Another year gone

It seems impossible that another year has gone by. Yet, as time will, so it has.

I want to thank everyone who has sent me reiki over the last several months. I was not supposed to bounce back after my illness, yet I have to some extent. Thanks to reiki, prayers, good wishes and good medicine.

I still have a way to go to be healed. I have a new favourite saying. It come from of all things, a song recorded by Big & Rich. I'll live this life until this life won't let me live it anymore. Any rrors and omissions in this quote are due to my damaged hearing.

I have passed some of the time getting back into artist mode. My unbalanced lifestyle left no time for creativity. I manage by asking my family to tell me where things need to be changed. I kind of think that my fuzzy eyesight makes for improvement - it turns off the visual editor in my head. The one that constantly harps about the drawing not being 'right'.

Here's hoping the new year will be a bright and shining one for us all.

From the Drawing Board This Week

Well I've been trying out coloured (colored) pencils a bit more this week and the results have been somewhat frustrating. For years I have painted on silk, which is very similar to watercolours but freer, looser in technique. The dyes flow freely and the biggest disadvantage is lack of control of where the dye flows to. Watercolour is a similar medium and I've completed about 14 projects in this medium over the last few months. (I'm waiting for the scanner to be hooked up before I can post images. The camera we purchased didn't have any way for images to be downloaded to the printer or the pc (guess what is going back to the shop???).

Anyway, I have used cp with the watercolours and enjoyed the effects achieved. I also really enjoy watercolour pencils. Do they count as cp?

I completed a cp portrait of my mother as a toddler. I gave this to my sister for her birthday. The portrait was done on drafting film. I put a cream coloured background sheet into the frame with it.

One of my main subject areas is animal portraits. I've been working on a couple of cat portraits in cp and found it very frustrating to say the least. These turn out wonderfully well in graphite. I'm beginning to feel as if I'll never get the effects I want from other mediums.

Why don't I work in silk?

Currently I just don't have the space to set up my equipment and no fan or ventilation area to pull the fumes of steaming the finished pieces when steaming them to set the dyes.

I won't give up though. I'll keep trying until I GET IT. :o)

Cheers,

Mau

PS: I've now added the coloured pencil drawing of a varigated tulip.

Temptation

I'm trying very hard to keep from being lured away from my current works in progress by the tantalizing techniques of new media. Focus! Focus! Focus!



I'm currently working in watercolour, watercolour pencils and coloured pencils. I've also started working more in graphite too.



I used to work in oils a long time ago. The fumes and cleaners were too much for me and had to give it up or give up breathing! My daughter brought me the news that there are now a few companies making water based oil paints. Oh-h YES! Unfortunately it is too late to start trying them right now. They'll have to sit on the back burner until my current w.i.p.s are completed.

It seems there is always something more alluring than the current canvas in front of you, isn't there?

Well, back to the drawing board.