Just doodling

My blog has been seriously neglected of late and I only seem to upload my Creative Tuesdays challenges, although I have been busy making fabric art which I will show next time.

In the interim have been picking up my pens again and doodling flowers.  This is a very theraputic exercise and great fun to do.  Just need to think how to fill with colour, I think in an abstract way.  These are as a result of joning Robin Mead's on-line class Make Your Mark.

Have a fun filled flower day!

Moleskin whimsical seahorse

I have now moved and trying to settle into my new home, although the decorators are coming the week after next, so won't be fully unpacked until the end of August.  Spent yesterday sitting on the quay watching the boats and listening to church bells ringing. Wonderful!

As all my paints etc have been packed away for a while, I resorted to keeping a little box of black pens and a small moleskin book to hand.  This is one page.

Can't wait to sort out my studio (sounds grand). I am in that lovely position of being able to dedicate a room for it, although I am not sure about the light in that room yet.

Creative Tuesdays - Striped

Striped is the order of the day over at Creative Tuesdays for next Tuesday.  Perhaps because I am in the process of uncluttering due to putting my property up for sale and moving,  I wanted to get back to some basics and just use pen and ink. So I used my old fashioned dip pen and some burnt umber acrylic ink.

Lots of striped pieces of art are already showing over on Mr T's blog, so go and take a look.

Creative Tuesdays - Three

The challenge for Creative Tuesdays this week is 3/Three, where we had to show three of something.  Mr T suggested that this may start us thinking about Christmas but for me this is a little too soon.

After a lot of pondering, I decided  to try and illustrate an old English nursery rhyme.  Rub-a-dub-dub, three men in a tub, and who do you think they be? The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. Turn them out, knaves all three.

I decided to do this one using an old fashioned dip pen and ink (which I love using) and finished with coloured pencils, which I am out of my comfort zone with.

Check out what everyone else's have done on  Tuesday over on the Creative Tuesday's blog.

Owls on the brain

This week has definately been an owly one, I have had time off work this week and managed to do loads more art than normal. Wonderful! These two pen and ink owls are as a result of randomly putting colour onto paper, letting it dry and then quickly drawing over the top with little thought. Both are ATC size.

I am also in the process of painting some owls on the card that comes from the middle of  toilet rolls.  This idea came from the lovely Monic Zuniga at Hands and Heart. I will post all these in a couple of days time.

Mandala

I do love doing these mandalas, I think I find the repetition of the lines very calming.  After scanning, for fun I inverted it as well.
Have a good weekend everyone, and to my friends across the continent a happy memorial weekend.

Mandala

A while ago I did the following mandala and this week I was playing around on the computer and inverted it to see what it looked like.  I do like the effect of white on black, only wish I could draw like that, but I can never find a suitable liner pen.  Perhaps I will try with white ink and dip pen on black paper.

Which do you prefer?

Creative Tuesdays - Rooftops

Well, Mr Toast has really challenged us this time, rooftops.  As I live in Oxford I had to use the historic buildings, so my drawing shows the old and new. The Radcliffe Camera  (built 1737-1749) and the Said Business School  (built 2001) and they are also so completely opposite in design.  

To get into the spirit of the old and new I drew the Radcliffe Camera with an old fashion dip pen and ink, and the Said Business School with a technical pen. Then put a watercolour wash over them (I am not very good with watercolour!).  By the way the Business School tower really is that bright colour!

Thanks Mr T for coming up with this one as I had to study the buildings to ensure that it was a correct representation, rather than just using my imagination. Also I came across a whole lot of gargoyles that I did not know existed.  

Why not pop over the Mr T's blog to see what other lovely artists have come up with.