Wednesday, May 25, 2011

What are you up to wednesday - part 10

Another wednesday and another look at what I'm up to these days.

First of all my worktable. I have cheated a little by putting all the drawings I am going to use for my current little project on the table. In reality they were stacked on top of each other on the side cabinets. Anyway, I am making four small canvases with girl's faces on them. I am drawing the girls on paper with a pitt artist pen and then I am coloring them in with colored pencil (Derwent Coloursoft, for you art supply junkies out there).


If you look closely you can see all the girls are crying. Yes, it's sad, but it just had to be done! I'm a cruel artist, sometimes my subjects will just be submitted to misery. But when they are finished you will see the tears have a purpose. I have it all worked out in my head.

If you look even more closely you will also see two small sketches of silly creatures. That was done while listening to a podcast with Carla Sonheim. During that she gave a really simple, but wonderful exercise that will make you draw a creature of your own in just a few minutes. I loved it! Want to try it yourself, go here!  While you're there, also check out the other wonderful podcasts that RicĂ« did with all sorts of artists. She really knows how to dig into the artist's mind and soul. ;-)

Looking even more closely you will also see an apple lying on the table. That will the subject of my next EDM drawing for my drawing in may project. I will get to that right after I finish this post.

The girls from the above picture will be cut out and pasted on the canvases that are shown in the picture below and that I already prepared. That is to say, they will still get further embellished, but the basic background is done. It's two layers of paint with a crackle medium in between. The canvases measure 20x20 cm (about 8x8 inches).


They are waiting patiently on  my second studio table, that I pretty much use just for that purpose: to put stuff on to dry or to wait for being used.

To the side of my work table are my drawer cabinets from IKEA that I love so so much. They hold all my favorite supplies at hand and as you can see they are also very helpful in temporarily holding drawings or other elements to work on.


Those three girls were also drawn for the canvases, but I decided against them. I will eventually paste them in my sketchbook, but until then they sit pretty right there. I started this project with the girl on the left and she just didn't feel right. She was done in neocolor. Then I changed to a pen drawing and colored pencil and made the girl on the right. The technique was more to my liking, but the girl was just ... I don't know...I just didn't know what to do with her. After that the idea of the sad girls came to me out of nowhere and I made the three girls in the first picture. The girl in the middle of this one was supposed to be the fourth one, but she doesn't do it for me either, so I'm going to make another one that's a little less 'bleh'.

That's how it goes sometimes, you have to try different techniques and ideas and that will lead to something you like. I am starting to notice more and more that ideas don't come by themselves while you're waiting for inspiration. They come by doing the work and handling the materials. Sometimes you just have to make something, even if you don't know where you're going, and somehow during that process ideas will start forming. I love how that works!

Hope you're all having a very creative week!