It has been four and a half years… yes YEARS… since I painted my last EDM challenge item.
EDM stands for Every Day Matters and is a list of 328 items to draw or paint. It was created by Karen Winters to help artists create a daily practice without mulling over the eternal question, What should I draw today? I’ve been oh so sloooowly working my way though the list but never have I gone this long since my last entry. I painted number 122- draw something where shade is a prominent part of the subject, back in March 2017. Ouch.
EDM 123 – Draw a bell.
Yes, it’s a bell… a Christmas ornament bell. I had to dig around in the closet to find it and now that it’s out early I guess I’ll have to find a safe spot for it to rest until it can take it’s rightful spot of honor on our holiday tree!
Since I haven’t been able to get to the shore and walk the beach this year, or last year for that matter, I have been longing to escape. Painting with buff and ochre for beach sand, cerulean and ultramarine for sky and sea, brought the ocean to my drawing table. My goal was to paint along during the hour and a half presentation. It felt so good to stretch my artistic muscles.
I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers flow in the right direction, will the earth turn as it was taught, and if not how shall I correct it?
Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven, can I do better?
Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows can do it and I am, well, hopeless.
Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it, am I going to get rheumatism, lockjaw, dementia?
Finally, I saw that worrying had come to nothing. And gave it up. And took my old body and went out into the morning, and sang.
i thank You God for most this amazing day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything wich is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth day of life and love and wings:and of the gay great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing any-lifted from the no of all nothing-human merely being doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
Earlier this year I swore I wouldn’t sign up for any classes this year. Instead, I said to myself, I’ll work through some previous classes that I haven’t finished and also revisit some classes that I found particularly useful.
That lasted two whole months when I caved and signed up for Sktchy’s 30 Gouache Portraits in 30 Days. Confession time… I completed exactly ZERO portraits. That just means I can add that course to my burgeoning list of uncompleted art classes.
I continued to work on my other art projects including my tenth Fake Journal for International Fake Journal Month in April, re-scanning most of my fake journal pages, and creating slideshows for each one. (By the way, if you haven’t had a chance to see my fake journals please visit my dedicated Fake Journal blog, Skylark Karma, skylarkkarma.wordpress.com. All the videos will be posted by Wednesday, June 23rd and the final wrap-up of my entire Fake Journal experience is scheduled to post on Friday, June 25th).
Anyway… did I learn my lesson about signing up for classes? No, not really.
I tried to ignore the emails from Sketchbook Skool but the lure of a half-day workshop on creating art and calligraphic text with a dip pen was just too good to pass up. Danny Gregory, one of the founders of Sketchbook Skool, was sharing his tips and tricks.
I already had the dip pens, assorted nibs and a few bottles of India ink… how could I pass it up!
We first practiced our strokes and drew a couple of drawings while Danny filled us in on the pros and cons of working with dip pens and showing how he creates his freeform calligraphy alphabet. I took notes and worked along with the webinar.
I inked this quote of Paul Klee’s along with Danny, copying his alphabet stroke for stroke and line for line. When I opened my book the next day, the large open space to the left just begged for an illustration. Out came the dip pen, G nib, and India ink but this time I was much more confident of my line.
As a single signature it was vulnerable to creasing without the protection of its companion signatures and hard cover. The best way to offer additional protection would be to either make a slipcase or a wrap.
I would have preferred to make a slipcase but since the signature was so thin I realized it would be difficult to measure, cut and glue a slipcase that slim; the wrap was the better alternative.
I first painted a sheet of 300 gsm / 140 lb. watercolor paper with dilute acrylic paint and cut it to allow the flaps to overlap and cover the signature. I rounded the corners and made two tabs with corresponding slots for the closure.
The wrap has nearly no spine thickness to accommodate labeling so I put all the necessary information on the front of the wrap.
It’s now off my work desk, well-enough protected to be filed away as finished, tucked away with my other previously completed sketchbooks in one of my “remote” storage boxes and I’m ready for the next project.
This was created in Laure Ferlita’s online Earth Day Heart ZOOM class which I took last week. Laure kindly provided us with the design and lettering along with detailed instructions so we could all be prepared to just jump in and paint along with her during our hour long class.
Although this class is no longer available, Laure has other upcoming ZOOM classes which might entice you. She also has many tempting on-demand courses ranging from the short project driven class to multi-week deeper dives.
Dana Burrell... Art 