I’m still working on catching up with the Journal52 challenges although I suspect I never will. This week’s challenge is #14 … so, you do the math.
Anyway… here’s what I’ve done in the last few weeks.
Journal52 – Weeks 4 through 7
4
Stillman & Birn
For the last year or so I’ve been following the Stillman & Birn blog and entering each giveaway as they are posted but no luck until earlier this month! I’m so excited… I was one of the winners of the February giveaway! I was given a set of 12 Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelle watercolor pencils and a choice of either a Beta or Zeta 8.5″ x 11″ sketchbook.
I’ve been using a Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook for the the majority of the pages seen on the blog lately and I love the white vellum pages. After searching the blog for other artists’ images, I decided to opt for the Beta. Same white pages but thicker and slightly more texture… it’s billed as cold pressed.
I hate to have more than one sketchbook going at a time… it’s one of my many quirks… so the Beta will just have to wait it’s turn, but it’ll definitely be next.
I’m also going to have fun playing with the watercolor pencils. This set of 12 has both a warm and cool of the three primaries, two greens, two earth colors, a gray and a black… it seems to be a perfect basic combination!
Thanks Stillman & Birn!
Spring Makes Me Smile! Journal52 – week 3
Spring arrives today!
16:57 UTC… that’s 12:57 EDT for me!
The science geek in me loves knowing all about the Vernal Equinox but Spring to me is much more than angles, celestial equators and orbits. Since it’s too early here for sprouting things in the garden, it’s the changes in the light and the sound of arriving songbirds.
Journal52 – Week 3 Prompt: You make me smile!
Earlier this month I picked up the Saturday’s Features section of the New Hampshire Union Leader intrigued by the bird coverage. In the March 8th issue there was the New Hampshire Audubon’s Rare Bird Alert, an article on Turkey vultures and a wonderful photo of three American robins in flight by David Lane of the Union Leader.
I have tried time and time again to sketch birds in flight with various degrees of success so I used Mr. Lane’s photo as a reference as I practiced bird flight anatomy. Is it great? No, but as I look at this spread I can almost hear them chirping as they devour my remaining crabapples!
I know there have been pockets of robins living here all winter but they’ll always be my harbingers of Spring!
EDM 15-12
Just a quick check-in on my progress… still working my way down to #1 on the EveryDay Matters list.
Thanks for visiting!
Journal52 – Week 2
This is week two’s prompt from Journal52’s Chelle Stein: Somewhere, a simple place.
After I finished the page I knew I really wanted to add both quotes Chelle had included with the prompt. Including the photo I worked from really unites the spread and adds just that little something extra.
Now it’s finished!
My Sketchbook Is Online!
WooHoo!!!
As I’ve mentioned before, I completed a book for The Sketchbook Project 2014. I’m happy to report it’s been digitized and you can see it here! (note: the reproduced images show the book much darker than it really is.)
I love traveling and have always been fascinated with World Heritage Sites. Each site has been deemed to have either cultural or physical value by UNESCO – United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. There are nearly a thousand sites on the list and each one is amazing. Since visiting more than a handful is unlikely, I chose fifteen to highlight as my imagination traveled eastward around the globe.
The Sketchbook Project is kicking off its 2014 tour tonight in Brooklyn, NY before it heads out to visit over 20 cities! My sketchbook and many others will be safely packed in the mobile library and towed from city to city where the public can check out one or more to view in person. Check out the tour page to see if they’ll be in a town near you!
But don’t fret, if you go online you can look through plenty of sketchbooks as many of the artists have chosen to have their sketchbooks digitized too! Visit the digital library and just have fun searching various criteria; I’m positive you’ll enjoy the variety of all the projects!
Spring Ahead Tonight!
Earlier this week the film arts community celebrated 2013 with the Academy Awards… the Oscars. To say I’m not much of a movie person is an understatement. This year I haven’t even seen ONE of the winners. So why did I feel the need to make an Oscar page? I have no idea… the only thing I was interested in was best song. (I have 3 of them on my iTunes playlist).
it was good practice for human proportions… and he stood still for me!
So began March.
March is a month of transitions. The days are getting lighter… more hours of sun and I can feel its strength as I sit here typing. Yes it’s still cold and snowy but those days are waning. March is the first month of “meteorological” spring; the coldest days are behind us. True spring will arrive with the vernal equinox on the 20th.
In my mind this is the start of the year!
So remember to set your clocks ahead tonight as you go to bed and savor the extra hour of light we’ll have tomorrow evening.
