Have just finished and submitted a small (8"x10") piece entitled "The Vagabond's Tale." It is on cradle board. The face of the fellow, who is looking over his shoulder is done in charcoal and pencil, right on the bare panel. His shoulder is in a forest green, with a red srip above and to the left. I glued on a copper piece in the upper left hand corner and an upside down triangular piece with dangly bits on the upper right. Beside his ear on the right is another odd bit glued on. It's hard to describe but something like a cog. In the background I attached a gelskin of a shipwreck that my daughter and I went to see on Haida Gwaii. It's near Tlell, and one walks out 5 km to a beach where the prow of the ship juts out of the sand. One can stand beneath it for photo ops as well. Lovely weathered wood, rusted metal...very cool. The day we went was lovely and sunny and the sun beat down on us as we plodded along. There was much swearing on my part, as on the way out we walked along the riverbank, as a woman we met had suggested. It was very muddy and I fell on my face and was all over mud all the way there and back. Back we chose to go through the forest; not muddy. The piece is to go in a juried show at the Port Moody Art Centre. If it gets in, it will go up for silent auction for their Christmas time auction. This year half the proceeds will go to the artist, the other half to the Arts Centre. It will be exciting to see what other artists produce. Presently, have finished the drawing of the motorcycle for Natalie's piece. Now it will be painted, cut out, and applied to the piece, along with Natalie herself, then that piece will be complete. From there, it will be on to Gail. Have begun once more drawing on the Skytrain in the morning going into work. That should spark some good ideas. Have become fairly proficient at the quick line drawing of people on the Skytrain. I like drawing quite quickly, with only minutes to finish the gesture of the person. It is like a shorthand of an image.
This week I managed to complete another technical pen drawing for the Women's Celebration Series. It had been eluding me for several months, but at last I think I'm satisfied. I puttered and puttered over the details in an underlying pencil drawing. It is of my friend Rosemary, who, when I was doing the photo shoot, remarked "I hope I'm really hard to do...". Why is it I have problem ignoring that kind of light-hearted, playful remark????
My daughter's friend from Vancouver has been visiting her and staying with her this week. I am staying with my ex-brother-in-law. The other day he went up into his attic and hauled down some of my ex-husband's things and we sorted through some things, leaving anything my daughter might want to keep for her to go through. Such a difficult time for her right now. It's wonderful she has supportive friends.
I've also been crocheting; something I haven't done in years. It is a nice compliment to artwork. Still very productive, but somewhat creative as well.
I will start today on another pencil drawing of one of my women friends. Watched a good video high-speed demo of someone using classical techniques in oil to do a self-portrait. She had used a blue underpainting, which I also do when doing my women's portraits (but in acrylic). Sometimes you can use a green, if the tones of the skin call for it. This is what the old masters used, right back to DaVinci's time. What it does is shine through the surface flesh tones, rendering the face more three-dimensional and giving a type of lumosity to the skin.
Do you happen to do portraiture? Have you used this technique? Would love to hear your comments.