.  I'll add some colour at another time. All this was so taxing I then slept for 6 hours!!!  I'm desperate to have a go at free-machine embroidering a seahorse but need some painkillers first :(  I'll share day 11's AED a bit later!

ps Isn't YouTube fab sometimes?  I have absolutely no need for daytime tv when I'm poorly...

Milliande Art Journal January 2011

Each January Milliande produces a video prompt a day for your art journal and this year I decided to join in.  I LoVe the first theme - starting at the end of the alphabet, and working on 'Z for Zebra' until Milliande feels she has exhausted the theme.

day one

I adore using black and white so this theme is right up my street!  I watched Milliande's video then had a hunt on the internet for some zebra images.  My zebra is a blind-ish contour drawing, a great idea from Carla Sonheim's Drawing Lab ABC for Mixed Media Artists.  

I am a bit of a perfectionist so have learnt a number of tricks to stop myself being so judgemental about my work.  I found the key really to be a kind of 'controlled randomness'!  A blind contour drawing won't be perfect because you're not looking at your paper, but it does turn out like the object to a certain degree - I love the quirkiness of it!

My 7 gypsies Paddington papers caught my eye as I gathered my supplies for this page, so I decided to use torn strips from the 'Blackfriars' sheet instead of painting stripes...just LoViN' those numerals!!!

Thanks for a great prompt Milliande, I know I'm just going to really enjoy this theme.  Day two's videos will be up shortly, and I'm also joining in with The Sketchbook Challenge so I've got some busy playtime ahead - woo hoo!!!