Tranquillity

Face 24

Face 24 of 29 Faces is depicting my need for some quiet time.  I know when I have to step back and rest as I start to make silly mistakes.

In this case it proved to be a bonus.  The above was just the face and hair with a plain background.  I had used my new Inktense pencils and while munching on my tomatoes and crackers at lunch wondering whether to add water, a slice of tomato slid off and landed on my lovely picture!  So now I had a patch of smeared pencil that was stained red - they were very juicy tomatoes.  Now I had no choice, and I had to add a background as the tomato had stained the white background.

I sat looking at it and thought, she looks as if she is floating in water on her back, which I wished I was doing instead of here in the oppressive heat wave we are having. So, my goddess turned into Ophelia!  She really is not drowning herself; she is just floating along dreaming of tranquillity.

Face 25

So in the quest of finding that quiet I am going to take tomorrow off.  But so that I don’t get behind in my faces here is Face 25 - a quick digital drawing I did in Photoshop.

I haven’t just been doing faces, this week I managed to squeeze in this gouache of my begonia that resides on top of the fridge.  I love all forms of begonias from the garish bedding ones to the exotic houseplants.  My Dad used to bred them in his nursery and whenever I look at them I remember him with love.  I still have some tubers of his and they are still flourishing every year despite being about 10 years old.

The scripture I am taking into the coming week is: Instead, your beauty should consist of your true inner self, the ageless beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of the greatest value in God's sight. 1Pe 3:4  GNB. 

Have a lovely week creating wonderful art all you lovely bloggers and see you next week.  Blessings. 

 I am linking this to Sunday Sketches, check out the wonderful art there.

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!