Showing posts with label doodles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label doodles. Show all posts

Monday, 6 April 2015

EMBRACING CHANGE ....

 

This is one of those pages I'm really pleased with - difficult to explain exactly why, but I like the shapes and the colours and I'm satisfied with it in some way which is difficult to quantify, but has something to do with having got down on paper what I wanted to say .....

Anyway, it began with paint - just bog-standard acrylic paint, and I then deepened the colour at the edge with a strong pink neocolour II crayon.  I added a piece of patterned paper for no other reason than that the pink and orange look nice together.
And having introduced the orange I went on to add more - from an assortment of collage pieces copied from previous journal pages.  The Modigliani lady just seemed to belong there - almost every page seems to need something HUMAN, whether its a figure or a pair of eyes, just something.
You may notice the grey shadow I added between the above and below pictures - I used a grey Promarker, and it always amazes me how much difference it makes!  I didn't know that I was going to write this until I did - but then again its not very surprising since this is what is most on my mind at present.  Health issues (mine) have led us to the decision to retire early, and while I'm sad to be leaving where we are, I'm also a bit excited about the future and time to be together .... and I WANT to be allowed to look forward to it.
So having said what I wanted/needed to get out of my subconscious, I did the my usual trick of filling in the remaining gaps with this and that - I often use dots as shadows/shading and this time I used the grey Promarker again, and like the subtle effect it has given compared to using black.  The flowers are just doodles to fill up the space.
So there I am - caught between a life that I've loved but can no longer sustain, and a new life of freedom from responsibilities if relative penury!  Fortunately I LIKE beans - we may well have to eat a lot of them for a while - and am happy to get my clothes from charity/thrift shops.  I have a secret slush fund saved up for craft supplies - I definitely can't do without those!!

Saturday, 26 July 2014

MAKING A DIFFERENCE?

  
With this page I really wanted to be quite wild and free, especially in the colour department!  It was one of those times when, as quite often happens, I had no idea what I wanted to say until I got around to saying it. Below was the painted background I started from - it took me a while to realise that these could be as messy as I liked, since most of it will be covered up anyway.
Interesting how different colours can look in varying lights - the above picture was taken in the evening under electric light, but the others in the daytime, where you can see the true red and oranges more clearly.

I'd found these bits of doodly scrapbook paper left over from another project, and just loved these scribbly shapes, so cut some out and just plonked them down.  By the way I use PVA glue (Anita's) to stick down everything, I buy a big bottle and then decant it at need into little fine top glue bottles - cheap and easy.

I've recently discovered the joys of printed tissue paper, which I put on with gel medium - if you see any grab some, it makes great collage, and I like the transparency of it.  I've got some plain tissue and plan to try printing my own using stamps - yet another item on my long list of things to get around to ....
Next I used a fine liner pen to sort of extend the wiggly lines a bit, but then I just went for it with a Promarker and drew huge squiggles as well. The page had got to this stage when it suddenly came to me what I wanted to say, so I wrote it in grey Posca paint pen - I get these at my local art materials shop.
And after that I just did my usual pleasurable squiggling and doodling, mostly using the Posca pens.  These come in different nib thicknesses and buying a few at a time I've now got a nice selection of colours.  The general loudness of the page (I was thinking fireworks and names in lights) made me realise that I don't want those things any more, if I ever did.  Fame is over-rated it really is, not that I seem to be at real risk of having any!!  That's the way I like it, burbling along in my own little corner of the world, with occasional travels to broaden my mind.

We've just done something totally out of character - which is to impulsively bring home a stray cat which had been hanging around a place we visit regularly for a week.  Now he (newly named William) and Stanley appear to be good buddies after less than an hour's acquaintance, and have taken themselves off upstairs on a voyage of exploration.  How nice is that?  And we'll overlook the deep scratches on my arm from trying to stuff a very frightened little cat into a carrier .... he didn't mean it.  Note to self, do NOT fall head over heels for this little chap until we've checked in at the vet's on Monday and established whether or not he's micro-chipped.  Hmmm, might already be too late on that one.