Abstract Art for Inspire Me Thursday

Red, for Inspire Me Thursday. Pencil, marker & gouache on craft paper.

My initial sketch for this piece is here,
















It was inspired by a photo I took a few days ago, of my red coat.










To see what other ideas I tried for this week's entry, have a look here.

Playing with Abstract Art

This week's Inspire Me Thursday challenge is Abstract Art. A lot of my photography is usually abstract, but I wanted to create something that I don't normally do, so I had a play around with a few ideas that came up.












This was the first one I did, with pastels and it didn't come out at all the way I saw it in my head.












This was the second one, an ink and marker pen drawing inspired by a red onion that I chopped up the other day.
















I'm not sure what this one was inspired by, but I had been looking at a book on Paul Klee's work, and was trying to do something that felt like "diving into yellow".

The final piece I did, which was the one I liked the most and which I've entered for Inspire Me Thursday can be seen here.

Faraway Lands

Faraway Lands was the topic for Inspire Me Thursday two weeks ago. It coincided with my moving house, so I didn't get a chance to create an entry for it at the time, but it's been on my mind and I've been wanting to do something ever since, so here it is. I'm glad I finally found the time to do it.















As soon as the topic was introduced, I immediately knew I wanted to paint this. It's one of my favourite places in the world, Ayudhya, the ancient capital of Thailand. It's a deeply peaceful and spiritual place, with enormous sculptures of serene Buddhas dotted around temples, ruins, and gardens that are still tended. You could be forgiven for thinking that the sculptures were real.

Although Thailand is the country of my birth, I've never lived there and it's never really been home to me. Home has not really been about place as much as it's been about the people I'm close to. But this place brought me the closest I've ever come to feeling rooted somewhere, or to what I imagine it feels like to know you're definitely FROM somewhere. It stirs something very deep in me, something that is about belonging both to a physical, earthly place as well as to a more ethereal spiritual realm.

Watercolour and ink pen, 17.5.06

These drawings and the photos that inspired them are also up on bingo and betty's site Buddha Karma Central.

Mad & I try out collage (art recipe for fun)

1. First, gather your materials. We gathered pretty much every kind of art material I had in the house (ie. watercolour paints, several types of marker pens, coloured pencils, crayons, ink pens, gel pens, glue, sewing thread, origami paper squares), plus a pile of newspapers and magazines to cut up.











2. Choose your base and the medium for your first layer of colour. We decided to work with 300gsm acid free Bockingford watercolour paper, applying the first layer of the collage with watercolour. You may find it useful to choose a theme, colour, mood, etc to start with. We just went with our instincts. I worked towards creating a page I could use for journalling, for this week's Inspire Me Thursday's topic.











3. Keep adding and layering the colour till you have an interesting background to work with. When you stop and how much you fill in is entirely up to you.























4. Next, start cutting out shapes or interesting images from old newspapers and magazines. We also used origami paper squares (or Mad did). Again, you might already have a theme, a colour or something specific in mind. We just cut out whatever grabbed our attention at the time.












5. Take a look at what you've done so far. Do you see a theme developing? Once you've pasted on all the cut out bits you want to, add another layer of colour, with a different medium. It can be anything from crayons, to coloured pencils, to ink. Here I've used gouache.













6. Next, draw on your collage. This is optional. Mad decided to carry on with sticking shapes and images, but I wanted to start drawing. Here I used my rotring art pen in black ink to start drawing little scale-like marks around the shapes I'd pasted on the left. As I drew, I realised it was developing into a heart shape, so I carried on.












7. Once you've finished drawing, take another look. Does it seem finished? It didn't to me, so I added the piece of corrugated cardboard and some more colour, courtesy of a watercolour marker pen. Finally, I used it as a journal page and wrote directly on it, journalling on journalling for Inspire me Thursday!! To see close up pics of my finished piece, go to my Inspire me Thursday entry post here.

Below are details of Mad's finished collage.

