Developing ideas in the artists journal

Not putting too much pressure on myself to make ‘good art’, but trying out ideas with different media. Getting a feel for the subject in other words.

Agapanthis in different scales. White pastel resist with watercolour, pen and ink (nib). I like the combination of line and organic form and that it gives the impression of the flower without being overworked.

Photo of blue bells collaged over calendar. Gesso has been used to soften the design.

Second page has been given as wash with then a Lillium flower cut from the wrong side of a calendar page. It was chosen for its good shape.

I don’t think I will use green.

Colour notes. I love this gold back ground with a limited colour scheme of yellow, white, burnt umber, burnt sienna and blue.

A photo copy of a drawings of crocus pasted onto a coloured background.

I have used ‘All purpose’ inks to colour the flowers. The inks are useful for building up layers of opaqueness and can be used on fabric.

Printing with kids foam. Flower incised with knitting needle. Black paint is rolled over the foam and printing into the sketch book. The second page has left over paint brayed from another printing project.

This piece of scrap booking paper is layered, with negative and positive shapes. The background has subtle text and lines from an old dress pattern.

Photo pasted onto a smudgy background with gold transfer. The leaves have good shapes.

This flowering quince comes out in August (late winter) when there is little else around. It is a tough and thorny bush. Watercolour and oil pastel resist (stamens). Charles’s drawing on the left is more stylized and has only colour in some of the flowers. I like this look.

Using Photoshop to convert my own photos to line drawings is useful, but does not have the charm of a direct observational drawing.

Each month of the calendar will be enlarged and printed out. They will then be joined together to make the background of the master pattern. The design will have to be extended to fit in with the size parameters.

Initial notes – everything is going into this book!