Above: Faber-Castell Pitt Artist's Calligraphy Pen and gouache, with stenciled flowers in the background. That's female Gouldian Finch. Sort of. I fudged with her colors. (For reasons I can't discover this entry isn't allowing me to do paragraph breaks so I've indented it from the left to provide a visual break from following paragraph of blog text. EEE!)
International Fake Journal Month 2013 may be long over but I haven't given up my love of stencils (or the color PINK). I haven't been able to sketch much lately—my arm and shoulder problem has influenced my grip—so when I sat down to "blow up" some journal sketches made at the nursing home aviary (I reworked small journal images into 9 x 12 inch images I could paint with large strokes) I couldn't stop after painting. Sometimes you just have to keep moving the paint around—so I stenciled. There's more than one way to satisfy an urge.
Above: Sketches with a very light colored "Brushables" by Zig. I chose them because I thought I might paint over the images and it would be easy to hide the lines, and because they are easy to move quickly over the paper, but with the solid fiber brush tip I don't have to try finessing the way you do with the springy, responsive tip of the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen. Both images today are on Richeson Recycled Watercolor paper. Here I just wanted to keep sketching and "mentally" correct the images from my journal, made while I was at the aviary. In this way I'm looking for ideas for future paintings. And I found one, as you can see. That will get transferred to a canvas at some point and painted. I'll use my original sketches from my journal for color notes and I'll use this sketch for body/form. The background of this image is a Molotow pink acrylic marker.
ROZ: UGH! FEEL BETTER. I know how frustrating it can be to have hands/arms that do not always feel great. It may be a time for fabulous movie marathons…Sending you good shoulder and hand MOJO!
Thanks Ellen, physical therapy is working slowly but surely. (I’d stopped when I started the folks’ latest transition in March which made me vulnerable.) It’s scary how quickly these things can happen and how slowly they can be remedied. (I know you understand.) I went to a life-drawing co-op on Sunday night and that went pretty well (seated with a little table in front of me.) First time I’ve been out like that since the State Fair which was very frustrating this year because of all this. Finding new ways to adapt!
Isn’t it amazing how life drawing ( no matter what shape we are in…) seems to fuel the spirit? I think it keeps us completely tied to the moment.
I think simply looking at birds helps tie me to the moment, but getting to sketch them is always a plus. And then to have so many sketches on hand to use for paintings. I feel very happy indeed.