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She is finished!
Lots of hours of work.
I actually LIKE her!
So she went from this.....
To this....
I stamped a texture to the background, inked a little, added some butterflies and some text to her dress.
If you click on her you should be able to see a larger image of her.
Ok I'm off to chill. I am tired. Working too many hours. I need a massage and some sleep!
Maria x
Yup the sun it is a shining and that quite frankly is enough to make me happy.... but when I have a whole day off work to spend doing arty stuff in the sunshine then it's double happiness all round! This morning I dug out the shorts (they still fit...yay!!!), slapped on generous amounts of sunscreen (obsessive about protecting my skin in the sun) and moved the laptop, my art supplies and my cup of tea (sooo English!) into the garden.
Earlier in the week I did a little more work to Faith... my Goddess of hope!
I blocked in a rough background and did a whole heap more on her face. Am pretty happy with how she is turning out.
So the plan today was to work on her hair. Now I am not great at hair! Nor at painting!!!! I set up a kind of art camp in the garden....
And set to work.... with some music to drown out the sound of next doors COD ..... grrrrrrr! My neighbour loves his Xbox.... I, on the other hand, do not!
So painting, supping cups of tea, sending lots of emails in between and a happy day was had.
Well until the clear gesso incident!
i have learned today that clear gesso isn't actually totally clear. Which is a bit of a bugger. I had wanted to cover up a little patch of shading that I wasn't quite happy with so added a layer of clear gesso... to the whole thing. Yup... ended up with a kind white-ish hue to the whole piece of work!!! Sighs... so back to the drawing board and ended up having to add ALL the colour again! One lesson learned the hard way :-)
Anyhoos... so here is how she is looking now...
Scuse the graininess of the photo... it's late here and the ISO was very high! Need to take some pics in better light i think... but you get the general idea!
And here she is in all her glory. Not finished... but getting there. Now I need some pretty embellishments and a little text.
Unfortunately that will have to wait as back to work tomorrow for a long run of shifts.
Sheesh....
Maria x
So this semester I am doing Suzi Blu's Goddess & Poet workshop. More realistic faces, but still a little stylised. I also enrolled in Piety & Passion. Piety looks at the Tudor era and concentrates on the 3/4 facial view. It looks tough. I'll just stick to the full frontal until I have mastered that...lol
One thing that totally shocked me when starting up this art malarkey was that it isn't like riding a bike! You have to retrain your hands to recreate what your eyes and brain see. I used to be able to sit down and sketch almost anything. Not brilliantly, mind you, but it was ok. NOW... well now nothing seems to work anymore. Or is that just me getting older? Whatever it is, it's pretty frustrating. I have sheets and sheets of practice features, shading practice, gray scale values and am now looking at everything working out where the highlights lie and where the darkest points are!!!
This was my first attempt at a more realistic face. Not great. Mucho mucho wrong with her. But she will have lots of colour added. She has a coat of clear gesso and stuck into my journal. I can fix the bad bits so I just decided to go with it! It'll be good to look back and see how she has progressed. And if it all goes horribly wrong I can rip out the page hahaha
Much happier with this sketch. Again she needs colour. She is on wood and will be finished in the last lesson. That's one thing that slightly freaks me out about the Suzi workshops. We start something and then have to put it to one side and start working on something else. It messes with my methodical brain! I like things to be in the correct order. I start working on something and I like to finish it before making a start on the next project. But I'm embracing this new method of working (well trying to!!!) and I'll go with the flow. Even if that flow is disordered and freaking me out...ha!
Next we have the twins... strange and stranger! This piece is all about working with colour and graphite. No clear gesso on this so the colour will merge with the graphite to create a lovely grey hue. This photo shows the graphite and a little cream coloured pencil.
By adding in some brown shading and some red lips they are starting to come to life. They need a lot more colours to be added but in true Suzi form we leave them and move onto something else....WAAAAAAHHHHH!
Meet Faith. She will have LOTS of colour and minimal amounts of graphite. Here I have started the shading with pink. I think we may actually get to finish her without moving onto something else. I hope so. My brain is struggling lol
She's starting to look like a real Goddess isn't she? I work much easier with predominately coloured pencil. It's right in my comfort zone.
She has some flowing locks. I don't do hair too well. Something to add to my practice list!!!
And this is more or less where she is right now. Hair and body blocked in with paint. I have worked on the eyes a little. So I'm now at the point where my comfort zone is gone and we're working with paint. paint scares me. I think its because its pretty new to me and I haven't quite figured out how to control the dratted paint brush. MORE practice!!!
Til next time
Maria x
I've been on a bit of a journey these past couple of weeks. Highs, lows, laughs and a few tears along the way.
Thankfully things have calmed down at last and I'm happily plodding along once more!
Where to begin? Well lets start with the good. April 30th saw me hopping on plane over to Holland to help Anita celebrate her 40th Birthday. Ah good times. We all had a lovely time. Lots of fun and laughter. Even some cycling!!! See? I have a photo to prove it!!!!
Looking a little wind swept here! We took the ferry over to Ameland on the Sunday (Anita's big day!). The weather was very kind and it was only at the end of the day did it rain. The weekend just flew by and before I knew it, it was monday and time to go home.... sighs
Tuesday was spent packing and kit making for the Scrapajack retreat where I was due to teach a class. I say due to, as things went downhill rapidly from there!!! The car *utters a few choice words here* well the car had other ideas!!! Stressy wednesday, as it is now called, was a day I would rather not repeat in a hurry.
It would seem that the starter motor on the car had packed in, caused by something much more serious that I really can't discuss as it's still making my blood boil! Sooo no car = no trip to Stratford = one very upset Maria. I boxed up my class kits and supplies and Dad came to the rescue by driving me to a courier depot to ensure that my class could go ahead.... without me :-(
Whilst boxing up the kits there was another little incident. Remember my cool little fan heater that I bought only a few weeks ago? Well..... there I was unhappily packing the box of goodies when a loud bang and a flashy blue light came from the heater, followed by a rather unpleasant smell of burning. Yup the heater had expired. You just gotta laugh. Or cry. I did both. Actually I think I was a giggling/crying mess. Oh and here's the nice burn in my living room carpet that the heater made....
It looks a little like a sleeping eye doesn't it? Shame it's in the middle of the floor and about 6 inches long grrrrr.... I will be visiting Argos when I have a spare hour to spare and "discussing" the heater and resulting burn!
So no car... long story... haven't got the heart to relive it all in total. There is a plan. Always good to have a plan! In the meantime... meet Vera :-)
She has come to stay with me for a couple of months until the plan has been carried out! And yes! I am aware of the unfortunate number plate!!! Only I could buy a car with a plate like that ;-P
She's taking a little getting used to. A one litre engine is no match for the MG! But I'll get there... in the end... with a strong tail wind lol
I've even polished her! Now that shocked the neighbours lol
So back to work now. Things have settled. I am a happy squirrel once more.
I am doing arty stuff. That makes me happy. Even when it's tough going.
This term I'm doing some more Suzi Blu classes. The Goddess & the Poet and Piety & Passion. Sheesh they are tough. Petite Dolls was sooo easy compared to this. Am having to practice, practice, practice. Lots of practice sketching. Lots of swearing. A little wine. It's all good!
Back soon with arty pics!
Maria x
