paisley/flowers

Yesterday I found myself doing my last class for the term. I thought that I'd be finishing next Tuesday, but the teachers have a planning day scheduled, so, I'm on school holidays for the next 4 1/2 weeks. Yay, me!

Paisleys. Love them! Clearly, though, they are on my mind a lot more than I thought - I was sitting on the couch a couple of days ago innocently reading my book when a turned back paisley popped into my head - I have learnt that unless I get these images that just randomly appear sketched out pretty quick, they just slip back into the primordial ooze, never to be seen again. So, in order to figure out if I could make the turned edge paisley look work, I grabbed my sketchbook.

After I drew the first one, I was thinking "flower petal", so, I just kept going and turned a series of them into a flower.

 

Then, I kept the petal shapes, ditched the paisleys, and drew some stylised 'mums:

 

hx

possibly a little too much Pink Floyd

I have been listening to "The Wall" on almost constant repeat for about a week - Erin bought home a tape from a garage sale and as soon as she started playing it I remembered how much I used to love this album and headed straight to iTunes to download it. That was over a week ago and I have really immersed myself in it. Re-watched the movie and have been reading an in-depth analysis. Ah, such is the way of a compulsive person. Another week or so and it'll be out of my system.

Anyway, over the weekend I drew this - I started off thinking about the loopy paisley shapes of my last drawings, but wanted to play with weaving the lines in and out of each other:

So, then I shaded and added the straight detail lines. My husband took one look and said it looked like worms. Gross. So not the effect I was after, and, possibly the subliminal result of all that Pink Floyd. So, I added the random-ish checks which hopefully gives it the more loose, organic, non-worm appearance I was after.

Carrying on with the loopy theme.........it's been a while since I've done a Diva Challenge and had hoped to get last weeks one done. Well, I didn't. But, I did play around with the concept and ended up with a pattern that I really like.

This started off as trying to fit Sandy Hunter's fabulous pattern, Cruffle (one of my absolute faves) into a square. It morphed a bit - love the effect that you get if you join up the loops (3&4) on each side of the "s" shaped line.

You can get some neat effects by the way you fill it, or if you switch the direction of the initial s shaped lines, too.

 

 

I haven't really kept up with any patterns for a while, so please let me know if I have osmosized someone else's design :)

hx

goodbye G139

Curvy lines - what's not to love?

If I'm staring at a blank page with no idea of what I'm doing there, I'll just doodle a curving line - usually a loose "s" shape - to start me off.

Sometimes I like to be more deliberate and start with a sinuous line that creates a whole heap of stacked paisley shapes then see where they take me.

Some examples: http://www.alittlelime.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/the-end-of-another-journal.html

Here's a looser version: http://www.alittlelime.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/bunzo-weaver.html

Todays offering:

I haven't coloured anything for a while, so went with my fave combo of lime green/purple. I'm o.k. with it, I do love the way the centres look all connected (in some spots, anyway) and, well, all juicy :) I probably would've preferred a greyscale version, though.

For this design I used my favourite pale lime green marker - it was on its last legs - it took a lot of coaxing and we just barely managed to get through colouring this design, only for me to discover that G139 has been discontinued. What???? I now feel I should've, I don't know, maybe saved it for something special. It's definitely going to take some time for me to recover from the horror of no longer having this colour in my marker selection.

Let the weekend begin!

hx

 

the end of another journal - part 2

A bit more excavated from the journal:

After this I think (hope, please, please make it so!) that I have curly brackets out of my system.

Bracketed Pattern: This one forms bracket flower shapes in the negative space.

Two ways to draw this pattern..............

First, with a grid. I love me a grid. I like to make/use patterns that don't need pencil lines (that I have to later erase) to keep them on track. If a pattern needs some kind of structure, I want ones where the grid/guide lines form part of the finished design.

Second, freehand. I find some patterns very easy to get into the flow of without a grid. This one works like that for me - I just form the lines in a continuous flowing motion. I have to approach the structure of the pattern differently when working freehand so that the size of the boxes doesn't get all cattywampus. And, oh yeah - don't you just know I've been waiting for ages to find a way to slip that word into a sentence. Hope I used it right because: I. love. it.