More EDMs and a New Challenge
I’m still working on my EveryDay Matters Challenges.
There’s never an excuse for not having any inspiration for drawing; the EDM list is long and varied. So I figure… if one challenge is good why not another? I just found Journal52. One prompt and a little inspiration each week… check out the blog to see what has been suggested this far.
I’m not much of a mixed media artist so I’m doing it my way. Am I behind? You bet but I’m undaunted; catching up is fun!
New Sketchbooks… Finally!
Five months, that’s how long it took me to finally finish my new books!
Way back in September I tore down a dozen sheets of Strathmore 500 Mixed Media paper, one of my favorites for visual journaling. Folded into folios and collated they formed 36 signatures… 72 folios, 2 folios per signature. Using 9 signatures each I was able to make four book blocks.
As I bound them I included sewn-in endsheets of a single folio of Canson Mi-Teintes. Clockwise from upper left: South Seas, Parma, Green and Plum.
And then they sat, taunting me from the carry-case where I put them, safe ’till I could glue up the spines and case them in. There was plenty of time to finish them but every day brought more procrastination. As I was working on my TO DO list I realized I could accomplish a lot by just finishing those d*#n books!
I set to work collecting my tools and supplies… pencil, ruler, X-acto knife, PVA, mull, book cloth, and cover paper. Cover paper! … but I don’t have any!
I decided to paint my own cover paper using another Strathmore paper, this time their Aquarius II. Luckily I had some in my stash. It’s a cotton/synthetic blend which resists buckling when painted, even with very wet media. I’ve been experimenting with acrylic inks and decided to color coordinate them with each journal’s end sheet. Monday afternoon I splashed water and inks, mostly playing wet in wet but also testing drawing with black ink and filling the shapes with color. The pomegranate paper came from that trial… I love it!
If you look closely at the dots in the uppermost turquoise book you can see I also used a little pearlescent ink for shimmer. Acrylic inks don’t change the hand of the paper and aren’t sticky as acrylic paint often feels, especially if the paint is layered on too thickly. I noticed on my previous journals my handmade book cloth didn’t hold up very well. The corners wore down to the boards, most likely due to the use and abuse my journals get knocking about in my purse. I always have one with me. This time I used commercially made navy book cloth for both blue papers and black for the others.
Ta Da!!! Four NEW approximately 8 inch square sketchbook-journals!
Hmmmm… I love them all… which one is your favorite?
Sketching Reboot — EDM 22-18
Way back in 2012 I heard about a group committed to sketching every day in the month of May. I did some searching and found Wendy/Quirkyartist and Liz Steel/Borromini Bear planned to do what has been called EDiM… Every Day in May. They spread the word to use the Everyday Matters Challenge list starting with #100 and go in reverse order for the month.
I thought it was wonderful that there was a list of 100 sketching prompts out in the interwebs for me to use. Little did I know that I would find the list was much longer. As of now there are 328 drawing prompts! The full list is kept by Karen Winters and can be found on her blog. This is turn led me to Danny Gregory, friend and sketching guru to those of us who found our artistic way later in life.
I started in on May 1st 2012 with #100 and decided to work backward to #1 and then pick up at #101 and work my way to 328. Even allowing for lapses and my other work I thought I’d be further along than I am now.
Sheesh! I was working fairly regularly on the list when I hit #22 – Draw a piece of clothing. I don;t know what it was but the list just kept getting transferred from sketchbook to sketchbook and that piece of clothing never got it’s day. I did plenty of other sketching… I even drew my clothes as I packed for my vacation. But I didn’t label it as EDM 22.
I only had a few more pages to go in my sketchbook and again I thought of moving my list to the new journal.
NO! I will not move it without making progress! … Earmuffs count as clothing, don’t they?
The spell has been broken! I finished the sketchbook (one of my handmade books with Fab. Art. 140# soft press paper) with EDM 21.
EDM 20, 19 & 18 have been the first entries into my new Stillman & Birn Alpha. This is a new sketchbook for me and it’ll be interesting to see how I like the paper. I noticed how white it is right away. Boy, the colors just pop!
You can see some buckling at the bottom left where I painted a fairly wet wash. It flattened as it dried and now seems to be within my “acceptable” range. The Alpha has a lot pages so I better get used to it… 124 pages… that’s twice what I have in my beloved Strathmore 500 Mixed Media Journal. The paper is slightly lighter,150gsm to Strathmore’s 190 gsm, so we’ll see. It’s always fun to try new things.
Dana Burrell... Art 