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 – Falling

This illustration actually started off as a depiction of someone being sucked up in a beam of light. Think UFOs and alien abduction. As the drawing progressed, however, I decided that the figure was actually doing the opposite and was falling. The negative space was, therefore, a tunnel or pit rather than a beam of propulsive light. This was another “short on time” day which necessitated me painting only a single layer of watercolour. As such, the black “tunnel” edges of the composition are very patchy. They would certainly benefit from additional layers of pigment to make the black richer and more dense. As much as that uneven, mottled quality bothers me, I am trying to convince myself that the scrubbiness works to suggest some kind of rough textured surface, such as packed dirt. That’s me attempting to hush my Inner Critic. It has not photographed well but the spatter – used to suggest disturbed debris – is two shades of gold watercolour.

Jekyll and Hyde

I decided to tackle an Art Journal Adventure prompt in my art time.  The prompt I chose from the ones I have skipped was the letter J combined with “something that shows half”.  Frequent readers of my blog will know how my mind works and understand why I immediately settled upon illustrating Jekyll and Hyde.  I interpreted “half” was being about duality but also chose to represent it literally by splitting my illustration in half and making one side more Jekyll and one side more Hyde.  I think I just about got what was in my head onto paper.

Ghost Woman

On Sunday a very rare event occurred: I found myself at home alone for over an hour.  I decided that this  was such a blue moon alignment of schedules that I was entirely justified in spending the whole time on myself.  Of course, inevitably I pottered around and frittered away time for a bit but I did settle down at my art table, open up my art journal, and set to work.  For the first time in a very long time, I completed an art journal page, from beginning to end, in one setting.  I used the drying time of the first layer for a cup of tea.

I decided to work on last week’s Art Journal Adventure prompt which was the letter G.  As I have mentioned before, I like vague prompts because they are so open-ended but I appreciate having a prompt as a nudge to just get on with something, anything.  I was in a spooky, monster making sort of mood so I decided that G would be for Ghost.  I wanted my ghost to be appearing out of the gloom so I started by making the page dark and gradually pulled in lighter layers while narrowing the focus until I was using white for the highlights on the ghostly figure.  The proportions, especially of the arms, are terrible but who cares really.  It’s only an art journal page and, besides which, she’s a ghost.  Perfection isn’t an option when you are the wailing, moaning, unsettled undead.

Ultimately the outcome on the page is irrelevant.  What really matters is that, after a long period of meagre rations of art time, I got to spend a whole feast of time playing around with art materials and getting messy.

On the Wings of a Dove

This was the second of the art journal pages I created while at my monthly art journaling group.  I created it in response to two Art Journal Adventure prompts – bird and the letter I.  I am being a bit cheeky with the letter I since I decided it is covered by my use of indigo.  What inspired the illustration, however, was the song ‘Wings of a Dove’ by Madness.  I have been on a bit of a musical nostalgia kick recently, introducing my sons to more of the music I was into when I was their ages and younger.  For that reason, I had been listening to the track shortly before heading out to the meet up and, with the lyrics still in my mind’s ear, I decided to come up with an illustration.  It’s drawn with Inktense pencils with a little bit of micron pen for the vine patterns on the clothing.  I find my Inktense pencils are ideal for portable art because they can be easily activated with a water brush, are fixed when dry, and dry pretty quickly.

Spring

Have I mentioned (more than a zillion times?) that I am over Winter and yearning for Spring?  A couple of weeks ago, I saw a rabbit bound across my yard and I thought that was a sure sign.  Turns out that bunny was just a dimwit who needed to stay in his burrow a bit longer.  I also noted that our daffodils were sprouting out of the dirt.  That was another hopeful sign.  Then the shoots got buried under a foot of snow.  Spring has to be soon though.  It has to.

My latest art journal page was, therefore, inspired by thoughts of Spring.  The Art Journal Adventure prompt was S which fitted perfectly with my intention of creating a Spring themed art journal page.  The idea is a personification of Spring waking from a slumber and starting to bloom.  I must confess that this was a far better idea in my head than translated on the page.  I had to work in a whole load of small rations of time which certainly did not help in terms of cohesion and the fact that I rushed through some of the elements is very visible.  I like the idea, however, and might return to it when I have more time to accomplish a better execution.  I will state that my art work is perfectly straight – it is my iphone photography that is squint.

