Collage

New adventures in electronics.........picmonkey collage.  Argh.  This stuff is way more difficult than sgraffito!  Here we go.......fingers crossed that it worked/that I did it correctly.

Self Portrait

Oh my word!  Could I go on and on about this or what.  First off, pictures of myself have never been my favorite.  Finally decided on this one and used some artistic license..........it is me, but put in just a hint of the wrinkles that are really there.  HA!  Don't like the look of the wrinkles and putting them in seemed really difficult, so that decision killed two birds with one stone.  My nose is still not as it should be, but I had been "done" once and decided the nose needed work and man was it a chore to get it to this point after taking it out.  I shall leave it be now.......the more I fuss the worse I make things.  Off to the kiln before bad things happen.

Bit more work on Albert

A wee bit more.......

Albert

Todays challenge is to do Albert Einstein.....drawing upside down and right side up.  Begin today and finish tomorrow.  So, this is the first day with "fixes" and "finishes" to be done tomorrow.  I have to say that it not as bad as I thought it would be.  Once you start going and get a piece that sort of looks like it is supposed to, then the rest begins to fall into place.......

Tree/upside down

Day 26.  I am behind and have skipped a few.  Today is really the first day of Einstein, but Claudia said to go back and pick up the upside down tree, using both hands, before plowing into Einstein.  So, here is my abstract L/R upside down tree.  It was fun to do this upside down and a challenge to get the left hand to do much of anything.  I enjoyed both and can see the benefit of both.  Have come down with a cold and am not enjoying being "trapped" in my mask........pant, pant, pant!

Ouch.....safety pin!

Well, this was certainly a novel project.  If I keep going in this line, I hope to have a show at CVS Pharmacy!  ;)  It was quite the challenge, but a fun one none the less.

Fiddle at Flower Arrangement

Pot better.

Flower arrangement

Definitely needs more work, but unsure if I will get back to it today, so will post now.  Fun to do.....at least the flower part.....pot? Not so much.

The Buff Bone Dithers

Back to dithering over the buffalo skull piece.  I sucked out the section of spongy bone and redid it lighter.  Haven't figured out how to get the stipple look yet.  Used the syringe tip and just swizzled it around to get what I have here.  I enjoy this piece and will probably continue to dither at it until it is what I want it to be.  I still don't think the prominence of the spongy section is good......maybe got it too dark again???  Anyones thought/ideas would be welcomed.

Flower 2

Back to the flowers.  Today I worked on a Calla Lily and particularly on the shading.  It takes some thought to decided what to do first in order not to disrupt what you have already done.  As usual, I believe I have the powder too thick.  I started off with it nice and thin, but with adding here and there to create shadowing, it got thick again.  I did remove some of it with the ear wax sucker, but it tends to not take up the powder at all or take up a hunk that does nothing for the piece.  I need to see if I can modify the nozzle to a smaller aperture.

Flowers

Hmmm........I like bones better!  Tried to do a real flower and it was a mess.  Went back to the card and the quick sketch and it was looser and looked better.  It still has too much powder and looking at it I can see what needs to happen to make it better......the lower petals need to bend more coming out of the the center and be shorter (at least appear shorter due to the bend).  The bend should actually cover the base of the center of the flower.  The way it is now the proportions are wrong and it appears flat.  Amazing what you see when you are creating and how your brain changes to see thing differently.  I would redo it now, but my husband would like some of my time once in a while......

Whites/Day 2-ish

Still behind, but today was a fabulous day of deep powder skiing..........hey, it IS powder work, and it was white!! ;)  So, yesterday I began work on the

2nd day of 3 "white" days.  After doing the bird skull I went back to the bone pile and picked out a very old portion of a buffalo skull.  I think I picked the hardest one I could have, but it is the most interesting to me.  This is only a section of the skull and it has the bony protuberance that was under the horn ( I will post pic of skull piece too).  It was tough and I haven't finished it yet.  The right side looks pretty good, but the left side needs quite a bit of work yet.  I am going to remove the section of the spongy looking bone and rework it first as it is too dark and the shading on either side will not work until that section is lightened up.

3 White Days

The current challenge is to do one white object per day for 3 days.  Today is the 3rd day and I am posting my first "white".  Trying to catch up.  This bird skull I have enjoyed more than any of the others I believe.  It was really fun to do.......so much so that I will actually fire this one.  I have always been fascinated with bones and think I will work on more for the other two "whites".

Nosh

Sigh!  This was hard (I believe this is a common thread with me).  We were to do something that we ate and in 15 min.  I thought the bowl of soup I had would be easy.  HA! So glad I don't have to use this wonky bowl or eat that mush in it. I did three "sketches" and admit that they were all longer than the requisite 15 min. by 5 or 10.  My poor drawing skills are evident as are sub-par shading skills.  I kept after it tho.  I do feel I have an idea of how to make this better in my head.  Now if hand will just cooperate with head. I tried again to lay on the powder and remove it, but find this much more challenging than putting on small amounts of powder and moving them where I want them.  I also do not like the result as will with the first method.  Just ends up being far to much powder to deal with.

