Decking the Halls

Good Morning Everybody

It is Christmas Eve and I would like to welcome you to my second Christmas posting. Yesterday, I showed you some of the smaller projects that R and I started with. Now we step up the pace.

Above is R's wreath. We used a shop bought wreath as the base and then R added a whole host of different stars made from different materials.

Whilst R wrestled with the wreath, I was busy making this year's cards. 

Our inspiration this year is the Northern lights. Using a squeegee, I created the colours I wanted then added in the detail once this was dry.

I found the best colours to use were Cyan, Magenta and a Bright Yellow (all the usual primary colours of Blue, Red and Yellow came out too dark) with a splash of white thrown in.

Once the cards were done it was time to 'dec the hall'. Above, is the landing window complete with our advent calendar and candles.

The whole house has been decorated this year. R has been the busiest making the banner, and paper trees among other things. She has used many different materials and techniques and the end results are really joyful.

Even the downstairs loo has not escaped being decorated!

But of course the epitome of and celebration in the house is the tree. Ours is full, with lots of our home-made decorations (including the bird house).

The snowman was created the same way as the Christmas Decoration Swap elf ball, and the star was shop bought to which we added chalkboard paint.

And, thank you Miriam for our bird. We love it!

I hope that you have a brilliant Christmas Eve and memorable Christmas Morning, and Santa remembers you all. Tomorrow, the post will be all about presents.

Merry, merry Christmas to you all.

Andy

At the dawn of Blooming True... Again!

Hi everyone,

After a fantastic summer holiday taking part in Rinda's Scavenger Hunt and working on a few canvases, I thought I would post their progress. The 'Man Cave' is a flurry of colour and I am trying to get them finished before I get stuck into the new Bloom True course, that starts today. I am so excited to be given this once again as an early birthday pressie. Thank you to you know who. I feel I am ready to take a further leap into painting larger and being more expressive and developing my take on a love of nature. 

There are a few large canvases to complete and they are coming on nicely. I have a few ideas on what will happen on their next layers. 

I have started some small ones too which I have covered with several coloured washes that need completing.

There's a Purple one...

A spotty one...

And a splattered one...

The most exciting thing is the development of some larger images. I have used loads of new colours that I would not normally use. It was with some trepidation I tried them out, but I love them now. The first canvas incorporates the 'leaf' shapes that I had used in the small sketchbook I found in a storage box. I posted some of the pages here and in 2012, here.

There are still some details to be added but they are all taking on their own character and journey. I am definitely feeling the saying of Flora Bowley when she says "Be brave and be bold".  

The second has developed into a sunflower... very jolly! If you would like to see how it started please click here. This and the octopus have turned out better than I ever imagined when I began them this time last year.

And lastly, I thought I would include a picture of the 'Man Cave'. It is great to have my own space but winter is drawing in and there is no heating in there. I will see how long I last - I have been promised a fan heater! 

                           

Hope you have enjoyed this colourful post? I feel one step closer to achieving an exhibition of my work and maybe selling one would be a dream come true! 

Hope you are all having a good week. 

Andy

Week 3 of Making Art that Sells

Hi everyone

Last week, I had an enormous amount of fun working on an assignment where we were given a task to illustrate Hans Christian Andersens, 'The Snail and the Rose Tree'. This is a short story, with the moral story-line: never give up on personal achievement. How relevant! It was a great challenge as I have always wanted to illustrate a book.

This is my final piece. Everything was hand drawn using pens, pencils, watercolours, or painted with acrylics and then scanned and collated in Illustrator.

At the beginning of the process, I developed the two main characters, and I hope you can see the amount of pleasure I had with this assignment through the amount of drawings and sketches I made that covered the kitchen table... and floor? It was an organised mess!

I started the drawing process by looking at the snail and trying to get his character right. He was the hardest for me because I wanted to make him look  'cute' but not loose the shape and character of a normal snail. Below are some of my sketches that did not make the cut.

      

I have to admit the Blue snail almost made it to the front cover. I feel he is a very jolly little fellow. But, this was before I had read the storyline. He looks too happy and needs to be more grumpy.

Next are the sketches for the border. When we were asked what was our favourite children's book, I immediately knew mine from childhood. The Riverbank Rumpus by Simon Joyner. The detail and quirky little characters really inspired the way my cover developed. The idea for the border was that in the story, the garden is surrounded by hazel bushes, so these sketches are what created the edging on the book cover and they would be inhabited by some little characters that might not be seen at first glance. Look out, there are four of them hiding around.

                                                                                                   

                

I hand painted my background using techniques I had developed on the Flora Bowley course (which you can see in a previous post here) and then the final pieces were: the writing (which is a whole post in itself) and the rose tree with the bushy eyebrows. He was the one I had the most fun designing and I hope to develop him further in future projects.

I hope I achieved the rose tree character to look thoughtful and wise but not too scary for a children's book. I love how his character evolved from bushy eyebrows to hairy ears. He makes me smile every time I look at him! I really had tremendous fun in creating this book cover and could visualize a whole book. Maybe one day? Now I must look to this week challenge of orange and green... that I will post about next time.  

Last weeks challenge, I feel, has really brought out more of my personality in the use of different art mediums, rather than just through ink and pen. Thank you Lilla Rogers. Your amazing input and encouragement is bringing out the best in all artists on your course. I cannot speak highly enough about Make Art That Sells. This course is really showing me that by using stepping stones I can achieve my goals.    

I can't wait to have a spare moment to catch up with my fellow bloggers. I have slightly got behind. Sorry.