 

Rainbow Art Journal – Lobster Girl

Maybe it was because I recently collaged a lobster into an art journal page or maybe it is my fondness for all things monstrous, but the next subject in my Rainbow Art Journal turned out to be a Lobster Girl.  It’s the page where I am transitioning between red and orange so I guess that combination of colours sparked my imagination and set it off in that direction.  Whatever the inspiration, when I put pencil to paper, this was the illustration that emerged.

Rainbow Art Journal – Red Column Woman

Someone asked me recently if I ever return to past works and have another stab at them in order to apply sharpened skills or a more developed style.  I do return time and again to certain subjects – zombies, Red Riding Hood, skeletal elements, mythology – but I don’t generally have another crack at a past artwork.  I thought, however, that maybe it could be an interesting exercise to take a few works in a medium I am more comfortable with -namely ink and watercolour – and try depicting the exact same subject using mixed media.  I decided to use some of my illustrations from my 100 Faces challenge.

First up for the experiment was my 85th drawing in the series, which I had titled “Confidence”.  I chose it largely because I was working in the red section of my Rainbow Art Journal and I had remembered how much I liked the effect of the bold red ink pooling and puddling.  I also chose it because it was an illustration I actually really liked in the series.  I lost the more diagonal composition, which I definitely prefer, and I think the new version of the face looks more sullen and bored than confident.  I am also not happy with that busy, blotchy background and may paint that out at some stage.  However, as first experiments go, it is not such a failure that I will abandon the whole enterprise.  Not just yet anyway.

Rainbow Art Journal – Masque of the Red Death

Since visiting two of Edgar Allan Poe’s former houses recently, I wanted to include something Poe-inspired in my Rainbow Art Journal.  So, still focusing on the red section, I decided to create a page inspired by the story ‘The Masque of the Red Death’.  I enjoy working with a limited colour palette and that was true of this page which is restricted to just red, black, and white.  You may have noted that I also return fairly regularly to the subject of skulls and skeletons.  I don’t think I am generally a macabre person; I just find that sort of thing fascinating.  I am fairly pleased with how this page turned out.  It was a struggle to maintain the proportions across the two pages and ultimately I failed to do so but I think the illustration still works.  Just.  I use spiral bound journals for convenience but they definitely hinder my ability with double page spreads, that’s for sure.  Still, I like the finished pages enough that I may use them as inspiration for a proper painting at some stage.

Rainbow Art Journal – Visions of Lobster and Berries

It has been months since I completed a page in my Rainbow Art Journal but the winter break afforded me the opportunity to sit at my art table while my kids played video games or otherwise kept themselves occupied.  This particular page has been progressing for a good couple of months now as I just kept adding on layers of collage and then of paint.

The background is a photo (by Yan Gao) from a National Geographic magazine depicting an aerial view of a town in Tibet.  I thought the pattern of red roofs might prove to be an interesting background to a page in the red section of my Rainbow Art Journal.  I then glued down a random face cut from a magazine, some raspberries, red butterfly wings and a lobster just to add to the red theme.  Apart from ensuring the face was central, it was all placed in a pretty haphazard way.  It then sat at that stage for many weeks until I could return to it and practice painting over collage.

It is interesting to me that the face ended up so flat.  Having started with a photograph of a face as my scaffolding, one would assume that the face painted on top of it would be similar.  I suspect I layered the paint too thickly and lost all sense of there even having been a face below.  The wings and berries became a sort of headdress or headband and the lobster became a sort of outsized brooch I suppose – unless we choose to imagine that the woman is being attacked by a lobster.  I painted the lobster a more vivid red, however, so he’d have to be an undead zombie lobster attacking the figure.

Not a very successful page by any measure then but I am glad to have finally completed this page after the journal being untouched and the page having been in stasis for so long.  Onward and hopefully upward.