Spots before my eyes for WOYWW

I'm not sure what to think

after my first real art lesson.

I trust the art teacher implicitely 

as her work is fantastic

but I fail to see how this

splotty, splodgy, spotty thing

is going to turn out to be 

a fish pond with three gold fish.

I can show this as a desk for this week

as it looks like my desk after I've been painting

but I'm afraid I don't see the fishpond.

My teacher said that's because I haven't painted the fish yet,

makes sense, I guess.

Here is my desk in a box

It's still full of all the goodies I took to class
and is still where I dumped it.
It's mainly paints, brushes and splodgy stuff.

You may remember that last week I was playing

with charcoal and making a huge mess.

Well that's about to happen again 

as I have to use charcoal to draw the fish in before class

next week.

I can see a completely black canvas going to class next week!!

I have to park a long way from the class,

so I bet I'm all black by the time

I get it to the class too.

I did sort of finish my ink painting of Charlie

He's certainly bright.

I don't like the way his feet are on the rock,

so I might do some shading around there

to make his feet look more like they are sitting on the rock.

I have done a little more to my undersea ink painting

but I still think it is a bit dark overall.

They were my first attempts 

into the canvas inking area

so I look forward to playing some more.

After all the info that was pushed into my poor little brain

at class this morning, I'm pooped,

so no more art for me today.

Think I'll make a coffee and head on over to 

Julia's Stamping Ground 

 to see the other desks

around the world this wednesday.

Blonde does charcoal - not pretty!! for WOYWW

I've never been taught to draw,

I just seem to muddle through

with pencil and rubber in hand.

Emphasis on the rubber as it's used an awful lot.

When I did the inking workshop 

the teacher gave a a quick

101 of drawing with charcoal

and how to find shapes in things 

and go from there.

So I decided to buy some charcoal.

I should have known what was to come

as I was covered in it by the time I got to the shop counter.

I pulled out my drawers (no not those ones,

the ones you store things in)

and put an old flip chart on it.

Do you remember the old flip charts

before computers came in and ruined the fun?

My desk today.....

 

Note the cardigan on the chair, one down and still two jumpers on. 

I hate winter!

 Well two desks in fact

as I'm doing some more inking on my fishy painting.

You can see my Charlie in the background,

the black came through onto his face and now I'll

have to paint over bits of his face to fix him. 

My first attempt to fix him is here,

note how the colour has changed on his face.

Here is my attempt to draw

without pencil and rubber

and just charcoal in hand.

No, I'm not that good,

this is the picture I'm using to do a still life from.

Here's my attempt in stages

I've done my shapes and now I'm trying to refine them.

Note the fingers, getting a tad black.

It's starting to look a bit better.

This is where things get a bit hairy

or should I say black.

This stuff is getting everywhere,

my face, my hair, just everywhere.

It might pay to note that one should not scratch one's nose

when playing with charcoal...

 Here's where I am at the moment

still a way to go and I'm not sure

if the room can take much more blackness.

My computer keyboard is covered in it

and oops, just rubbed my eye, oh no.

The moral of the story is

if you are blonde, don't use charcoal,

especially in a white house!!!

There's my mess for the week,

now why not hop on over to 

Julia's Stamping ground

and see much cleaner desks

from around the world.

P.S.  How wonderful that we have a new prince.

Luv the Royal Family. 

I did a little bit more after lunch. Don't you just love the wrinkly paper.

A series of unfortunate events.

Today is friday and I don't normally

get to do any artwork on friday 

as that's my housework day

and after three weeks of 

school holidays you can imagine the state of my house.

I really wanted to play with my inks today

and so decided that a little music would help to speed up my housework.

On went Susi Quatro, Kiss, and Meatloaf

and I was happily dancing my way through the housework

when big miss (21 year old) popped home

she gave me THE look 

(you know the one, where it's a roll of the eyes and the oh god, old lady trying to be young again look)

She didn't say a word, just looked and disappeared upstairs

in disgust, as if stunned that I would listen to that rubbish.

But hey, it got me through the housework in record time

and then I came in to play with my inks.

In my last post I showed you my first attempts at inking canvasses

and now I'm fixing up the bits I want changed and the bits I messed up.

I started with Charlie.

Here he is with his poor little face all black and goopy.
It was the result of a fight with a syringe.

Up close, looks like he's gone a few rounds with Mike Tyson.

I painted over the bad bits yesterday and left it to dry thoroughly.

