experimental creativity

I've had this post set up forever, but it's just been sitting here waiting for me to publish. It's always been true that the art posts on this blog garner the least amount of comments, and when I know it's not a piece that's as appealing to the masses- like say, a realistic child portrait might be- then I'm even more hesitant to put it out there.

But anyway, here are a few things I"ve been working on lately. First, this is a fun drawing I did of Elora. I was trying to make it look more impressionistic and loose than it ended up being, but it's hard to change the style you've always had! I drew it in graphite pencil first, then did some marker details, and the rest is colored pencil. The marker and pencil colors actually go better together than they seem in this drawing; the marker in the photo translated to smoother darker colors than the pencil, as usual. I think there is a little more color in the original too.

The thing I like least about this drawing is how the glasses look kind of wonky; I didn't stick to the underdrawing very well when I was trying to be all spur-of-the-moment. My favorite thing is the bright, sunny feel of the drawing, especially the sky. This is about 11x14" in size.

 

 

 

 

This next picture was completed over several different days, as I didn't have a concrete idea of what I wanted when I started. At first, I did the background watercolors when I was just painting for fun with Jonah. Later I added the tree, also water color. Slowly I added leaves in marker and pen, then I decided I wanted to add words. I just added a few things in writing, when the idea came to me that I wanted to do some kind of tribute to my dad, who recently passed away.

For the words in the drawing, I used lyrics from some songs, as well as phrases from some articles my dad had written for treasure magazines. I deliberately chose phrases that could be interpereted multiple ways, especially in regard to passing from one life to another, and to the value of a life.

I tried a transfer method I found online, where you print the words onto wax paper, then rub them onto the surface where you want them. It worked on parts, and not so much on others, where it smudged a bit.

My favorite parts of this piece are the actual words and the idea of it, my least favorite are the parts where it was supposed to transfer but I had to go over it with my own writing, which didn't look as cool. Also, at the last minute, I tried to add some musical notes from a relevant song along the edges of the picture. I tried a different transfer method which didn't work well at all, and caused the paper to get more wrinkled than it was. Oh well, live and learn!

 

 

 

Here's a close up of the branches, which have words along some of them.

 

 

This is a close-up of the ground and some of the words there.

 

Finally, here are a few fun sketches I did recently. This first was from a different photo of that day the boys were catching dust; I drew it while I was watching Conference this last month, using pen and..spit. Hey, it works.

 

 

This other one was a few weeks ago at church. We were waiting after church for daddy to get done, and the kids all started playing around drawing on the chalkboard, so I decided to draw them. I wish this was on unlined paper, because I really like it!