'annette' ~ casein paint, gouache, watercolors, 8B pencil in 'the merry men'

annette is what became of the drawing i did (here) while watching amy's video about drawing realistic faces. i'd say she turned out vaguely realistic. the most interesting thing was that i thought her shoulders were proportional until i painted them, and then it was obvious that they were way too small. so i wiped most of the paint off of her dress to play this fact down, lol.

saturday's video was about collage faces, which is a very cool thing to do if you get stymied by drawing faces. just glue some face parts down and then paint them. it's helpful and it's fun! here's a link...

the weather's been nice! i love that and just can't stay inside when it is... if you've never made a tree love flag i highly recommend it. you can feel the tree smile when you hang it...

in case it's helpful, here's where i get my sari silk.

sari silk, piece from old doily and embroidery floss on muslin

XO

'sad girl with green eyes (gazes at the world)' ~ watercolors, glued down bits of wallpaper, casein paint and gouache in 'the merry men'

XO

'clementine' ~ watercolors, gouache, oil pastels, casein paint,bits of paper glued to page, colored pencil and graphite in 'the merry men' - 5" x 7"

there's a painting underneath clementine that i worked for *hours* on. finally i just said 'bah!' (or something like that, ha ha) and covered it up with white casein paint. you can still see bits of the original painting. what doesn't get fully covered up almost always seems to enhance the final version. i love the legs on the front of clementine's dress, but i definitely didn't plan it so they'd show up.

lately i've been gluing down pieces of old wallpaper before i start drawing. there's something about old wallpaper that i really like. it's the one collage thing i always come back to.

pogo prints in pocket moleskine

i finished the pocket moleskine that i started in late august. in it i messed around with various things, like writing the date in different ways. i decided that my writing gets a lot more interesting if i vary the width of it.


i drew with an 8B (soft lead) pencil a lot. what i really love is smudging it. i did a bunch of pencil smudging...


like here... i'm on a hexagon/honeycomb kick. i don't know why, but i'm happy drawing honeycomb!


this is what i drew today watching amy's video workshop. it's supposed to be realistic, but i did lop a bit off of her lower lip to make her a little wonky. lol, she'll probably be real wonky by the time i finish painting her. even though i don't draw realistically, i do like to try different things... thank you, amy!!

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“What do I ask of a painting? I ask it to astonish, disturb, seduce, convince.”

~ Lucien Freud, via tumblr

XO

'sylvia' ~ gouache, watercolors, oil pastels, casein paint, colored pencil & soft pastels in 'the merry men'

in the last month or so i've been experimenting... and resting creatively while whatever it is that's brewing gets brewed. i feel like i'm coming out the other end of that now, and one thing that i know more than ever is that i love to draw and paint faces. i just do!

hey! amy is offering free video art workshops!! she is one beautiful human being and very good with words, so i'm gonna paste here what she says on her blog:

Let's pass artiness around and get it to everyone.

Let's make everything arty and awesome and happy.

I will be loading some templates and supply lists for you when they are necessary.
I am very excited.

I will do all that i can to make art and information and techniques available to everyone.

We all deserve art, right?

If you have good information or are not shy and would like to share a tutorial or host a portion of a workshop, please Please contact me via email: amy@amymcdonald.net

I think the best thing we can do is share what we know.

So please. If you know good stuff (and you do)
and are willing to share your good information, let me know.

Let's make a free arty information revolution.

click here for more info...
(can you see me blowing her the most enormous kisses in the world?)

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XO

'came calling' ~ watercolors, graphite, oil pastels, gouache, casein paint and collage papers in 'the merry men'

well i'm still feeling mighty, mighty quiet, but it seems like time to put something here besides kees...

owl, woodpecker, turkey and blue jay feathers

one thing i am absolutely clear on these days is that nature is mind-bogglingly complex and beautiful.


blowing you kisses...

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"Art is a journey into the most unknown thing of all - oneself. Nobody knows his own frontiers… I don’t think I’d ever want to take a road if I knew where it led."

~ Louis Kahan (1905–2002, Austria) via tumblr

XO