Rainbow Art Journal – Rainbow Girl

Behold! For I have finally reached the very last page of my Rainbow Art Journal. After this illustration, I get to close this sketchbook, take it off my art table, and file it away on a shelf. It has taken me five – FIVE – years to finish this art journal. There was so much procrastinating and so many lengthy breaks where it just sat abandoned on my art table. I have started and completed so many other art projects during that span of time but this particular journal and project was a malingerer. I am, therefore, very happy to have accomplished my art mission for this Summer break in finishing this journal.

For this last drawing, I took my inspiration from one of my sisters. When we were kids, she was really into Rainbow Brite. We never saw the show (did it even air in Britain?) but I had won three of the plush toys in a competition and, having no interest in them (I think I was 9 and had never been into dolls) I gave them to my sister. She absolutely loved them and expanded her collection. Anyway, my idea was to draw a less cartoony, less cutesy Rainbow Brite but there was a twist: I decided to challenge myself to create the illustration entirely from memory, without any visual references whatsoever. I actually remembered the costume pretty accurately in terms of the arms being comprised of stripes but with a preponderance of blue. I decided to steer away from the original costume while maintaining the stripes and translating it into a blockier design. Where I was completely adrift from the original character was with the hair. While I got the hairstyle right, I had completely misremembered the colour. I really believed her hair and been rainbow coloured but, nope, she was just blonde or ginger – depending on the incarnation. Never mind my memory fail because I actually like the rainbow hair for the purposes of my journal.

Incidentally, the washi tape is not really a compositional element, though I decided to let it peek through a thin layer of white paint. This poor art journal has taken a beating and some of the pages are separating from the binding. The tape was, therefore, entirely practical.

Although I am glad to be finally saying farewell to this project after all of these years, I am glad I undertook it. In some ways it has been useful that it took me so long because I can look at the early pages of this sketchbook and see how far I have progressed with my skills. For example, the way I draw faces has improved a lot. It also does work well as a record of my experiments with different colour combinations. There are many that I would use again. I have also learned that turquoise really does go with everything. However, I have also decided – especially in this past 18 months – that I am no longer very interested in mixed media. I definitely feel more “me” as an artist when I am using ink and watercolour and I think, whether chicken or egg, that my skills are far better in those media than they are with others. I am, therefore, going to focus on ink and watercolour going forward – while challenging myself to get better with gouache because pushing myself out of my creative comfort zone is never a bad thing.

I have lots of ideas for future art projects. I think I work most efficiently when I work on a series but what I am considering is running a few series at the same time, one that is simple I can work on on days when I have tiny portions of free time and one that is more involved. Once I figure it all out, I will be sharing that art over on Pict Ink. Stay tuned I guess.

Rainbow Art Journal – Weird Owl

In my previous post, I explained that I find it difficult to concentrate on my art while also socializing. While one of my solutions is to draw a familiar subject, another is to just doodle around and see what happens without really thinking about it. This monstrosity testifies to the peril of taking that approach. Yikes. This was actually created on the same day as the Bride of Frankenstein from yesterday’s post. The opposite page was covered in gesso leftover from other projects that I had scraped on with an old gift card. The one positive quality to this page is that it has a really interesting texture. As with the Bride, all I had with me were my portable supplies so I grabbed some Inktense pencils and set to scribbling something out. I imagine I must have started out drawing an owl and honestly goodness knows what happens because the result is truly terrible. I spattered some white paint on it after I got home as if that was going to rescue it. What was I thinking? Even if I was thinking anything back then – which I doubt – I certainly cannot remember now that years have passed. At least I am proving my integrity by continuing with my commitment to share the good, bad, and ugly of my art experiments. Judder.

Rainbow Art Journal – Critical Cat

Thank goodness this is absolutely the last page in my Rainbow Art Journal plastered in collage. As I did with the Flying Pig, I decided to keep the illustration very simple. This is partly because I no longer enjoy the challenge of painting over collage, partly because I did not want to commit too much time to completing this page, and partly because experience has taught me that keeping shapes blocky and limiting layers works best. I share my art table with my two cats. It is situated in the sunniest corner of my kitchen so, of course, while I like the position because of the natural light, the cats like it because they can snooze in the warm sunshine. They often, therefore, watch my while I am at work at my art table and I suspect they are critiquing me. That is what inspired the subject of this page. I suspect my two cats would have scathing feedback about this illustration. I agree with their assessment but I am just glad to have finished off this page so I can move on and not have to deal with a collage substrate again.

Rainbow Art Journal – Ms Teapot

I normally have a very clear idea of what I am going to create when I sit down at my art table. Sometimes the idea evolves as I draw and develops in a different direction and sometimes I abandon ideas and start over but it is rare for me to begin sketching when I have zero vision. This illustration, however, is the result of one such occasion and I honestly could not even begin to explain the segues in terms of pencil lines and thinking that produced this. I think we should all be glad that I am not a potter and could not, therefore, make this as an actual teapot.

