Robin's September Sketch

Inspiration!

Becky's September Sketch

My son loves Ed Emberley drawing books as much as I did as a kid. We've been doodling from the Faces book lately, and it's inspired people to pair with pieces of advice (good, bad, and strange) I've received over my lifetime:

My SIngapore / Linda Xuereb book

This is a sketch up of a painting that I was working on for the Singapore 50th anniversary this year for a group show. The idea plays off the 'city in a garden' to which Singapore is to be. I added a map of the island in the background with the drawing on translucent paper above. I am glad that I experimented with this to observe the restrictions of these materials. The transparency material does buckle and paint does not adhere so well. Overall, I am happy with the results. I also included the painting for the group show created over the winter break (shown below).

 

Nobody Panic (Kelly McFadzen)

Take the time to smell the flowers, swim, or cast a line and fish.

No need to panic-

Heather D's Book of Whimsy

This month I was lucky enough to be able to draw in Heather's book, on the subject of whimsy. It struck me that there are fewer things more whimsical than unicorns and rainbows, and so I set about creating a drawing encompassing both. It came out much better than I thought it would, and was happy that I took the opportunity to use color in my drawing, which I rarely do.

Following are some of the pre-sketches I made before laying down my final thoughts, as well as a timelapse video of the drawing.

One month at a time in Louise's book

Louise's theme is One Day at a Time. I think a lot about calendars and seasons, and I make long lists and tables of what lies ahead. Living in Singapore, we mark time differently, and at least in my mind--more quickly. Perhaps my listing and plotting is all about putting on the brakes.

I've been whittling away for a few months on a little calendar as a gift for my mom, and as I doodle the months, I think on what lies ahead in 2015. Hopefully--oodles of slow possibility. I like the thought of blank days and empty months.

What's Brewing in Becky's Book

I initially intended to design some homebrew labels for my sketchbook. As a family, we're embarking on a lot of "brewing", and I had visions of clever faux-beer names that reflect the idea-percolating (and good microbrew sipping) that takes place in our quiet evenings.

As I doodled, and as we mused as a family, I realized that a lot of our mental "brewing" comes from two things in our lives: An old, about-to-fall-down barn and our ties to a third generation pear orchard. As people that have lived away from the homestead for over a decade, it's hard for us to sort out what we'll someday do or where we'll someday land or how we'll raise our completely unrooted son. So, we dream and we scheme. The dreams get large and unwieldy--tentacles all over the place of what might happen.

Returning to the sketchbook,  I took two beer mats and turned them into doors. If you flip them over, there's some embarrassing scribbles in there of what might become of the Green ranch or the 100-year-old barn. Looming over it all is our octopus of too-many-thoughts...it's a beast that is as stressful as it is liberating...and maybe someday we'll figure out what it's pointing to.

Matthew Laurence/ Daydreams

Hello my name is Matthew and my theme for this sketchbook is 'DAYDREAMS'. The cover for this sketchbook is shown above. Over the summer I visited my father's place and in the guest room was this small antique crib toy that I photographed and wanted to incorporate into some type of artwork. I played around with Adobe Photoshop and separated the crib from the background and added a color gradient and downloaded a bird brush to add the winged creatures into the sky. Later, I printed the image out onto photographic paper and then applied several layers of tempera paint to the background and scratched away the surface to get that deteriorated look. Last, I added color markers to the work in addition to applying several layers of varnish to protect the surface.

This is my first image of the 'DAYDREAM' theme. It is a collage of work that started out as a teacher example for my printmaking class that is focusing on the principle of design, unity/harmony. This work uses the technique of the collagraph to which textures of objects are printed off of. the leaves taken from my apartment complex were used for the collagraph and a bit of photo collage from a magazine laying around completed the work. I will be using a number of my posted based off of a collage of media since it is something I find enjoyable and allows me to 'play'.

It's never too late to have a happy childhood- 

Becky sketches in Linda's book: Thinking on my two backyards

I'm of two minds these days. Linda Blaize's theme of "Art and Inspiration in my own backyard" gave me even more reason to ponder and wrestle and drive everyone in my house crazy.  November break needs to come QUICK.

Trying to Make it to Friday

Taking Sandy's theme of The Hamster Wheel of Life. I used black marker to plot out my journey from Monday to Friday. The week I started this drawing was the week I got my new cats, you can see them hiding, and leaving their little footprints all over my life.

Becky feels angst about Leigh's book

I had a karmic bite in the keister this weekend. Many kind and creative and inspiring folks have come to me with their sketchbook worries. Should I finish this piece? Is this good enough? Is it okay that I did this hastily? And while I DO care and AM sympathetic, I also have been flippantly saying, "What does it matter? Post anything! Make anything! No one cares! Live it up! This is not worth worrying about!" Sixty-seven miserable hours later, I post my fourth creation for Leigh's book. Leigh's theme of, "Choose your attitude: positivity" caused me to create things that looked like Barbie had a party and puked all over the place. Bubblegum pink and smiley shiny sunshine:

A reject

That's not me. So I'd sketch again, and soon I found myself muttering the phrase that lets me know I've crossed into a bad place. I'll keep the blog PG, but it's a phrase my dad often used while working in his wood shop (usually post hammer-to-thumb). It's part of my DNA, and man...I said it a lot while working on this page on positivity. (I think my dad would find that absolutely fantastic) I come from a line of cave dwellers. We are retreaters. We are people that hide and hermit and fester. We have to force ourselves to people and to the Light. And as I worked with Leigh's theme, I realized that in order to cope with my nature towards the glum and isolated (and the swearing), I have attempted an attitude and loosely followed a code of conduct. I tried my best to document that (often violated) code...albeit with a *&%#@$*^% pen and ^%@&&#** results. And now that I read it, I'm crafting addendums...there's nothing about service, or selflessness, or kindness, or...etc. etc. etc. Sigh. It's hard to be a *&%$#%**@# work-in-progress.

One of these kids is not like the other ones

Betsy's "Outliers" themed book arrived in my hands as I was thinking about writing. I was wrestling with the balance of humor and tragedy and working on personal narratives that I worried would make my readers wince (but made me chuckle). I was also listening to a lot of David Sedaris and Anne LaMott. After all these weeks absorbing wit and self-deprecation and also pondering how to write memoir and not be disgusted with oneself, I decided--enough already--and let a little dirty laundry air. Some of us were slow to gain wisdom. I spent most of my 20's on a runaway train of folly and now-hilarious choices. The result is a silly clothesline of nine former dates: Flip the card, read the narrative, and find the outlier!  (Becky)