November selfies (2021)

Happy New Year! Before I start with this year, however, I have to catch up on the last couple of months of 2021! As per the past few years, I had a studio residency at Signal Arts Centre for 10 weeks, in Oct, Nov and Dec. One of my self-appointed daily tasks was to do a warm-up self-portrait sketch everyday that I was in the studio. I blogged about the October selfies here. For other information on the residencies for the past few years, a search on this blog for Signal Arts Centre should turn up loads of information and pictures.

This is a soft pencil sketch.

Limiting myself to a few watercolours and one brush, I can work very quickly blocking in an image. I like to put in some drawing over the watercolour to add some definition. In this sketch I used a watercolour pencil for the line work.

I got into the habit of doing a blind contour drawing on Fridays. For this sketch I used a brown felt tip marker. When else will I ever use BROWN!?

I had my folder full of different paper scraps at the studio and some glue, so I decided one day to do a selfie collage.

Back to a limited water colour use but this time using a fine tip black marker pen to do some line work.

Lots to choose from in my cookie tin of materials, so this day I decided on a soft charcoal pencil.

This entire sketch is drawn with watercolour pencils but mostly I used them as dry colouring pencils. I wetted the tip of a purple one to draw in a few defining lines.

Signal Arts Centre - October selfies!

Each morning at Signal studio, I start the day with a self-portrait in a dedicated sketchbook. The medium that I decide to use in my sketch entirely depends on my mood that particular day. I enjoy doing this daily exercise as a warm-up and have a variety of media from which to choose. I am surprised that I didn't blog more about my daily self-portraits while at Signal studio in previous years, but I dedicated a post to them in 2017 and two posts in 2020 (here & here). Last week I included a selfie in my post about starting this year's residency, here. For posts about this residency in previous years (since 2017) just do a search for Signal Arts Centre within this blog.

Generally I do a fairly straightforward selfie, but this day I must have felt like the hand was a "sigh" gesture and included it! I think the sketch was done with a 6B pencil.

On this day, I limited myself to three colours from the cake watercolour tray and used a fine black pen for the drawing.

When I do a selfie exercise, I tend not to correct mistakes or labour over the drawing, so what happens happens. In this one, drawn with a soft charcoal pencil, I did not observe the correct distance from my bottom lip and ended up showing myself as having a weaker chin than I do. But really it is a little disconcerting that my staring eyes give me the grim look of Myra Hindley...

I enjoy using watercolour pencils for a sketch, dipping the pencil directly into water, leaving it dry or using a wet brush to spread the colour a bit. 

By limiting my watercolour palette I can block in an image quickly and then define it afterwards with a fine pen.

A soft pencil is always nice to sketch with.

And sometimes using a soft pencil compels me to work a little longer on the sketch. I remember that day I was wearing my NASA t-shirt, so that the end result of me feeling like a crew member of the Enterprise was no suprise. Could I be Captain?

New work // old work

 A few weeks ago a huge, beautiful bouquet of yellow tulips arrived at the door - a cheery post-xmas gift from my husband's uncle in the US.

Anyone who has known me for any length of time knows that yellow tulips are my all-time favourite flower. I have recently been looking through some old sketchbooks for inspiration from my various flower sketches. This crayon and graphite sketch depicts a bouquet in front of one of my abstracted yellow tulip paintings. The sketch is from 1982.

Another sketch from 1982 of the same bouquet in front of another abstracted yellow tulip painting. I remember perfectly well that the dining nook in my apartment in 1982 (in Scarborough, Canada) had three wall spaces, each of which had a large abstracted yellow tulip painting on it! The vase that the tulips are set in is also my work, a ceramic slab wrap-around vase.

It was either in 1981 or 1982 that I began drawing and painting flowers with a vengeance. This particular pastel and graphite sketch is of a bouquet that a friend gave me after my wisdom teeth were removed. One of the four teeth was impacted, so I was laid up for at least a week.

This is a crayon and graphite sketch of a close-up of a really vibrant red tulip from that same period (more than 30 years ago!). The great thing about having all these flower drawings is that they provide references for the glaze paintings I have begun on ceramic tiles. The recent bouquet of tulips arrived in a gorgeous, simple white glazed ceramic vase. I am planning to do a glaze painting on that in the near future.

Self-portraits

Last Saturday, May 20 2017, was National Drawing Day. I had been planning to do some plein air sketching in Knocksink Woods but there were a few downpours and I also had a birthday cake to make, so the kibosh was put on outdoor drawing. However, while doing my morning ablutions, I was enamoured by some of my curls and decided to do a quick self-portrait before brushing my hair. This is the result:

I have been thinking of doing a regular bout of self-portraits, but just haven't been motivated to start! For a brief period before my daughter was born (15 years ago!) I tried doing a daily self-portrait, but once I became pregnant, my drawing regimen lapsed. But at the beginning of that attempt I think I look a bit tentative about the project of self-portraits in a brand new sketchbook. This charcoal pencil sketch from August 9 2001 has holes speckled on the face because I later used the closed sketchbook as a semi-hard surface when I was piercing holes for bookbinding!

The pencil sketch on August 10 2001 also has numerous holes in it. It took me awhile to figure out what the things were in front of the mirror, then I remembered I was in a different house at the time, the mirror was above the fireplace and they were objects on the mantlepiece.

