A Journal Page and Faces

My entry for this week’s Art Journal Every Day is my Face 22 of 29 Faces in February. 

Face 22

I used acrylics, gouache and coloured pencils.  It is quite subdued for me. And it got me thinking that perhaps it is time for me to do a monochromatic painting.  Being a colour junkie, I think sometimes I use colour in place of form.  So here goes:

 

I decided to scan it as I went.  The drawing was on gesso coated card A4 size. 

Then I blocked in some raw umber. With a touch of naples yellow.

Face 23

Finally, I added a bit of magenta to my colour mix, with a touch of ultramarine blue to darken the browns.  Technically speaking she is not monochromatic any more, but what the heck. 

 

Oh, I used acrylics and at long last feel as if I am getting the hang of them.  I really liked the fact that I did all of this in a space of 3 – 4 hours.  That included the time I allowed each layer to dry before scanning.  At long last I am starting to fall in love with acrylics and my goal of getting on terms with acrylics has been accomplished.  

So there you have it, my Face 23, 6 more to go.

Have a happy Paint Party Friday and a great week journaling everyone.

Linking to

Paint Party Friday

Art Journal Everyday

Books

The prompt at Jen’s The Artist’s Playroom this week is books.

Face 20 and 21

I’ve decide to kill several birds with one stone.  As I am doing 29 Faces this month, I have got behind in my illustration work for Mystery in Arcadia.  There are several parts of the story where books play an important part.  Here, the main characters Ambrose and Columbia are looking for information about a flask that they found.  The next picture they have just asked Ambrose’s tutor about the same flask and Jeremy tells them to go away as he is the middle of his personal studies.  I am sure you all know the annoyance you feel when you have a good book and interruptions keep on occurring!

 

So, I have completed three tasks with this post, got two more illustrations done, face 20 and 21, and a post about books.  Yay!

Doodling Along

Face 19

Ha!  Last night I opened my journal at a page with just a background – I have quite a few – with the intention of seeing which would be suitable for a silhouette.  Denthe did one a few days ago and I thought wow, I could do that.  I was watching the news while idly flipping my way through my pages; I must have gone into a trance because when the news ended I had the above.  Admittedly I’ve added a few tweaks here and there this morning. The text I came across in a book of quotes a few days ago and I think this picture fits perfectly.  I think I will keep my jar of pencils and one of my journals on the coffee table all the time in case I go into the doodle zone again! 

I am only going to count these as one Face as I wasn't consciously drawing them. Remember to check out the other participants of 29 Faces, there is some amazing work!

Face 18

I really struggled with this face; I started it last week with the intention of posting it for Valentine’s Day.  But I got stuck and messed up the background.  Yesterday, when tidying up my work desk I found it buried under a pile of paper.  I really liked how the face and rose had turned out, so taking courage into my hands I got my paints out and mixed up a lot of watery paint, I started to flick and dribble paint.  It was nearly right, but the background and girl were like two different works.  So holding my breath I got out my white acrylic and flicked and dribbled paint over the girl.  It worked!  Phew!  

The moral of this is that never give up on a painting, there is always a part of it that works.  Even if you have to cut that bit out and collage it to another work, you will be able to save it in some way.  I think this has turned out way better than my original composition, which was a bit smoultzy! The background was a sunset!

Linking to

29 Faces

Creative Everyday