Faces 7 and 8

I'm still way behind but I wanted to share a sketch and another painted face at least.  The sketch below is a male.  I used my husband's picture as a model, but I must say it really does not look like him much at all.  I haven't quite gotten the knack of "seeing" what it is that makes each face unique.  Here it is anyway - since I do mostly female faces, it was a real learning experience to do a male face.

Face 7

The next one was one I sketched yesterday and today I finished painting.  Here is the beginning sketch I took with my camera, which was from my Book of Days.

Here is the finished (well, almost - except for the text I want to add) painted version that I worked on today.

So that's all for now.  I have also been working on my acrylic paintings, but that's a topic for another post.  Thanks for looking!

Arlene

29 Faces - Faces 4 thru 6

I got behind due to the demands of unpacking and my Michaels painting activities, but managed to create 3 more faces yesterday to help me catch up.  Here they are.

This first one is a watercolor sketch done with my Koi portable watercolor set (love their paints!) and some Pitt  fine point pens.

The next 2 are pencil (graphite) sketches.  The first one is my attempt to capture the likeness of Frida Kahlo from a photograph of her. I have been wanting practice with drawing better likenesses of models that I use whether it is from life (maybe one day) or a photo.

This one is also from a photograph. The model (and photo) is actually older than she appears in my drawing.  For some reason, I have made my drawing look like a very young person.  I want to figure out how I did that, and how to make someone actually look like the age they are! I like that her eyes look different than the eyes I usually draw and that her mouth is open in a smile - again not something I usually draw, so I learned a lot from this one.

Both of these pencil drawings actually need some finishing touches, but I ran out of time yesterday.

On to some more faces today!

Yours, in Spirit - Arlene

29 Faces Update

I'm a little behind but I wanted to share the next 2 of the 29 Faces I did, plus I added in my first one to my Book of Days and added a background, etc.

Here is the 2-page spread with face # 1 and then my face # 2:

I first sketched face # 2 in regular graphite pencil using mixed media paper, then collaged her to the page.  Next I used my watercolors to give her face colors.  For the background for both pages, I used my Caran d'Ache Neocolor II water soluble crayons to create the backgrounds for both pages before I collaged the faces down, brayering over them with some white gesso.  The borders were created with white gesso also through stencils.




Following is a face created with my Tombow watercolor brush markers.  Since I used mixed media paper, they didn't blend as nicely as I've seen them work on actual watercolor paper, but I'm still pretty happy with it.

This paper was taken out of a 7" x 10" mixed media paper sketchbook, so is larger than my Book of Days.  I'm thinking right now, I may put her in my BOD as a tip-in, folding her out.  I'll share with you once I have decided.  So, since it is now the 5th, I guess I am 2 days behind already, but I expect to catch up one day when I have more time and can do several faces in 1 day.  They may only be sketches, but it's totally do-able.

That's it for now.  I have also been busy creating acrylic paintings on canvas board for Michaels Grumbacher Fine Art workshops.  I am posting these in a separate blog though.  If you are interested, here is the link for it.

The Artful Brush

Thanks for your interest.

New Challenge: 29 Faces in May

I've decided to take on a challenge.  I know... like I need a new one.  With all that has gone on in my life in the last 6 months you'd think I would need life to just be calm and serene for a while.  I like calm and serene.  Really I do.  But not for long, I guess!

So, since I have now sort of conquered the hip replacement surgery / rehabilitation / physical therapy / walking now without a cane (!) thing, and we have purchased our own home here in PA and moved (last week!), I do need some quiet time.  Well, part of me thinks I need some quiet time.  I also need to unpack and put things away that are still in boxes everywhere, and you know... "nest" a little.  Especially in my studio so I can create some more!

Why I decided to take on this challenge now is to motivate me to get my studio organized more quickly perhaps (hint:  it requires me kind of "nagging" my dh to create my work table / desk so I can put my stuff away). I can do quick sketches / some colored pencil drawings, and even some watercolor paintings or sketches, and my Grumbacher acrylic paintings in the meanwhile, but the mixed media kind of stuff will have to wait until I can locate more supplies.  

Another reason is that this challenge just intrigued me and seemed kind of fun, given my passion for doing faces. Surely creating a face every day for 29 days will help me improve my skills too.  Maybe it will even get me posting again more regularly here on my blog too!  That would be a good thing.  Anyway, it is a challenge to create 29 faces in May issued by Ayla Art and I will add in a badge over in my sidebar over there -------->   after I finish with this post.

It started yesterday, and I had very little time to do art but I did manage to do my first face with just pencil and Prismacolor colored pencils.

The photo isn't great - just took it late last night with my iPhone camera and planning on taking a better one in daylight, and also perhaps adding it to my Book of Days at some point.  

Now on to creating my Face # 2!  

(and unpacking some more, paying the bills, organizing my studio, painting my Michaels / Grumbacher sample paintings for the month... and on, and on, and on.)

Thanks for your interest!

Arlene

New Year, New Focus

With this being a new year, I am starting a whole new chapter in my blog as well in most parts of my life.   Instead of resolutions in the traditional sense, I chose a word for my year:  MOVE.  Very appropriate to what I've just gone through (i.e. had my hip replaced, so am now able to walk and MOVE around in my life with more ease and no pain!), and am continuing to put in place.  


I do have some "intentions" which to me are stronger than resolutions and go deeper also.  One of them is to journal every day or nearly every day - both in writing (in the form of morning pages) and with images (I am doing a Book of Days art journal).  This intention is not just to say I did it but to enable myself to create so much this year that I finally can find my own personal artistic style and to unleash my inner artists' voice that has been lurking inside. To this end, in my Book of Days, I have written a letter to the spirit of 2011 thanking it for all I have learned last year and saying goodbye to some behaviors and beliefs that I want to release.  In addition I have written a list of qualities I want to exhibit more of this year.  So I am focused more on who I want to BE rather than only on what I want to DO, though doing is a part of being.  It's the action part, the MOVE part that is the true me.  


I took an old book from the 1940's that I had found in a thrift store to alter for this journal.  I tore out about every 3 or 4th page first of all since I know that what I will do to the pages will make them fatter and the book will expand a lot.  Then I painted over and embellished the cover.

Yes, this is an altered, collaged photo of me that I took with the webcam in my laptop, so the quality is not very good, but it seemed to need a current photo of me. When I paint and journal on the pages, I usually need to glue at least 2 pages together to strengthen them since they are very thin and in some cases somewhat crumbly.  

Here are my opening 2 pages where I am storing the letter to 2011 and my list of intentions for 2012.

Closeups of these pages:

I'll share with you some of the consequent pages as I create them.  Here are a few more to start.

This Book of Days I am doing in conjunction with a group led by a wonderful mixed media artist called Effy Wild, who is offering this work without charge via a Facebook group, emails, video tutorials, and lots and lots of encouragement!  It has been fabulous so far!  Check it out!

So, that's about all for this post. I'll share more as I create more pages.  I am also participating in a year-long art workshop called Life Book where we will be creating art as taught by 14 different well-known online mixed media artists.  It promises to be an exciting, fun, and eventful year.  I will post some of my work from this workshop next time, so stay tuned!

Yours, In Spirit -  Arlene