The Colourguru

back to EDM challenges

I bet your flat out right now, hurrying your way to a Christmas meltdown!  Me too!  Now that study is FINALLY done for the year (YAY!) I thought I'd have time to play, but alas, artistic time  is 'squeezzed' in between babysitting grandies, baking, cooking, babysitting, appointments & other preparations for christmas.  (did I say babysitting???) It's just how it is - but I am still keen to fit something in!  SO, I have returned to my EDM challenges I began last year.  It's was tricky trying to keep this up when I was studying, but it's an easy thing to pick up and put down........and I have.  I am now working in Book 2 - which continues challenges from 71 thru to about 140, and working in Book 4, which began at 192, and was originally intented to keep up with the current challenges, while using the archived challenges for additional drawing practice.  NOW BOTH of them are 'catch up' books! LOL!!!  So this is progress to date.....I will update the slide show as I go along.  If you'd like to see a slide show of the finished book 1 it's here.  On reflection, I am not sure that there is really a great deal of difference between my drawing from a year ago and now - but as a wise little person said to me, it's practise, every day, just getting in the habit of doing it!  Here's a couple of lovely images to help with any last minute Christmas things you HAVE to do, double click the image & it will take you to a high res. download.  PLEASE do not repost, but cut & paste this permalink back to here -

http://thecolourguru.typepad.com/the_colourguru/2009/12/back-to-edm-challenges.html

thanks for your integrity in this, us artists have to look after each other! 

 

AND DON'T FORGET my 12 days of christmas give aways.........commencing 26th December!  there will be a give away, every day for 12 days!

Secrets & Journals

Losses from last week and HOT HOT weather have left me a bit listless and flat...... grasping for my muse.........I CANNOT believe how many people I have spoken to recently that have embarrasingly confessed that they are or have been struggling with depression.......I am sure it is the modern day PLAGUE.......it seems that many people are suffering days when hope is hard to find and the future seems too bleak to contemplate.........

What creativity have managed to summon has been directed to finishing off some work that is not due for release yet for Alpha Stamps - I will be able to show you soon - it's an exciting project & one that I have loved doing........ last weekend I finished off these two projects.  I created these pages for a tip in journal about cats.......

and these pages for an RR journal about Water & the Sea

.....I have done a little drawing.... but nothing remarkable......... these are a couple of my more recent ones..........  

Lucky if found Accidentally

These are a couple more of my Christmas drawings, another 'Rubenesque' - I have titled 'Queen of the May' - just because of her neck ruffle.  The next Every day matters drawing challenge - something Lucky...of course I couldn't go past a 4 leaved clover, which I read is only considered lucky if found accidentally (I am not sure how many people hunt for them!)....... I am practising underpainting my watercolour faces at the moment, which is producing some interesting results..... I have underpainted 'Queen of the May' with an olive wash, & created the shadowing with Graphite - I had to be careful not to give her a '5 o'clock shadow' but I like the appearance of the graphite over the watercolour.  Interesting & worth exploring a bit more.

Noodles, Feet, Onions & Mysteries of the Deep

     More Christmas - I can show you this one as it has already been recieved - & a recent Face of the Day.....Miss Sunshine & Happiness.  These are some more of my every day drawings - 2 current challenges - Noodles and Toes & 2 catch up challenges - Vegetables and a Book. (I am up to #30 - so only 160 to go!) I have just completed the current challenge for this week titled - 'Lucky', but it is still drying & you will have to wait until tomorrow to see that.  The Vegetables - onions & garlic I did with coloured pencils, however the book I did with watercolour paint to get some better movement & flow in it.  The best thing about coloured pencils is the control you can achieve, although as I have mentioned before, once they are wet, you do end up with the striation marks from the lead.  This didn't matter for the onions & garlic, in fact it suited it quite well.  The idea for the book worked out better in my head than it did on paper & IF this were a canvas or in an art journal that I had some flexibility with thickness - I would certainly cover this over.....I love my book - but the additions were a bit much - I should have left well enough alone! 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

I have often regreted that Australia doesn't have a day just to be thankful.  We have a harsh land, one that is unforgiving, is tolerant of the 'battlers' (those a bit down on their luck) and intolerant of 'tall poppies' (sad but true)  This has been a difficult year for us and I have to say that at times it is difficult to see past the black.  This year is a year when things are really stripped back to 'bare bones' as we would say in Oz - down to what's really important to your whole being.  This year I am thankful for:

1. TRUE friends (which everyone knows are only revealled in tough times)
2. simple pleasures (every night the sun paints me a new canvas viewed from my front verandah - it is NEVER the same, and I have watched for 17 years)
3. my faith (I KNOW in whom I have believed - 2 Tim 1:12)

 

moving on a little from there - I am a little behind with my drawing, getting caught up with Christmas favours & gifts at the moment.  These are a couple of recent every day challenges.....a rope and a remote (as I remarked when I posted it - it was the longest time that I have ever spent with the remote as DH believes they are divinely ordained for the man of the house!)