This pencil sketch is from August 13 2001, and again, because it is at the start of the sketchbook has holes in it. It must have been a warm day because my hair is tied back.

On August 14 2001 I was outside with a mini mirror on the window ledge, and obviously more interested in the fuschia.

On August 15 2001 I was interested in a continuous line, which stylised the drawing.

I remember this taupe t-shirt from Canada with the stylised deer, under one of my favourite items of clothing at the time - a denim shift dress. This pencil drawing is from August 16 2001.

A week later, August 20 2001, I was wearing my denim dress again. I loved my blue fish earrings, a gift from one of my Canadian friends. I lost one, but still have the other.

In this sketch from August 22 2001 I was trying to include a bit more of the room. The image behind me is a sketch of an oil painting of tulips that I had done in 1980. One of my earliest works that is still in existence!

This sketch is also from August 22. I know I was outside with the mini mirror because my glasses have gone dark.

This pencil sketch is from September 19 2001. I was starting not to feel well, but I didn't realise yet that I was pregnant.

By time I did this pencil sketch on October 27 2001, I had let all my family and friends know that I was having a baby. Later I was so grateful that my morning sickness only lasted for the first trimester -- one of my aunts had told me she had morning sickness for 9 months with each of her 5 children... I was never actually sick, but constant nausea all day prevented me from eating anything other than porridge and dried apricots. I remember it well.

On May 14 2002 (a week before my daughter was born) I commented on feeling Yoda-like while I tried to draw!

Knocksink Woods - sketches

We have had some gorgeous weather over the past few weeks and, as I mentioned in previous posts, I have had the opportunity to enjoy some shinrinyoku in the nearby Knocksink Woods of Enniskerry. As well as foraging for wild garlic to make pesto, I have also been taking the chance to do some research for a project that I am at the early stages of.

I am excited to be going to a one day printmaking workshop at The Print Museum, Dublin this Sunday and in preparation I wanted some sketches of stick forms.

I am not sure if prints created at this workshop will make their way into my final project, but at very least they will be additional research.

 The project involves making books (these sketches are in one of my handmade sketchbooks), prints, and some natural elements like sticks and stones.

These pencil sketches are true to the stick forms that they represent, but by focusing only on the sticks, leaving out their surrounding environment, they have become very abstract.

Sword Story - Animation - Monoprints

Part of The Skipping Project  will include several short videos, which themselves include some animated footage. The first of these videos I have entitled Sword Story and it will include an animated girl carrying a sword superimposed on found military footage (eg, marching feet). So I did some cel drawings in pencil, but I decided I wanted the animated figure to be loose and sketchy instead of too fiddly as my pencil drawings are wont to be.

I decided on monoprints for cels -- the printing process would reverse my images and also the monoprinting process allows any number of "accidents" to take place. At first I was going to use a copper plate to paint on with alkyd (water based oil paint) but decided I could use a thin piece of plexi glass plastic as a plate, and then I could paint over the cel beneath.

I am working small, so it gives me another chance to make use of my pasta machine printer!

One of the printed cels with the original plate.

 The monoprinting process is fairly quick, especially on such a small scale. There are lots of unexpected results, where the paint is thicker and thinner, more faded, etc. Next step is preparing the cels in PhotoShop, applying a green screen and animating in front of found footage. Onward and upward!

New drawing materials!

Over the past year or so I have been happily using watercolour pencils while doing sketches en plein air. A friend in Canada who was aware of these sketching forays asked if I had tried watercolour pens; I was curious as I had never heard of these before. When I was in Toronto in July and met this friend for coffee, I was delighted at her gift for me -- watercolour pens. Their nibs are actually brushes of varying thicknesses and they have a reservoir that you fill with water. They are perfect for outdoor sketching in conjunction with watercolour pencils.

As with most things, the watercolour pens take some practice as you must squeeze the reservoir gently for the water to flow into the brush-nib. Squeeze too hard and you get a blob of water where you didn't want it! This sketch is of the wild roses in our front yard. using pencil, watercolour pencils and watercolour pens.

On Sunday just past, I attended a calligraphy workshop in Ashford as part of Heritage Week. Another new implement of which I was previously unaware is the calligraphy pen. I have done calligraphy with metal pen nibs & holders and reed pens but had never come across this simple chiselled marker purpose-specific. The woman giving the workshop considered it a beginner's no mess-no fuss tool; beginner or not, I really liked using it!

Summer sketching

There has recently been a spate of summery weather which has been facilitating lazy days of sketching. I don't always have to go somewhere else. Sitting out the back there was lots of flora to choose from. We have a large pot of azaleas and delicate flowers are appearing on the rosemary plant.

I recently re-located my flat drawing pencil -- like a carpenter's pencil except it has a 4B lead in it. I used it to do a quick sketch of our curry plant.

This sketch of my daughter reading in the front yard makes her look older than she is. I thought she was disturbed by something she read, but when I asked her later why she was frowning, she told me she overheard the neighbourhood children "playing" -- they were collecting bees in bottles to kill them.

I am happier with the pencil drawing of my daughter concentrating on her book in the sunshine.