Until the next time, have a good week. 

Andy

How to Create a Jellyfish in Five Steps

Hi everyone, can't believe it is May already. April seems to have passed in a flash...

Thank you so much for the positive feed back from my last post. I had hoped to film the process of creating an image to show you all, and will definitely do so some time soon. Instead, I will try to explain the steps I used and forgive me if I do not use the correct terminology.

In response to Miriam, Rinda and Alexa's questions, my friend had a Griffin Stylus. It was the first time I had used one (it was a day for firsts, considering I had only just switched the iPad on) and then immediately proceeded to open up Paper 53.

STEP 1: My first layer on the 'Page' was to give the background a wash with colour (in this case a yellow ochre) using the paintbrush tool. Once that was complete, I gave another layer of darker colours (grey and black). I tried to keep it light in touch as I didn't want it to look too dark in appearance.

STEP 2: With the background complete, I started to draw the jelly fish using the white colour and the paintbrush tool. This was to affect the appearance of a 'glow' around the jellyfish. If I had more time, I would have loved to have investigated if I could make the marks bigger or smaller.

STEP 3: Now it was time to draw. I started with the dark grey that is in the automatic paint palette and used the pen tool to draw free hand the basic features of the jelly fish. Once that was done, I then changed to the slightly lighter shade of grey and drew over the top of that. It does not matter that the colours overlapped. I personally think it created more character. 

STEP 4: For the next layer of this particular image, I then used the same (or close to) ochre colour as the background and drew over the top again but this time, I only drew into the shadowy areas. I feel this gave a transparency to the jellyfish.

Step 5: To the underneath of the jellyfish, I added some darker shadows to give it some depth, and I also gave a quick 'swish' down the tentacles. After that, I added some final details. I went back to the lighter grey and used this on the top sections of the jellyfish and to where the light would hit it, I added pure white.

I hope that was helpful? I found myself treating Paper 53 like a sketchbook more and more over the time I was able to use it, and it was so refreshing to paint and draw without the necessity of having to get out all of my art equipment.

I did not just stop at jellyfish. I had a go at lichen, mushrooms and even Chillies made a come back, all using the same process I have included above.

 

The frog and mushrooms were loosely based on a photograph (I think!) that I saw in an old National Geographic magazine.

Using the layering and drawing techniques, I hope this is a good rendition of lichen?

I am trying to talk my friend into lending the iPad to me again. I really want to try some other drawing programmes and I would love to do either a video or a series of photographs of the process. I will let you know how that goes...

Half term is fast approaching, so I may get an opportunity to spend some more time using the drawing programme. It is addictive!

In the meantime, enjoy your Bank holiday weekend if you are in the UK and a very happy National Scrapbooking Day to all you happy scrappers out there.

Andy.

Of Jelly Fish and iPads...

Hello to you all!

Life has been crazy/busy at school this past month, leaving me with not a lot of free time for my own art work. Most evenings this term have been spent marking and writing up new schemes of work. Recently though, I had the good fortune to use a friend's iPad and would like to share with you some drawings and paintings I have done using the programme Paper 53.

I was glad of the opportunity to try out an iPad with a drawing programme before committing to getting one of my own. I have always been fascinated by technology but fearful of the time it would take to learn how to use it properly.

However, the programme was really easy to use and it took hardly any time to to create these images I am showing you. I really enjoyed the ease and simplicity of Paper 53. Each image took me about five minutes to draw. How cool is that!

The colours blend together so vibrantly and I am really looking forward to experimenting more over the Easter holidays. I am a definite iPad convert. I will post some more drawings very soon.

In the meantime, I trust you had a wonderful Easter and I hope to catch up with some blog reading and commenting soon. I have missed seeing what you have all been creating. 

Andy.

A Spicy New Year

Hi everyone

I have finally managed to write up my first blog of the New Year. Thank you for coming to visit.

Even though I have not posted since November - time certainly does fly! - I have not been idle. With my job busier than ever, the festive season and ill health all playing a part, I did manage to squeeze in some time for Art.

Before Christmas, as part of a project at school, I was teaching the students how to create a wood cut print, using MDF and lino cutting tools. There were 27 sixteen year olds, chipping away to create their masterpieces. I had an ulterior motive for my piece as I wanted to give it to my wife's sister and her husband for a Christmas present.

The MDF 'plate' showing only two of the chillis. 

After printing them with the students a few times (as shown below) I decided that the print needed another chilli so that the image looked more even (see the final piece below).

These are printed using water based printing ink and a variety of paper.

After work, I decided to experiment. The final image was printed on old map paper (of the area where they now live) and after printing, Gauche paint was added to give depth and tone. The final image we had framed with a burgundy border and black frame but unfortunately, I did not photograph it before presenting it to them.

Final piece

I have been reliably informed that my wife's sister and her husband love it and it now sits on their mantlepiece ready to be hung when they move into their new home. They have suggested that I could sell similar work as original art or prints. What do you think? 

I am now playing around with different designs and colours, and would appreciate your input.

From my sketch book

But that is not all; I have started a new painting, 150cm by 100cm. This painting started to talk to me about a rather neglected passion of mine... Jellyfish.

This painting is a long way off being finished. I have been looking at lots of reference material and came up with a new fact that I did not know: " If all the creatures in the world that communicate using light (like deep sea fish) were placed together, they would outnumber those who did not, three times over".

With any luck I will be able to attempt some more painting tomorrow at home. That is, if hopefully, we are snowed in!

Until the next time.

Andy