 

 

catching up on drawing challenges

            these are some of my catch up challenge drawings (for those that don't know the story - I have joined a drawing challenge group that had already posted 190 challenges when I joined - I am both playing catch up creating an archive of the past challenges, and keeping up with the current ones - so I am working in two books at once)  The book size that I am using is the small watercolour moleskine, & as I have so many to catch up, I am limiting myself to a 1/2 page spread for each challenge.  Consequently, a big part of the challenge is thinking of a different way to produce your 'capture' of your topic within a landscape orientation of approx 5in tall x 8in wide.  As it is a bound book that I am using - I don't want to add much texture or collage elements as I want to keep the book 'together' (ie not bulging from odds & sods I have added to pages)  I have also found in some of my hand bound journals that adding lots of texture throughout the book makes it a beast to work in as you get through the pages as you always have something misshappen underneath the surface you are working on.

My first self portrait

I am still painting & drawing - but not much collage at the moment.  This is what I am 'into' right now & I am really enjoying the cathartic benefit of the soft watercolours & tone on tone graphite.  'THEY' say that you don't become serious about art until you have painted a self portrait.  I thought it was about time that I tried and apart from my messy hair & prominent wrinkles - this doesn't really look like me at all.  THIS girl looks like she has had a broken nose at some point!  I haven't - and she has a pounchy mouth/nose combo, which I don't & I don't quite know how to rectify.  When I showed it to my DH, I had to TELL him it was a self portrait - so there's obviously not much resemblance - he is SO over me showing him drawings & him feeling obliged to make comments! I might add that to my Face of the Day challenge & every now & then draw a self portrait, to try & judge my progress.  It's easier drawing no one specific, because if they turn out with a 'pounchy mouth' for example - well that's who they become, you work with that character.......but if you are drawing from life or from a photo, it's either right or wrong - a MUCH bigger challenge. I have also done a small painting of an owl for a little artist friend who likes owls.  I have been collecting bit's & pieces for her for a while & wanted to make her a piece of my own art to send off with the parcel.  There is a lot of skill with keeping watercolour 'loose' and not 'overworking it' and I have a bit of a blot in my background from trying to 'fix' a little problem......hmmm...lots of practice needed...... to be sure, to be sure!  I have done the same thing with the writing behind the next drawing challenge.  Some of the writing turned out a bit light - so SILLY ME - tries to fix it!  I should have left it alone!  The inspiration from this was taken from a FABULOUS book I have called 'The English Archive'.  This book is like an old catalogue of all kinds of design items from chairs to wallpaper, & obviously - tableware - you should see the cup page - it's fabulous. (I'll be using THAT - sometime soon - but that's a whole other story!) I frequently refer to it for shape & ornamental reference when I am creating something & want some pattening or shape reference.  It's a firm fav.

drawing, drawing, more drawing

more everyday matters - Musical Instruments, My Favourite Tool, Trees, leaves & Branches & What I See When I Wake Up.  All pen & ink & watercolour in my moleskin journal.

a little acanthus

  Just a quick post today as I am busy, busy, this is last week's drawing challenge - I forgot to post it - the challenge was to draw something 'in fine detail'.  I chose to detail an acathus leaf, something you'll see around a lot at the moment as it was a key motif of the Rocco styling that has come into revival over the last year or so - it is also the ornament

used in the Corinthian Order, as a decorative feature. The line work in this piece took ages to do as it was done with a .005 pen.  My 'working drawings' lecturer would be disgusted with my lettering, it's a bit all over the show!  All of the coverage of the US elections on our TV lately, has prompted me to do some reading, & this is what I am reading today.  What an inspiration - what truth - what grace - how sad it is as humans we feel compelled to extinguish the brightest lights. 

food, glorious food!

BOTH my 'catch up' challenge (I am up to no. 14 now - only about 180 to go!! LOL!!) and my current challenge for drawing today is FOOD.  The catch-up was to draw what you had for dinner - YUM - BBQ chicken fillets with pesto & mango & red pepper salad with my FAMOUS salad dressing.  The NEW challenge was to draw a baked potato - dressed however you liked it.  Potatoes are not really one of my fav. foods - childhood food trauma - but on an odd occasion (maybe once a year) out at community festivals or occasionally if I am in the inner city - I will have a baked potato with all the trimmings. Just drawing this & then writing about it makes my mouth water.........I SO wish I wasn't a foodie - OH MY GOODNESS - I just can't pick one fav. food - I like so much - I swear I am destined to be fat forEVA!  Being the obsessive person that I am, I would probably have another vise anyway - I'll just enjoy the journey! (oh - and the food, LOL!!!)