Catching Up On Kudos / Credit

A couple of weeks ago I posted about being prompted / inspired to return to lending my hand to some form of artwork or another. I've been fortunate here in getting to see, and know a little bit, some very talented writers, photographers, artists and hobbyists. The prompt to action has been brewing for quite awhile and I've gained that inspiration through seeing the work of various people - Kel at 'the xfacta' through her 'Art Attack' challenges, Robin at 'Bountiful Healing', Lea at 'Lea Kelley Saying Thank You For...', among a number of others.....

In this post, http://constantchangeisthenorm.blogspot.com/2009/05/small-beginning.html I singled out QuoinMonkey's series on mandalas over at 'red Ravine' for getting me going on them. I downloaded some and have spent a bit of time using my new art supplies colouring them in - getting used to the materials and working with them and the colours again; tuning my eye and hands in.

The other person I credit with providing that nudge into action is QM's partner at 'red Ravine', ybonesy, with her series of posts regarding the evolution and process of a brilliant graphic she produced. yb periodically attaches what she refers to as her 'doodles' to her posts but these posts took it all to a higher level. The initial one that really caught my eye described the process, her inspiration and the materials she chose - you can see it here in 'The Making of a Painter':
http://redravine.wordpress.com/2009/04/02/the-making-of-a-painting-painter/
A couple of weeks later the finished project appeared here - scroll down to 'The Other':
http://redravine.wordpress.com/2009/04/14/this-that-the-other/
...and a few days later a variation on the theme:
http://redravine.wordpress.com/2009/04/19/flower-power-haiku/
Powerful stuff to be sure.

Thanks again QM. Thanks ybonesy. Thanks to everyone who has provided positive example and encouragement. I needed that!

Oh - come see the new me over at http://norm54.wordpress.com

A Small Beginning

Funny, ain't it?? How when you've been away from something for a very, VERY long time (like drawing) a blank piece of paper can be SO daunting!! A couple of weeks ago I finally got out my pad of paper, pencils and a batch of markers and thought 'What the hey!?!?'. I started in drawing some flowing sinuous lines, then traced, & double traced and mirrored some of them to get this product below.

I bordered the pencil drawing with grey marker to strengthen the lines and also so it might pick up when photographed. Over to the left I was checking out the various coloured pens and found the pen barrels aren't a very good representation of the actual pen colour.

Each area filled in above has two or three colours in it done in varying ways; crosshatching, pointillism, random squiggles. Is it any good?? Well, no not really.... but it broke the barrier against doing the next one at some point. It also told me I need more and better colours to choose from and probably a different medium. The pack of oil pastels that I picked up at the same time as the markers and paper have taken a mysterious disappearing jaunt. I know I didn't want to leave them in the car but what have I done with them....???? Ah well, back to the store.

Okay, mandalas. First off kudos to QuoinMonkey over at red Ravine for tweaking my interest. I had been following with interest her monthly installments regarding her year long journey and practice. Doing a search over at their site brought the lot of them together here:

http://redravine.wordpress.com/?s=mandalas

If you scroll back to the bottom of the page you can follow the evolution since January 2008. Contained on her pages were links to on-line sites where you can download and print a variety of designs.... so I did, and this is the first one I tried. BTW, I spent that entire night following links and going off on associated tangents including labyrinths, mazes, sacred geometry..... you name it. Anyway, I've been totally impressed with QM's work and her writing on the subject. A big shout out to QM's partner Liz who also contributed some of her artwork to the posts - she has a great eye for design and use of colour.

So, once again, is this any good?? No, I don't expect so but it was fun to do and play around with colour choices (which were pretty limited). I was drawn to the strong geometrics of this design and was satisfied with how it came out. There will be more in my future, I'm sure. I'm looking forward to doing some designs of my own and am thinking of using them as colour studies. We'll see.

There is a maritime Canadian artist by the name of Christopher Pratt who has done an ongoing series of minimalist landscapes using the tri-field 'land, sea, sky' theme. Considering the narrowness of the theme there is a considerable variety in his output. I can't find those particular paintings but to see a page from an online gallery of his fine art work click on this link:

http://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/205/301/ic/cdc/pratt/pratt2/www.ic.gc.ca/pratt/art/gallery10.htm

Just move the cursor over a title to see a thumbnail; click on the title to see a large version.