The Documented Life Project - Week 17

Catching up on my normal life - bit by bit.

Here is my take on Week 17 of the Documented Life Project: add your favourite shoes (draw, paint, photograph).

This week took me a bit more time than usual, as I added a tip-in page, so I had four pages to work with, instead of my usual two. Twice as much fun! And only half as much time, as we've had a busy week.

So, here we go:

Journal page: As usual, based on leftover paint from a Gelli print. A few doodles. A couple of arrows from one of my home-made stamps. A bit of origami paper.

Second page: This is the page facing the journal. There, I decided to collage lots of bits and pieces that mean something to me. And that probably mean nothing to you. But that's what a journal is all about, isn't it?

Tip-in Recto: This is my Weekly Challenge page. My current favourite shoes. First, drawn in my sketchpad. Then painted with a watercolour set that my nieces gave me for my birthday - the heel looks a bit wobbly there- the first drawing is probably the best description of the actual shape of the shoe.

Tip-in Verso: I had to do something with this page, but I didn't want heavy collage, as I was afraid it would warp the page too much. So I mixed some bright colours in my new watercolour set and I painted circles, forcing them to touch where possible. Happy colours, don't you think?

And I called it done! Phew!

The Documented Life Project - Week 16

I'm falling behind! I haven't got anything done for this week! Panic Panic.

But here is what I did for Week 16 - Add a Creative Cardboard Food Box in a Creative Way.

I'm not sure I was very creative, but I had a nice colourful carton that matched perfectly one of my Gelli print backgrounds.

I then decided to add bright pink highlights - I love orange and pink together - some doodling, stamping, collaging and photographing. A very happy page, for a happy week.

Dublin Maker

Looking forward to Dublin Maker!

Doggy Internet Treater

On a gagné!

The Documented Life Project - Week 15

The Challenge for Week 15 was to go monochromatic.

These are busy weeks, so I decided to keep it simple. I used a leftover paint background, and a packing tape gelli print on the facing page.

Then I added a paint colour chart from my nearest DIY store, a stamped flower (you will recognise this one from Week 6), and a doodled border. That's it, let's call it done!!

A Game of Thrones

I do read more when the weather is good, and paint/draw/art less.

We're at the tail end of what probably will be our best week of the summer (am I too pessimistic?), so I've been busy reading A Game of Thrones, the first of 8 books in A Song of Ice and Fire!

I haven't seen the TV series yet - I don't even know what channel it was showing on in this part of the world. All I know is that it's not on Netflix - will it ever be? So I'll have to invest in the box sets - maybe for next year's birthday, or for Christmas perhaps?

But now of course, I don't want to watch the TV series until I've read the whole story - I've already started the second book - too much time invested to spoil it by watching it on TV!

There has been plenty of reviews of the books and the TV series, no doubt. Apparently the TV Series has been even more successful than the Sopranos for HBO!

I saw somewhere that the genre is described as historic fantasy - that's a pretty good description. Although it has to be said that, apart from a  couple of zombies and three baby dragons, there isn't too much fantasy. Actually, it reads more like The Other Boleyn Girl or The White Queen than The Lord of the Rings. Except it's not real.

Maybe it's not real, but it's very readable. And I can see the appeal. Will I last the distance, though?

The Documented Life Project - Week 14

Week 14 of the Documented Life Project Challenge was to write your name and embellish it. Well my name is a bit long to fit on a sketchbook page, but MHBD is a perfect fit. So that's what I went for.
Inspired by Roben-Marie Smith's idea,  as I often am, I chose a Gelli print I did a while back, one of those prints that have lovely colours and textures, but not enough shape to finish in a frame on a wall (I have a lot of those). I cut out my initials in paper. I applied black paint to my Gelli plate, and placed my initials on it, in reverse! I had to think about that one, but a quick review of GelliArts' blog helped to clarify this for me. I then applied my old print over the plage and pulled this lovely print.

A little bit of enhancement with white markers, and I called it done.

I cut out little squares out of what was left of the old print and I wrote my dates on those for the journal side.

Up in the mountains

Nénuphars

Not as much art this weekend - I've started reading A Game of Thrones, so my art productivity has gone down!

Here is a watercolour I've been working on for a while - the previous version was wasted as I had left the masking fluid on the paper for way too long (months!). Anyways, it didn't really work out as a watercolour, so I added pastel highlights. Still not sure, but I'll have to look at it for a while before I decide

The Documented Life Project - Week 13

This week was probably the hardest for me - Week 13 Challenge was to ask someone to draw on your page, then to finish it myself. So I asked BB to draw something, and he did a few striking geometric shapes all connected together.

They looked so simple and elegant. I should have taken a picture, shouldn't I? But in my eagerness to get started, I forgot.

So here is the resulting page - not my best. But it did force me to do something different from my usual...  A little bit Pac Man...

More Gelli prints

Actually, this is just one Gelli print, but I think it's so pretty I wanted to share close-ups with you!

This is really easy, just cut a piece of paper in the shape of waves and use it to mask part of the plate. Repeat until you like the result!

Gelli prints

Very arty weekend: had fun with my Gelli plate:

 

left-over paint on newsprint. Will use this in all sorts of art projects

This is what happens when I have too much paint on my Gelli plate and I need to roll the leftovers from my brayer into a sketchbook. These will make yummy backgrounds for art journals.

Happy Feet

 

Fun with my new Catalyst wedges, and a circle stencil I made myself. 

The Documented Life Project - Week 12

I've left the Documented Life Project Facebook group - it got too much for me, 8000 women creating samey art and exchanging "happy mail" and showing the rest of us how many rolls of washi tape they own. It was clogging up my Facebook wall every day. I will miss the few genuinely talented ladies, but for the rest, I'm glad to be back in my own little world.

I'm still doing the weekly challenges and the journalling part though. So, here is Week 12,  "Cut up a magazine and add". For this one, I was heavily inspired by Lorraine Bell's idea. My execution isn't quite as striking. But I look forward to filling in my journal page.

And here is the original, a Boden City Classic:

Drawing and Painting Pets - Part III - I think we're done now

BB took Timber to the park, and I made good progress on this painting on the morning of the Bank Holiday Monday, 2nd of June - painting most of the face. Initially I was happy with what I had accomplished, but the more I looked at it, the more I knew the proportions were wrong - Willow's nose is just not that big. So I've spent most of the week first coming to terms with it, then figuring out a way of fixing it. Well, I say most of the week, but I have a full-time job and also I had a sick husband to look after. But I managed to make time, and bit by bit the cosmetic surgery gave Willow his beautiful little nose back.

And I did get excellent advice from the teacher on Craftsy, Pat Weaver, which helped me to achieve what I think is a good likeness of my 14-year-old baby! Judge for yourself:

This was my first time taking a proper online art class and I have to say I found it really good. So much so that I've bought a few more classes - Craftsy had a sale on, so that helped too!!

So what's next? A portrait of Timber at some stage, definitely, but I would also like to go back to watercolours, difficult as they can be!

Drawing and Painting Pets - Part II

So I've been watching more of Pat Weaver's video on Craftsy, and I've made some progress with my painting of our cat.

First I finished the drawing.

Then I liked it too much to paint over it, so I traced it and applied the outline tracing on canvas paper

Then I started painting, following the video. Now I need to watch some more of Ms. Weaver's advice before I continue on.

I'm loving it. And our little fellow is thinking about it...