 Mixing up the ink.  I was going well until I decided to use a pipette to drop a few drops in.  I squeezed it and instead of a nice little droplet
I got a huge spray all over me and the canvas.
Madly wiped with a cloth to get it off before it dried.

 Dropped in my mixed colour and squirted the water too hard
had to mop up all the overflow, bummer.

added some white ink

Gloopy stuff on his beak before the colour goes on

Now I've put some white and pearlescent into his beak.
The ink is starting to move around now,
looking good so far.

The ink is now contracting and the shapes from the lower layers
are coming through.

It was about this point that my other unfortunate accident occurred.

My room is an absolute mess, with boxes and the old computer

and canvasses everywhere, I have to climb around things to get to my desk

and I had left the desk drawer open.

As I slid past, my jeans got caught on the drawer 

and there was a rather loud ripping sound.

Thanks heavens for iron patches 

as I now have a huge "L" shaped rip in the front of my jeans (argh).

I can't move the canvas until it's really dry

so this is the best shot I can get around all the mess in here.

He is looking a lot better already.

Now onto  finishing the underwater scene.
But that will have to wait until next week (sigh).

Sorry about the photo, the sun decided to come out
just as I took it, plus I'm hopeless with a camera.

Linking up to Paint Party Friday.

Inky fun for WOYWW

The school holidays are over

and life is starting to return to normal

around here.

I did the weekend ink workshop

and took plenty of photos on my phone

but now I don't know how 

to get them off the phone and onto the computer

(hey, I'm blonde).

However, I didn't finish everything on the weekend 

so I went back today to finish off

and this time I brought my camera.

Here is my desk at home right now

 I've just dumped all my bits on the little desk

and you can see a bit of my Charlie canvas.

I did two canvasses, one of Charlie parrot and

the other is an undersea canvas.

I had a bit of an accident with Charlie.

You use syringes to drop dots of ink onto the canvas

and when I went to drop just one drop of red ink around Charlies face

it got stuck and dummy here pressed hard to release it

and it went splurt all over him.

  

What a mess but luckily you can fix it.

Now that he is dry, I can go over the bad bits 

and fix them up.

 There are a few bits I want to change

and will do them over the next week.

The underwater scene is coming along nicely

but is still dripping wet and had to stay at the art place.

It's fascinating the way the ink does its own thing.

I have a few photos showing when the ink is first put on and how 

it changes by itself.

 

The ink has just been dropped on and is still quite separate.

 

 The ink is running away from the raised areas and swirling together.

 

 This is where I left him.  I can't wait to see how it ends up.

I pick him up tomorrow and then I will paint in his eyes.

I really love this way of painting, it's really scary

because you aren't in control but the effects are amazing.

I will put up more photos as I finish off the canvasses.

I would like to finish today with sending a huge load of hugs

 to my dear friend Tracey Fletcher King

whom you may remember from 

WOYWW ages ago.

Tracey has just found out she has

breast cancer and even though

the prognosis is good,

  it is still really scary.

If you have time I'm sure she would appreciate

a visit and some hugs.

Now you've seen mine,

why not hop on over to 

Julia's Stamping Ground

and see the other desks from around the world.

 

Hugs to Trace

Excitement building for WOYWW

It's school holidays here

and of course it's been raining

day after day (ho hum)

but today the sun is out,

washing line is full

and I'm getting excited.

Why you may ask???

Well, it's because I'm doing a weekend workshop

using inks and all sorts of goodies

to hopefully produce

two wonderful bright paintings.

There was quite a bit of sucking up to grandparents and 

my older daughter to babysit my little miss.

My hubby is going away on a weeks school rugby camp

and it happened to be the same time as my workshop,

but it all came together and I am going this weekend.

Here is my desk area today.

I'm gathering all the goodies I bought to go on the workshop.

I will be doing two of the canvasses you can see here

and here's a closer look at some of what I'll be taking.

My hubby took me to a big art warehouse in the city

(I don't drive into the city, too much traffic and one way streets)

and I went nuts, bought half the place up 

and also a heap of things for little miss to play with too.

I'll be using all sorts of found objects and gooping them to the

canvas with coloured impasto and outlining my subject with

"iced on" coloured impasto, then using the syringes

to drop ink on and swoosh it around to (hopefully)

create some great paintings.

All going well and even if it doesn't go well,

I'll show what I produce next week.

That's my excitement for the week,

now go see what everyone else has on their desks

over at Julia's Stamping Ground.

See Julia, I can do a short post occasionally :)