#C2C15: Yin and Yang in the Garden and Countryside

Click to see the set on Flickr

The sketchbook exchange programme continues, with two more swops left to go.  This one was a challenge; finding complementary opposites in the greener outdoor space. I admit that I made one or two up... 

Page 1 was based on our garden. It was the one day that we have had snow this winter, and the suggestion was my husband's: a barbeque in the snow, representing fire and ice.

Page 2 was a stylised flower bed in a park, viewed from above, rendered in watercolour with the assistance of my new masking fluid. The flowers are laid out in the shape of the yin-yang symbol. There's a picnic happening in the blue corner...

Pages 3 and 4 are linked; they represent night and day, with the local radio mast (and landmark) shown from two positions. The daytime view was drawn outdoors and the line drawing made onsite is shown separately from the finished version. These are both done in various inks.

I also included, in the Flickr set, the line drawing for the snowdrop picture on page 5, embellished with watercolour for the finished image. Snowdrops growing in last year's leaf-litter.

A digital doodle of an imaginary yin-yang butterfly had to be printed and stuck in on page 6.

Two green men face each other on pages 7 and 8. Both are imagined versions of familiar tales; the age-old folk storie of the wood spirit and the newer invader from out of space. Old and new; within and without; earthly and alien.

Finally, I went back to nature on pages 9 and 10 and drew the mallards on Kingsclere's lake. Easily distinguished, the male and female birds are a fine example of yin and yang.

#C2C15: Spots in Time

Spots of Time
Who, me, literal?

The most recent Cover 2 Cover sketchbook was a challenging one. "Spots in Time" refers to a Wordsworth poem, and the brief was to investigate transience and the passage of time, with reference to personal memories and the natural world.

So I decided, reluctantly, to leave science fiction and time travel out of it.

The next exchange is a week tomorrow. I wonder what theme I'll get ...

The Day the Future Changed
It did. And that's all that I'm saying.
My only double page spread in this book.

 
Tree Rings
Because they represent a succession of moments in time


Dandelion Clock


Music, learning and practice

 
A moment that never was 


A way to capture those spots of time


Reference to Great Expectations and bad housekeeping

 
"Time and Tide" doesn't really refer to waves, but it's a nice saying and the picture does represent a spot of time. A spot spent watching the waves at Portreath... mesmerising.

I'm really annoyed that I put an 's' in 'waits'. 

#C2C15 Textures and Shapes in Nature

Monday was the Cover to Cover sketchbook exchange day, and here are my contributions to "Textures and Shapes in Nature":


 


My new theme is "Spots of Time" and is well underway...

#C2C15 Seeing and Not Seeing

I have somehow completed the third sketchbook theme early. This is "Seeing and not Seeing".
All five of my double page spreads are in the box below; click left or right to move through them:


The images are:

Big Yellow Taxi (double page)

Because, "Don't it always seem to go / That you don't know what you got 'til it's gone."
Acrylic and Derwent Drawing Pencil.

Interference and Spectacles

The former is a physics experiment that demonstrates how light waves interact (reinforcing and negating each other); and the latter make all the difference between seeing and not seeing if you're short-sighted.
Graphite and acrylic; Derwent Drawing Pencil.

Eyes (double page)

I am more shortsighted in the left eye; this is, of course, a mirror image. I portrayed the left eye without glasses and with an excess of water. The idea was to create a blurry image; the dribbles were a bonus. I was more measured in my treatment of the bespectacled right eye.
Watercolour.

Schrödinger 's Iron Man (double page)

Science meets art with bonus Black Sabbath. Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment that uses observation to "fix" a previously indeterminate state (is the cat alive or dead?). The atom just happens to be Lithium (added Nirvana?).
Mixed media.

Painty Water (double page)

I see therefore I paint (and draw). The murky water in the jar obscures and distorts the paintbrush(es) and, in the final view, the lettering on the place mat.
Various media - exploring the utility of different media to illustrate the murk.

Cover 2 Cover / Trolls

The lady who initiated this theme has an interest in Scandinavian folklore, and her trolls were all dignified, forest dwelling creatures.

Mine are a hotch-potch. Here they are with descriptions.

Bonus Troll

I borrowed a few of these "Troll dolls" (AKA "Dam dolls," after their creator) from a neighbour for the next part of the Cover 2 Cover Sketchbook project. Two of the dolls made it into the sketchbook; this one is a small surprise gift for my neighbour.

Postscript: You'll find the Sketchbook trolls on Flickr. They'll get blogged when the final spread is done...

Acrylic on canvas, 5 x 7"

Cover 2 Cover / In the Clouds / Pages 8 - 10

The final pages of my bit of "In the Clouds". And a drawing on the cover...

