Drawing My Art

I’ve been exploring art. My art. My art, my heart, my words, my stories. Art for my stories and art for art’s sake. I thought I might share a bit of my art, as part of my stories.

I began drawing again two years ago to illustrate my stories. My plan is to illustrate and e publish my own told stories as written tales. I have completed one. I’m not happy with it. I want to pull it apart and re-do it. Of course. It’s going to take a long time and lots of practice until my ‘art’ is good enough.

I also like tattoos. I like variety. I joined an online drawing challenge after observing and commenting for six months. Most of the illustrators are so good, I despair. One of this year’s themes is Shakespeare. I like the “to be or not to be..” quotation and paired it with my first ever Sugar Skull. This comes from a tattoo tradition and while mine may have butterflies, it is within the bounds of tradition. Except, perhaps, for the vampire teeth. Those I drew for Youngest Daughter. Thirteen and excited by vampires and zombies. Well, zombies really. There’s no accounting for taste.

I’ve experimented with chalk, soft pastels, crayons, oil pastels, acrylics, paint pens, permanent markers, graphite and charcoal. I have mixed all of the above and collaged with them. No-one could ever accuse me of purity. It’s allowed these days, mixing media. When I did art in high school, I believe we were not allowed to mix media. Thank goodness I’m far far from high school.

I painted the Lotus above as an housewarming gift for a friend. I enjoy painting backgrounds and will use the mixing and texturising of paints as process work. While I am pondering and figuring and working out my feelings, I will mix and smooth, brush and layer, plaster and texturise paint on canvas paper. Then I have an assortment to choose from when I come to create images. Canvas paper, who knew there was such a thing? Marvellous and totally suitable for the learner.

I am slowly graduating from single images to still life. When someone will sit still for long enough maybe I can practise drawing a real person. Youngest Daughter cannot be still and strangely I draw her older, every time. Mind you, I only learnt to draw faces in January at Yearly Meeting, I certainly haven’t graduated to bodies yet. Well, I try. I study my Pinterest collection and my online drawing program and keep drawing distorted and oddly shaped bodies. It’ll kick in sooner or later. Changing expressions in faces is interesting and my art journal is full of single, random eyeballs and stray cats.

The animals have come in for more than their share of posing and while cats are achievable, there is something about dogs that is more challenging. I have a number of side on, eyeball goggling disturbing pencil sketches that give me a start when I turn the pages.

I have begun using coloured pencils again and was determined to draw a dog. I wasn’t game enough to draw the full body but was sure that I could manage the head. Some success but still, incorporating the other side of the face and placing eyes appropriately is a challenge I haven’t mastered. I was quite pleased with the hair though. So pleased I went onto draw a rabbit, with a body! Hooray! Here’s the doggy anyway.

Okay, long way to go on faces and bodies. Still, battling on. I really want to create the illustrations I can imagine for my stories. I have to keep practising until I am satisfied. That’s how I started in storytelling. Practise, practise, practise, then practise some more. I’ve created collage pictures for the next story I’m planning to publish. Need help with formatting though. I have a long way to go before I will be confident.

Hah! Wait until you see the bulldog on the skateboard!
Happy art.