Saturday 23 July 2011

Thankyou Gina.

On Gina Ferrari's blog - 'Fan my Flame' - she has posted a little tutorial of design exercises which I thought I would try out. She explains it all much better than I have here. I took my shapes from this book of plant photos which I bought on a visit to Laycock Abbey. The photos are all black and white and taken in about the 1920's .

I don't draw often and know I should practise more - if I did I might improve!


Gina used a poppy seedhead for her examples but I couldn't find one I liked, so drew a very simplified thistle and fern. The photo showed up lovely textures but I only needed outlines for this. We then had to cut them out and use them as stencils, having first prepared some coloured background pages. I was reminded on another blog, of the lovely marks you get if you spread a piece of clingfilm onto wet watercolour paint and leave it to dry, so did just that. Some pages have better marks than others as there was a bit of wrestling going on with the clingfilm - we don't get on!












Here is my thistle outline, cut out and ready to be placed onto a page and have oil pastel applied all round it's edge. In fact, if you look carefully you can see oil pastel already on it - I had forgotten to take the before photo!


I love gold and turquoise together so used a gold pastel and rubbed it carefully into all the little spaces. After lifting the stencil away a darker coat of paint was applied and allowed to continue across the page. The oil pasted resists the new colour.

This is as far as I have got with the fern shape which I treated in the same way - I might do a mirror image with the cut out piece on the left. Gina suggests we work further onto these pages, perhaps adding shading and cutting some parts away to reveal what's on the next page. I like that idea but will have to think about what to do next. I've enjoyed this exercise and it's not often I let my sketchbook out in public!! Come to that, it's not often I work in it.



















10 comments:

Gina said...

This is brilliant Heather. I read your comment and came right over here to see what you had done. You are right... the trick is to keep practising. I'll link back to you when I do my next sketchbook post.

Heather said...

Thankyou again Gina - I'll look forward to that and will now have to do my homework!!

Carol Q said...

I thought Gina's post was very interesting too Heather. Yours is coming on great guns. The unfurling fern is such a lovely shape.

Doreen G said...

I saw this on Gina's blog as well and I must give it a go.
Yours looks great too.

Anonymous said...

Well done Heather! I should start again but I don't seem to have the energy right now. Looking forward to see what else you and Gina do.

The Weaver of Grass said...

Very brave Heather. I am just the same. I have a thing about my drawing ability and it really does hold me back. I shall go to Gina's blog and see if she gives me inspiration. I agree about cling film - sometimes you get a really good effect

Julie said...

Well odne for joining in Heather. Cling film is great to use for texture, you get such unpredictable marks. I love the effect of the fern stencil. Keep up the good work (says she who should really be joining in too!)

Linda Vincent said...

Great pages and good to see your experiments Heather. I've been doing some cling film experiments (as seen in Maggie Greys 'From Image to Stitch')...just wish I could get the same intensity of colour that she does!
XX

Val said...

Hi Heather - what a challenge! I've just been over to Gina's blog to see what it is all about. Can't resist - must join in. I think you've done brilliantly so far. Look forward to seeing how it develops. I looked at last year Sketchbook Challenge Gina did - my word .......! I'm off to find some cling film and paint a few pages!cullus

Maureen said...

You are good trying out these new things Heather!!
I love your dyed pieces and the coffee died ones especially.