Journalling for Inspire Me Thursday

I haven't kept a journal in a long time and I'd never tried collage before, so I'm really grateful for this week's Inspire Me Thursday topic, which pushed me past my comfort zone to have a go at something that I ended up really enjoying. I've been having difficulties with keeping a straight journal, as in words only, for some time, which is what I journalled about for this entry. But creating this unique journal page gave me a glimmer of hope about a new way of journalling that I may try in future.

Mixed media, including watercolour, gouache & ink pen on watercolour paper. To see how we did it, have a look here.

angels and demons for illustration friday

Angel or demon, flames or wings, losing human frailty or gaining it, punishment or grace? I don't think it's ever so black and white, or red.

This drawing was inspired by William Blake's "Web of Religion".
Pastels on blue paper, 15.5.06

I've been tagged!

Teri C tagged me to write 5 things in my fridge, closet & car. I'd been wondering whether I'd ever get tagged, so thanks Teri!

I don't own a car, so I've taken 5 things from my handbag, which travels with me on publich transport.

Five things in my fridge
1. a packet of baby plum tomatoes
2. a pack of meat free "bacon" rashers
3. a nearly empty tub of houmous
4. a bundle of asparagus, held together with two purple rubber bands
5. a tub of organic brown miso paste

Five things in my closet
1. a turquoise blue skirt
2. an aged purple and green rucksack I've had for over 15 years, and which has travelled with me all over the world
3. my shiatsu clothes (navy blue tracksuit bottoms and long sleeved cotton t-shirts)
4. a red corduroy a-line skirt
5. a cream coloured zip-up fleece with a satin trim.

Five things in my handbag
1. a 7g tub of Blistex daily conditioner
2. a pink suedette week to a page diary
3. several black pens
4. my very old Nokia mobile phone which has a light purple cover
5. a thin green cotton scarf with silver threads woven through it

So there you go!
I'm now going to tag Pablo 'cos boy am I curious as to what he's got in his closet, and Sim .

We're in!

We've moved and it went well! We're exhausted, but we love the new house. Pictures will be posted on my flickr gallery. In the meantime, I'm happy to be back online just in time for illustration friday's new topic!

Finally moving!

After months of anticipation and a mere two days of packing, we are finally moving house this week. I might be offline for a few days while we move, not sure for how long, but hope to be back with you all soon...after all, we're only going 100 yards up the road! Thanks to everyone for visiting and for your kind comments.

Fat Blooms, an ode to my mother

This is for my mother, in the month of her birthday. Why shouldn't she take a whole month to celebrate!

Since we live on different continents and can't celebrate together, this post is for you Mum. Happy Birthday for the 22nd.
~
Fat blooms engorged with summer
scent spilling to earth
petals fragrant on gathering fingers

you set the flowers on the table.

Brushing a speck from your cheek
you inhale the passing scent and
dip a finger to taste
the lemongrass and coconut and lime

you smile.

Tonight your family will dine
on curry with roses.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

a saturday afternoon in may

Caesar keeps me company while I pack. I wonder if he knows what's going on.

fat for illustration friday

Inspired by the packing that I am currently doing, here is a quick drawing of a bag full of stuff, fat with the weight of my every day existence.

painting in my garden...the end results

Here are the paintings my friend Mad and I did yesterday (see post below). Hers is the gorgeous watercoloured rooftops, and mine is of the cat and the blue fence.

painting in the garden for the first and last time

Spent a gorgeous Wednesday afternoon painting with my friend Mad. It was the first truly warm day of the year, and we'd been sitting chatting when we decided to get creative. Mad saw the cheapy box of kids watercolours that Paul & I had been using and got really excited! We got stuck in, and were utterly absorbed. Fun and meditative at the same time. It strikes me that this is the first time I've painted in my garden, and as we're moving next week, it will probably be the last too...

watercolour cat

Paul persuaded me to play with watercolours with him last weekend, and this was the result! I hadn't touched them in a long time. Thanks Paul!