We’re into double figures in weeks and I can see the end in sight. This week we hit 70 days, which means that there are only 30 remaining – all downhill from here, right?
Day 64
I know I have said this before in these posts, however, I am really enjoying how this challenge allows for experimentation with different ways of putting down colour. The prompt today was a holiday memory.
Our holidays are often spent sailing and anchoring in beautiful serene locations. This image is from one of those, in the Smuggler Cove area, Lower Sunshine Coast, and is typical of the scenery we see up and down the coast. A rocky shoreline with smooth, lichen- and moss-covered rocks forming the hillside, arbutus trees in the foreground, evergreens towering behind. Missing from the picture is the ever-present kingfisher.
I played with much more vibrant colours than usual, and reduced detail to give hints rather than the full picture, leaving it to the viewer to join the dots and see the image.
Day 65
The prompt today was “expressivism” later changed to “expressionism” however, by then I had looked up the meaning of expressivism and thrown something together. I had been busy all day, with a meditation that lasted all afternoon, and so my head was in the clouds.
When I read a definition of expressivisim I realized it was a meshing of mental state and art.
Out came the pastels and I mapped onto paper what I thought could be happening with my aura: indigo emanating from the top of my head for higher thought, and green coming up the sides from my heart chakra. It’s all about love 🙂
Day 66
Revisiting an old painting. For a while now I have been thinking of revisiting a painting I created in 2018 and doing it differently, so this prompt allowed me to give it a go.
The top one is what I created on Day 66, the lower one is the original. The painting is called Catching a Ride, and was a scene we encountered when sailing in the Broughton Archipelago at an intersection of channels. A tree had recently fallen and was floating with a number of seal passengers.
The one part I have always liked about this older painting is the foreground water. What I will do is use oil over the original acrylic, to keep the overall image but make it more appropriate for hanging on the gallery wall than it currently is.
Day 67
The prompt was circles and squares. I thought I would try a sketch of a head and face. In researching how to get proportions right, I had seen that some create a circle within a cube and go from there. I tried that various times, a whole page full of tries, but came up with nothing.
And then I saw a nose, and knew I had the perfect photograph to work from. I had a photo of my husband, pulling a silly face while I took a picture of him next to a giant of a sunflower (next photo) in our garden. His nose skin was stretched over the bone and cartilage and there were at least four circles easily visible.
I added a grid of squares to get the proportions somewhat realistic and set to work in pencil. Looking at a nose for such a long time makes me realize how strange noses really are!
Day 68
The colour orange was our prompt on this day. It was also a very sunny day and so I chose to work on a sunflower, the same one that had been in the photo used for the nose above.
I used as many variants of orange as I could before having to go into the green spectrum. I looked closely at the seeds in the head of the sunflower and saw an overlapping spiral pattern. It reminded me of the spirograph I used to play with as a child. The original is far more in depth than what I created here, yet, with this painting you can see the pattern that forms. It’s worth looking closely at sunflowers 🙂
Day 69
Today was a prompt-free day so I decided upon some still life. The bananas were a little beyond their best before date, though they make a lovely smoothie, and as one friend said on seeing the picture, great for banana bread. The avocados were starting to soften. The dish is a Southcott heirloom, I think, and really did look that wobbly along the edge from the direction I viewed it.
In retrospect, the avocados and the colour of the dining room table are too close. I would lighten the table somewhat to add contrast.
Day 70
I spent the day at the recreation complex for Seedy Saturday. I had an hour or so off duty from looking after our land conservancy table, and sat in the main foyer. There was a lot of activity and colour.
I had my pens and paper and set to trying to capture people as they interacted with table displays and the people hosting. I found people don’t stand still long, which was fairly irritating until I just let myself go and scribbled!
Odd thing: at one point I must have counted five women with their hair arranged in knots (or buns as we would say in England).
So that brings us to the end of week 10. As the weather warms we have more opportunity to witness crowds. Would you sit with pen and paper and try to capture people as they mill by? Give it a go and see what happens. You might be surprised 🙂
Janet and Janet 