Cover 2 Cover / In the clouds / Pages 5 to 7

Continuing the trawl through my part of my collaborative sketchbook, themed "In the Clouds". The music links are a little less direct this time, but I thought it would be fun to think of a popular song or two to go with each picture.

Cover 2 Cover / In the Clouds / pages 1 to 4

These sketches weren't done in the order that they appear; I had several ideas right from the start and I wanted them to appear in certain combinations. I also wanted to vary the interpretation of the theme and the media used, and to try and challenge myself a little. As a result, I managed to learn one or two things.

Page 1

"Cloudbusting", oil on paper.

 

This is an imaginative piece, with a cloud-dancer and a couple of Kate Bush songs (Cloudbusting and The Big Sky) in mind.
It isn't painted on the page of the sketchbook, but on a small piece of oil-painting paper. I started with the idea of using "lean" paint (thinned with turpentine) but ended up with fatter-than-fat neat titanium white, trowelled on with a knife. Needless to say, it's still too wet to stick in the book. Fortunately, I get the book back at the end. 

Update (24/11/14): It seems to be dry enough, so I stuck it in the book this morning. 

Something learnt: No more palette-knife oils in the sketchbooks!

Page 2

"Nuthanger Down in the Mist", Graphitint.

 

A Down-to-earth cloud, with trees in it... Based on a photograph, this subject seemed a good match for the subtle colours of Graphitint.

Something learnt: White Graphitint has its uses.


Page 3

"Head in the Clouds - Daydreaming" (self-portrait), oil pastel (Sennelier Nature set).

 A metaphorical interpretation. Oil pastel is great fun to use, allowing broad strokes and fine scratching-back (it can also be dissolved in turpentine, but I didn't do that here). It's not best-suited for small drawings; I think I was pushing the limit here. It also never dries, and remains malleable for - as far as I can tell - ever. Oops.
As I had a drawing opposing it in the sketchbook, I needed to do something about that. I cut a piece of greaseproof paper roughly to size and sellotaped it in as a protective leaf. This worked until I foolishly went and stood in a field on a windy day to make the last sketch, at which point the sketchbook flapped around, the greaseproof paper rolled and folded and ... no damage was actually done. But it could have been, and the sketchbook is only at the beginning of its journey, so I investigated online and discovered that Sennelier make a fixative for oil pastel based on a resin spray. It arrived yesterday and seems to do the job very well.

Something learnt: Greaseproof paper is a clumsy solution to the problem of oil pastel in crowded sketchbooks.

Page 4

Ice Cream Castles In the Air, Indian Ink (Derwent Graphik Line Maker pens)

A daydream, a fantasy, and a line from the Joni Mitchell song Both Sides Now, which also happens to be (in part) about clouds. A friend told me it reminded her of Gormenghast, and she is right, although it was unconscious on my part. (I really must read the whole trilogy.)

Something learnt: Don't draw legs on distant flying dragons*.

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*I ended up painting the legs out. It looks messy.
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More castles in the next instalment...

Cover 2 Cover, part 1

Open Studios (West Berks and North Hants) 2015 

Next May, I will be opening my studio for the first time as part of the West Berkshire and North Hampshire Open Studios scheme. It is all rather exciting and new.

What is Open Studios?

Open Studios is a concept that involves artists inviting the public into their work spaces. This is usually as part of a scheme involving several artists in a geographical area who all open during the same period and whose details are collected together in a freely distribuuted guide. Interested people can then tour the studios, and may even buy some art direct from the artists they are visiting!

There are a couple of "extras" running alongside the core Open Studios scheme here in West Berkshire and North Hampshire; there is the Insight exhibition, to be held at New Greenham Arts, and there is the collaborative sketchbook project - which is the subject of this post.

Collaborative Sketchbook Project:
Cover 2 Cover 

Artists who choose to be involved get an A5 landscape sketchbook, for which they choose a theme. They then fill a number of pages (up to five double page spreads) with things related to the theme.

Then they pass the book on to the next artist, exchanging it for another, with a different theme. Again, they then fill up to five double page spreads with things related to this theme.

And then it all happens again. There are 42 artists taking part, split into six groups. Each group has eight sketchbooks to work in. After five months, it will be done; the sketchbooks will be collected together and exhibited, and a book featuring work from the sketchbooks will be published.

In the Clouds

My theme is "In the Clouds".

It's a song title, but ignore that and there's a lot of scope for interpretation – literal cloud studies, shapes that might be seen in the clouds, things that might be obscured by cloud... fluffy and white, ominous and grey, however the mood (or the weather) takes you.

I have completed my ten pages, and am looking forward to the first exchange.

This post is getting a bit long, so I will leave you with the collected images and - hopefully - find some time and some bandwidth* to write about each one later.

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* We have been without landline or broadband for three weeks; the trunk cable that serves us and many of our neighbours is in need of replacement. BT are digging up the thoroughfares of the village as I type...