Dictionary Art Page – Fungus

I had thought I’d posted this page on my blog, but I found it sitting in my drafts, so I must never have pushed the publish button. Originally written at the end of August 2015.

A rainy lazy day at home means not being able to get out and enjoy the garden, so I decided to bring the garden inside. Inside my dictionary art journal that is.

After flicking through the pages looking for a good botanical themed word my eyes stopped at the word “Fungus”. That was all the inspiration I needed.

Out came my Neocolor II crayons, my Inktense pencils, a water brush, white Posca poster paint pen and a Fude ball pen and I began to lose myself amongst the imaginary mushrooms and toadstools at the bottom of my garden.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope your lazy days aren’t as wet and miserable as mine!

Have a creative day!

Mike

Art Tag – August

This is my August offering for the Tim Holtz, 12 Tags of 2015 challenge. I’m not sure whether I’m going to continue with these monthly challenges as I haven’t really enjoyed or been inspired by Tim’s last two tags. I’ll wait and see what he does in September, maybe my tag muse will come back! As always you can find my process video below.

Have a Creative Day!

Mike

Art Journal Page – Sea of Colour – Video Hop

Today is the first time I’m participating in a video hop! There are 13 artists in the hop and I’m somewhere in the middle. If you’d like to spend some time to follow the hop, simply click my video below and watch on YouTube. That way you’ll have access to the whole chain of links in the description of my video.

For my offering in the hop, I’ve taken my inspiration from a Brazilian born artist called Romero Britto, he uses bright bold colours and simple geometric shapes divided by black borders. His art is very striking and you may have seen it already but just not know who the artist was. He is very much in demand. You can visit his website by clicking here!

My whole page was created using Promarker alcohol pens and a black Big Brush Pitt Pen, plus the quote was created on my label maker.

I hope you enjoy the video and do take some time to follow the hop all the way around. Each video shouldn’t be more than 10 mins in length!

Have a creative day

Mike

#4,5 & 6/100 – Artworks

It’s been a while since I sat down and did any whimsical male face practice for the #100 Artworks challenge. I guess I’ve been experiencing an internal struggle with my own drawing style. I have a clear idea in my head of what I want, I just don’t know how to express it through the motion of my hands and fingers.

I’ve doodled endlessly over the past few months trying to develop a particular style, each and every version I have rejected – crumpling up doodles and sketches and tossing them into the trash.

I know deep down in my heart that I can do this, I refuse to accept the idea that I can’t. Art is about developing a style you’re comfortable with, one that makes you happy and confident enough to say to the world, or at least a loved one “look what I did”.

I’ve gone through many evenings staring at a blank piece of paper, I’ve doodled and twiddled and zentangled to my hearts content, but no faces have emerged that didn’t look like they’d come from the imagination of Steven King. Zombies and monsters I can do, they’re easy. Whimsical male faces…not so easy!

But last night…and here’s the Eureka moment for me…out of the blue, my fingers doodled a face. I sat and stared at it. It was right. It was just what I had been waiting for to flow from my pencil. So I did it again and again and again and guess what…more faces emerged, all different, but all in the same style, the style I really hoped I could do.

So this morning I sat with a watercolour pad and put pencil to paper and drew, then painted 3 faces, one after the other.

Now that wasn’t so hard was it!

#PawgustART – Dictionary Art Page – Monkey

It’s that time of the month again and the CAC (Creative Arts Collaboration) group have done it again with another 3 day art safari! The theme for this collaboration is “Animals” and runs from August 20th thtough 22nd.

So to see what all 300+ artists are doing, simply search for the hashtag #pawgustart in your YouTube search bar, sit back and enjoy a feast of animal artistry from across the global YouTube arts and crafts community!

For my offering I’ve created another dictionary art page using the word “Monkey”. This time I’ve used a few stencils, Ranger archival ink and Gelatos! Oh and the monkey is from a fab collage resource sheet from http://www.freubels-freebies.blogspot.com

Hope you enjoy the collaboration and get some inspiration and watch out for our next collaborative get together!

Have a creative day

Mike