Where Do The Children Go When They Sleep, Mommy?

Someone on Sketchbook Skool had asked if I was going to put faces on any of my Pigment Spill papers.  The grains of course salt had sucked up the pigment around them and they had created odd, fuzzy gaps that looked like furry creatures looming.  I stared at this particular page for quite awhile this evening and when an image started to emerge in my mind, I ran to get my (what else?) Inktense Watersoluble pencils.  

Soup Pot Selfie

We had a new homework assignment in Sketchbook Skool Bootkamp today.  This was SO up my alley.  No, not because my ego can't get enough of my face appearing on Facebook, but because I love portraits.  And portraits that use a little imagination...all the better! And who am I going to get to stand still as a model?  Well, me.  

There were two Selfies we were to do.  One I haven't yet posted here, in which I sprouted feathers. A fanciful selfie from memory.  But this one was to be from a mirror (which in my case was the side of a stainless steel dutch oven), with distortion or props or glamor or whatever.  How easy could it be?  My reflection on the pot was already distorted.  I just copied it.  The challenge was using some of my Pigment Spill paper and my Derwent Inkense pencils to follow the colors already on the paper. Not so glamorous, but oh, well.

The Wisdom of Eve

Staining wet water color paper has become my favorite pastime.  It's soothing, exciting, serendipitous, and feeds my color-starved soul struggling with Winter's comatose foliage. This will be included, I think, in my novel, "Drawing On The River".  I often sculpted fish imagery in the past, from the Koi Boys to the Piscean Dance Series (See 11-26-11 Post: Metanoia II).  A great deal of perplexing, symbolic, figurative entities passed through my hands and found appreciative audiences in the world.  What these meant to the buying public I have rarely been privileged to know, but they are out there somewhere, radiating intention.  This woman is the first painting I've done with that Piscean imagery.  

Danny's Dollar

One of our online class assignments suggested by Danny Gregory was an exercise in textures and contours, heavy on the details.  He had us taking a crumpled paper currency (dollar, euro, whatever) and sketch it, being mindful of the outline, the details, the shadows and facets.  The students posted a wonderful array of offerings, many of foreign currencies to the U.S. dollar, and many were beautifully detailed and colored.  I was struck again at how beautiful foreign currency was compared to ours.  One student wondered why the U.S. paper money always looked like it had been designed and issued by the Army.  She was right.  Compared to other country's bills, ours looks stern, official and drab.  Warlike. Institutional.  That of other countries are arrayed in iridescent colors, festooned with symbols and engravings of beauty, cultural pride and heritage.  Often with women as honored heads of state, past or present.  

I dug through boxes I knew contained old coins and foreign bills from my previous husband's travels abroad, and could not find those pretty monies I thought I'd seen there once. But there was a 1928 issue One Silver Dollar, a genuine Silver Certificate.  In remarkable condition!  It wasn't any prettier than what we have today, but it was different.  A little museum artifact.  I wasn't about to crumple it and do it harm, but I put a slight, chevron crease in it, so there'd be contrasting shadow.  And in  honor of our teacher, I slipped Danny's face under old George's powdered wig.  This current Sketchbook Skool Kourse (their term) is referred to as BootKamp.  It was certainly an interesting exercise.  As we are all finding out, you never really see anything truly until you stop to sketch it.  It then imprints in your mind in a way it hadn't ever before.  

Pensive Pepper

I've been experimenting again with my favorite paper treatment, the Spilled Pigment wash technique, and as the colors came out a little more saturated this time, I wondered if sketching over it would work well.  And also what medium would pop on top of that base.  Apparently I needn't worry.  I've cut up the half sheets of watercolor paper (Arches 140# hot press), once stretched and stained, into pages that would fit a Franklin Planner, punched them and with what was left over, I cut into Artist Trading Card format... 2 1/2" by 3 1/2" (or like baseball trading cards). Those became my little test sketches.  This is one of them.  Watercolor, Noodler's Ink and dip pen, Acrylic ink and Derwent Inktense water-soluble pencils.  Wow, does that perk up the foggy winter blahs! Yowza!