 

 

Some fill ideas, and how it looks with streamlined, skinny brackets and all that lovely negative space just  left alone. The negative space........it calls to me, you know?

 

The last "reject" drawing from the journal. What I don't like: the flip back on the leaf tip has gone too far and seriously annoys me as it really throws out the whole perspective - it should be about half the size and not come back across the front of the leaf. This one makes me think of my favourite art quote:

Creativity is making mistakes.

Art is knowing which ones to keep.

- Scott Adams -

For me this is not a "keeper", but I learnt something so it's still valuable to me.

hx

the end of another journal - part 1

Another day, the end of another journal.

 

If you've been reading for a while you may know that when I get to the end of a journal I like to go through and see if I have any unfinished drawings or pattern sketches that I want to complete. I often get distracted, or go off a drawing for some reason which means I usually have quite a lot of incomplete ideas - this is a chance to review them before I put the journal on the shelf and essentially forget about it.

 

Here's some of what I found today:

 

Paisley feather. I went off this one because I really don't like the awkwardness of the bottom RHS paisley shape - it just looks wrong. I abandoned it after I'd filled in 2 or 3 of the paisleys but decided to finish it off today. I still don't love it, but it's done.

 

Gumleaves pattern: a super easy one.

 

Gumleaves pattern given a much more natural look by using it on a curve, graduating leaf sizes and adding a few scrolls.

A daisy I sketched last night - pen shading on the petals of this one. A little bit of greylead on the centre. No makers for a change.

 

Hope you're enjoying your weekend.

 

hx

leaves and scrolls

John is driving back from....??.....wherever......... (I do know he is at least 2 hours away and will not make it back in time for our afternoon coffee)........with our new Jersey cow (we are planning to milk our girls on a 6 month rotation so that we always have our own milk, cream, etc, etc.). I think I'll call this one Daisy. I've always, always wanted a cow called Daisy........or Buttercup.....or really any name that is not Jersey. Maybe I'll go totally left field and name it Clog. LOL. We once had a dog called Gumboot. I loved the name and, I'll tell you what, no one ever forgot it. I loved him, too. Here he is cuddled up with another favourite of mine.

My main girl ended up with "Jersey" by default - all our other cows are beef - Herefords - and when she ran with main herd we just got in the habit of calling her "the Jersey" to identify her. Well, I guess she doesn't care - when I call out "Jersey" she knows who I'm talking to and still comes running for her treats :)

Today I finally finished shading the outlined piece from my last post:

This orientation, though different from my previous post, is how it appears in my journal - I think the design/highlighting is a little more dynamic with this placement, also. I always prefer my highlighting to come from the upper left. Because, you know, I'm slightly (read: totally) compulsive.

I shaded with my cool grey markers. Usually I do these type of designs with my neutral or warm grey and, after working on this one I can confirm I prefer the warmer tones. Ah well. Live=learn.

Am thinking of doing this over June/July. Sounds like fun but I just don't know if I'll make the time for it. Though, Winter is usually a lot easier for me to do creative stuff.......and......I have moved my basic drawing gear back down to the main living area (cold weather/wood heater on 24/7...need I say more), which usually makes it easy for me to draw as I don't have to go to all the effort of actually walking up the stairs. LOL.

Hope you're having a great weekend.

hx

The half-way point

Not a lot of drawing happening around here, though, I AM right at the middle of term! Once I get through todays classes I can start counting down to the June/July break - I'm really looking forward to the 3 weeks off, though I can barely comprehend that we are almost half way through 2013. Wasn't it just Christmas?

A quick, simple bit of spirally cone love that popped into my head last night - I did remember to shade this one before patterning:

Ah, and some scolls.......my (not so secret) obsession...... It's not complete yet - I did the outline for this one yesterday, hopefully I will have a chance to shade it tonight - it always amazes me the difference that shading makes to the drawing.

 

I'm almost to the end of another journal - it's time to take a look back through and see what needs to be finished off, or ideas worth resuscitating.

hx