Happy (late) New Year to you faithful people who have still stuck around to see my ramblings and odd piece of work here and there.
I'm not one for new years resolutions, because I break them very easily (can you guess?) so I won't say I made one, per say, but my thing (i'm gonna call it a thing instead of a resolution) is to utilise this blog to somewhat close to it's full potential.
I've been a bit of a busy bee as of late - I'm another year older! I've finally started driving lessons (8 years later...) thanks to some birthday funds and I've been ultra busy with work but I've made time to do some bits of artwork here and there.
My main things at the moment is to just experiment with different processes and mediums to re-inspire myself. I've been fortunate enough to meet some artists (hobby and professional) during evening classes and watching other people work always gets my brain a-ticking.
The main thing I've found is how free other people seem to be with their work, their styles, and I'm sat there internally screaming to myself "Why can't I do that?! Why can you scribble on a piece of paper and make it look wonderful, but when I try it looks like a 3 year old ran off with a crayon?! What's the deal?!" - BUT THIS IS WHERE I MENTALLY SLAP MYSELF (See, I'm learning!) and tell myself to shut up. I've spend most of my educational life comparing myself to others around me and it gets me in that horrible rut and self esteem goes down the pan and it's just not a healthy mindset to be in, especially creatively, so instead of listening to the internal screaming I've been observing and learning instead; turning that panic of 'shit, why are they better than me?' into a chance to explore and experiment and find something else I quite like doing.
Here are some of the things I've been experimenting with so far:
Life drawing: Experimenting with the 'trois crayons' technique, using a red, white and black colours to step back into using colour in life/still life drawing. I was quite confident using soft pastels in university but seeing as it's been almost 5 years (sob) this was a nice ease back into it. This was my first life drawing practice since university as well! I felt rather rusty but won't beat myself up about it.
Life drawing: I've never really liked using charcoal, but when faced with grey charcoal, black charcoal and white chalk sometimes you just gotta do what you just gotta do! Although I don't like working in black and white (and grey) I think this piece came out pretty well.
Life drawing: Capturing light. This activity was quite hard for me to grasp, we had a minute to capture as much of the light on the body as possible, and I hate being rushed so I panicked a little. The top 3 poses turned out a lot better once I got a grip with myself and just went with the flow instead of feeling pressured.
Drypoint etching: Still Life (Mannequin Busts) - We had these busts lying around and I needed to test the press sooooooooooooooooo I did a couple of quick etches to run through. I added the shadows using a texture wheel type tool (I can't remember the exact name of it off the top of my head) which held the ink in the card really well.
Life drawing: Again with the charcoal! Working in your uncomfortable zone is a good thing though, I guess.
Life drawing: Bistre ink. Anyone who knows me knows that I hate ink with a passion and this still has not changed in the slightest. The only thing that has changed is that I actually sucked it up and gave it a go instead of point blank refusing. Kinda happy with it but at the same time burning hatred. I would look at this and just shrug, that's all I can say about it really.
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