 First attempt.

Final attempt.......decided to give it one more try and I did it in under 15 min. and I like this one best.
Huh!

Things that scare

Day 14 and the learning continues.  Today's challenge was to do a piece on something that scares you.  Spiders, for me.  They don't really scare me, but I am not fond of sharing my skin with them.  I don't like to kill them.......after all they are darlings to their mothers, even if they make my skin crawl. Tony (darling man) captures them and releases them outside for me (which is possibly a slow death in the cold vs a quick step of shoe, but I choose to believe they at least have a chance).

 So, on to the learning on this challenge.  Enjoyable as usual, but I once again confirmed my dislike of too much powder.  The body of this spider isn't too bad, but the legs are too heavy in powder and detail is lost, shading is difficult and it just looks clunky. I should have dumped it and started over after working the first leg.  I like the texture of the sprinkled powder with line in it and the legs here are just lines of too thick powder.  Don't like it, but finding that here solidifies it in my mind to be avoided in the future.   I should have put shadowing in on the ground surface, but I am over this one.  Time to dump and move on.

Shark Week?

Whew, this was not an easy exercise.  I have fiddled and fiddled and must move on to other endeavors.  Shark will have to be as shark is.......

Catching up

Argh......perspective, line, shadow, texture, powder!  This is hard, but fun and rewarding.  Feeling like I can get better at this.  Understanding it more and more with practice.  Not always liking the result, but learning.....

Eggtable

I took a day off (HAD to ski) and so am working on vegetables a day late.  I have struggled with shading so went to YouTube and found a great little video that it explains it simply and clearly.  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3WmrWUEIJo).  While it was simply explained it was not simply executed!  I chose to take some artistic license and use an eggtable for my vegetable thinking it would be less distracting to not have other textures or lines to deal with. Strictly shading.  I have also found that I often see things in a picture of my work that I don't see (or not as clearly) in the actual work.  That said, the first picture of my eggtable shows it floating, I worked on it a bit more and think I made some improvement

.  Still far from perfect, but headed down the right road at least......

Having a wee bit o fun!

Today was a fun mix of Zentangle and powder drawing.  Thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Fruit

This was a tough one.  Taking on shading........  Used the fruit itself as the first "tool" and sifted the powder over it.  Cheating, but it IS a tool.  :)  Even tho we now have come more tools to use, I find myself using the card and fingers more than about anything else.

More new tools

A bit behind.  Skied yesterday and was fortunate that the fog was below the slopes so we actually got to enjoy some long missed sunshine.  Home today and back to playing in the powder.  We could add another found or made tool today.  I experimented with crumpled plastic wrap and crumpled foil along with the edge of a muffin cup.  I do like the look of all, but didn't use them much in todays pieces.

 Crumpled plastic wrap.

 Thistle, done with card and syringe.

 Landscape.  Mountain sides done with plastic wrap.

 Muffin cup liner.

 Tools.....plastic wrap, foil, syringe, muffin cup liner.  Piece below is with the foil.

Day 7.....New Tool!

Today we could add a new tool.......a found tool, but no paint brushes.  I skulked around the house looking for something interesting and decided on a syringe.  It has a very pointy end for fine lines and when you turn it over the bevel of the tip provides for a thicker line.  I also used it to move powder around with puffs of air created by quick depressions of the plunger.  The only other tool I used was a piece of card that I cut narrow "comb" teeth into.  This is a very handy tool for texturing either with a stipple motion or a dragging motion.  I did one tree piece with only this tool.  We have had days of thick fog here.......you will recognize the piece representing it.

 A combo of syringe and "comb" card.  I keep coming back to trees as they are a good subject to experiment with texture on.

 Syringe and "comb" card.

 Fog.....days of it have come out in powder drawings.

 All done with the "comb" card.

Simple script with syringe tip.

 Playing with "comb" card.

More play........can't seem to quit.  So much for dinner on the table at a reasonable hour and a clean house.  Ah well, darn............think I will keep playing.  ;)

practice........makes perfect????

FAR from perfect, but the process of learning a new technique is at least entertaining.  I cannot draw worth a toot, so this is a challenge.  It is helpful to be able to move the powder around until I get something that approximates what I have in my head.  Today I tried sifting the powder on and then removing it for the image on one piece and then pinching the powder on with my fingers into a shape vaguely representing the animal and then working that powder around on another piece.  Very different approaches and both are good for different instances (hmmmmm......writing this had pointed me in another direction.  Try both one tile???)  I also find that I am relying on the card vs fingers, which just seem too darned big, but they do work for softening some lines.  Learning.