Rainbow Art Journal – Flying Pig

When I declared “never again” to the idea of painting over collage, I neglected to remember that I had been pasting random scraps of collage materials throughout pages in my rainbow art journal. I, therefore, have to experience the challenge of working with collage as a substrate a few more times before I finally close this art journal.

This page of pink scraps and book pages was at least fairly flat as I had glued it down while my matte medium was still in a smooth and pliable state. Given the challenges of painting over collage, I decided to create an illustration that involved chunky shapes, something whimsical without much detail. The result was this flying pig. While it was not intentional, the “clothing” on the torso is reminiscent of the Disney version of Piglet.

Rainbow Art Journal – Skelebun

This is the first page in the pink section of my Rainbow Art Journal. The scrappy background was the result of me scraping leftover paint from other projects onto that page. I then created the bunny silhouette, inspired by the zombie bunnies I like to draw, and then added the (anatomically inaccurate) skeleton using a Posca paint pen. The execution is not my best work but I like Skelebun as a character so I think I may have a crack at drawing him in ink and watercolour.

I actually completed this illustration during a meet up with my local art journaling group. Once a month, we used to gather in a local coffee shop and work on our own art projects. That all came to an end when Covid sent us into lockdown in March 2020 and it has not been resurrected. The fact that this page was completed pre-pandemic is a reminder of just how long I have been working on this project. Man, I really need to get this journal finished.

Rainbow Art Journal – Twit-Twoo

I was not really in the mood for art when I sat down at my art table but I am trying to get myself back into the habit of making regular time for creativity so I pushed myself. I decided to do something quick, simple, and whimsical. Since the windows adjacent to my art table provide me with a good view of the birds in my garden, that inspired me to draw a very simplified bird. Because I was in the purple section of my Rainbow Art Journal, I had thought I was going to draw a chubby hummingbird. However, what I ended up drawing was an owl. I kept this page very simple – just three colours of acrylic and two paint pens. The illustration itself is blah but I do like the colour palette. Most importantly, however, I pushed myself to spend time on art as an effort to build back those art habits and my ability to get something accomplished in small portion of time. And, with that, I am done with the purple section of this art journal. Maybe I can actually get this journal project completed this year.

Rainbow Art Journal – Shades of a Bruise

These skeleton women do insist on appearing in my art journals but I decided to keep this one much simpler. I also decided to work in a colour palette that I thought might be really clashing and visually discordant. Chartreuse is a colour I actually quite like in isolation but which I find often looks horrid juxtaposed against other colours so I decided on chartreuse and violet. It struck me that the colours were reminiscent of the colours of a bruise at different stages of healing. Not something a skeleton really needs to think about.

Rainbow Art Journal – Wonky House at Twilight

I seem to be cycling through a number of mixed media methodologies and, though it was subconscious, I think I am testing myself to see which skills I have retained and which I have lost but – more importantly – what techniques I still enjoy.

This is my first attempt at paint over really basic collage in a good while and – ooft! – I have definitely gotten rough. What did not help me at all was the fact that, through lack of use, my gel matte medium has gotten really thick and unyielding. I kept at it because I didn’t have a reasonable alternative available and because I thought the rough texture it was creating might be fun to work with. I was wrong. Not only did it create an awful texture, I was also working on this on a really humid day so everything began to wrinkle and warp. Honestly, had I not had a decent illustration on the reverse of this page, I probably would have ripped it out and binned it. Maybe if I persevered I could pull it out of the ugly phase? Nope. It stayed ugly.

I like the concept of a little white house beneath a glowing moon in a landscape using this colour palette but otherwise I pretty much detest this page in my Rainbow Art Journal. However, I have to accept the bad and the ugly if I also want to achieve the good along the way. It is all experimentation. And one important thing I have gleaned from returning to this technique is that I no longer find it interesting. While I will no doubt still build some collage elements into my mixed media dabblings, I am really not interested in paint over collage any more. And knowing that has real value in terms of knowing how to invest my art time.

Rainbow Art Journal – Ghost Tree

This page is the transition between the blue and purple sections in my Rainbow Art Journal. I created a background without giving it much thought. I had anticipated adding more layers, perhaps some collage, possibly some spatter. However, I decided I would work on this page while stuck in the car while my kids had dental appointments so I grabbed a white paint pen and the background layer had to stay as it was. Waiting in the car can be incredibly tedious so it was good to have all of those branches to absorb me and make the time feel less plodding. It was actually quite meditative working on the branches and twigs. I thought I might add to this page but I have decided not to labour over this art journal and to instead just use it for quick experiments. I have been working in it for so long now that I would prefer my challenge to just be completing it.