Category: Art

I only had ten minutes spare today so I just grabbed my brush and sketched the reference that was sitting on the bench. Some days the art making is about creative adventures and following trails, and on other days it’s about maintaining that tiny gossamer lifeline to hope. I bought a book about painting second…

This is the brown paper coated in white opaque watercolour ground that I prepped a while back. I didn’t sketch first, just painted her onto the surface. It’s an interesting surface to work on. I can see why there are mixed reviews about watercolour ground, because it doesn’t create a surface like watercolour paper, but…

The piece of brown paper that I prepped with watercolour ground weeks ago, and ignored, and then added the sketch a few days ago….. …… is sitting on my easel glaring at me, and I am avoiding it like the plague. Instead I am doing lots of different things in sketchbooks and whatnot, and convincing…

I didn’t have much time today, and I was feeling quite stressed, so I did a little sketchbook therapy. There are two different sketchbooks in the picture. On the left is a quick gel print using the texture plates I made the other day. They give an interesting, subtle effect, which I like. I am…

I finally got my 16×12″ brown paper out and started committing to the painting, but only after doing another sketch in my A5 sketchbook, which, naturally, I like more than the one on the brown paper. This is the brown parcel paper I covered in clear watercolour ground, and I have no idea how this…

I’m still working with this reference, trying to decide how much I want to put into my painting. I really like the pose, and I like challenging myself with hands, so I think I might stick with the whole image, rather than crop it. It occurs to me this might be a form of procrastination,…

Working in sketchbooks today, and trying to get one old spiral bound one finished. I am practising with this reference that’s a Let’s Face It class reference, trying to decide what I want to put on the page for the class. I still can’t find my bookbinding kit and I am now obsessed with finding…

My large messy mixed media sheet has been transformed into a concertina book. This might be just the next stage in this project, or I might transform it further. This page wasn’t made with any design aspirations, or too much thought, it was instinctive and more about process than perfection. It is interesting how it…

I am obsessed with the mark-making and texture effects of this painting tool. It’s not a painting tool, it’s a pastry basting brush, or it’s a painting tool that looks like a basting brush. If you visit my house and want to baste food, be sure to check you aren’t using a tool that’s been…

I was not feeling at all comfortable today as we were being battered by Storm Éowyn, and I mostly spent a lot of time pacing until my other half finally got home. A pox on shitty employers who force their people to travel when there’s a red danger to life weather warning. Ugh. He got…

I have seen various opinions on the difference between and art journal and a sketchbook, and fundamentally I don’t know if there is much of a difference, but for the sake of better quantifying my vast pile of books-in-progress, this is in my art journal. I am not well-practised in lettering, as you can see,…

A lot of people I know are terrified, in a much worse way than I am, and it’s hard. To top it off, someone I had a lot of time for treated me very poorly today, and it felt like a gut punch. Some late in the day mixed media art therapy on my large…