I came across Irish artist, Anne Ellard’s Sketchbook Project while browsing through Issuu.  I just love these silhouette’s she’s created with collage.

(c) Anne Ellard 2011

You can find out more about Anne and view some of her other artwork here and here, or follow her on FaceBook.

Just a couple of bits of news to share with you today, with it being Sunday and with me having spent the day away from home not making anything.

Alisa Burke has announced her online sketching class this week to start on Feb 7th.  Sign ups are open now for the most reasonable price of $50.  It’s a five week class with ongoing access to the lessons when the classes end.

Alisa’s sketchbook is a true work of art.  I wish I was even a fraction as good as she is at, not only sketching, but also incorporating a free and seemingly effortless style into everything she does.  She’s a true devotee of colour and I am often gob-

smacked at the beauty of her work.  Of course, we shouldn’t covet another’s style and should try to develop our own, which Alisa’s class should help with.

(c) Alisa Burke 2011

The next piece of news I want to share with you is that there’s a series of instructional posts over at While She Naps showing the method Abigail uses for making her amazing soft toys.  I’ve not had a chance to have a proper look yet, but there does look to be some really helpful advice contained within the posts so far.

(c) Abigail Glassenberg 2011

Abilgail is the author of the upcoming book, The Artful Bird: Fanciful Feathered Friends to Make and Sew which goes on sale later this month.  I do covet this book and it will be mine!

I’ve been wanting to try lino printing for quite some time now but I don’t have the correct tools or the inclination to buy the tools.  I do however, have a pack of vinyl floor tiles and a series of gouges that Alasdair uses for his carvings.

Ever the type to make do with what I have, I decided to see if the vinyl tiles could do as good a job as lino.  I think the outcome is passable although nowhere near as clear as those I’ve seen from lino…this could also be to do with my lack of ink and brayer and my improvisation of kids paint and a spongy paint roller (also designed for kids).

Not at all bad though.  I printed the outline shape and then cut the same piece of vinyl further to create lines, which I then painted black.  I love all the extra bits that are created from the carving.  Many would remove these ridges but I think they add something of a handmade quality.

I’m thinking of combining this technique with some of my handmade paper and a more elaborate picture for some more luxurious prints.

I don’t think I’ve owned a pair of plimsolls since, ooooo, forever!  If I had to make a guess then I might suggest it’s been at least 25 years, certainly not since leaving primary school!  This is something that’s been pulling at me for some time to do and, Mmmmmm, there’s nothing quite like the smell of new plimsolls is there – or does that just make me a bit weird!?

Anyway I’ve been noticing images of customised plimsolls ever since I joined up with DeviantArt a couple of years back and I’ve got to say they are something of an inspiration, even if my own initial efforts are a far cry from those featured in that link – these pictured here really are an initial effort.  If nothing else it gave me a chance to try out taking photo’s in my new light-box!

The lass has made me promise to do her a pair and I can envisage something in pink/lilac with love hearts for her and she seems happy with the idea.  Of course if I do a pair for her then no doubt the lad will want a pair too so I guess I’ll need to do two more pairs at the very least.

Peacock’s are well known for their fantastic plumage and for proudly strutting their stuff, they’re also an immense source of inspiration for a huge number of people; as you’ll discover if you type ‘peacock art’ into google and look through the image results.  It’s easy to see why they should act on the imagination and why artists and crafters alike should wish to include aspects of them in their work, I was reminded of that recently when we visited a local farm park – see here – with the kids and there was a couple strutting back and forth, all the while studiously ignoring each others existence.

Their arrogance and aloofness reminds me of ‘those people’ who have an arrogance born out of forever being told how handsome or beautiful they are, how wonderful they are, how perfect … at least the peacock’s have reason to believe it of themselves.  Here are a few pictures I took while we were at the park:

click to full view

I’d love to do a Bonnie Bird drawing inspiration from these birds although I think I need to carefully consider the execution of such an exploit. So, in the mean-time, here are a few samples from around the internet of what others have been up to recently:

by Deadpan Alley

by Jen Skelley

by Verabel

by Sally Boyle

Jolene and I have been given a temporary reprieve with the kids being looked after by their gran for just shy of a week, ideally this would mean loads of extra time for crafting.  Unfortunately the opposite seems to be true, although the extra freedom has given us a chance to get out and about without them, in this first instance this has meant that we were able to go to The Glasgow Boys exhibition in Glasgow’s Kelvingrove art galleries and museum.

The exhibition finishes on the 27th September 2010 and features 150 paintings and a couple of sculptures from the group of artists who later became known as the Glasgow Boys.  These artists focused, for a period, on painting subject matter realistically and chose subject matter from the day-to-day grind of life, painting portraits of the common folk and scenes of people going about their daily chores.  This realism was something new and different from the sentimentality of the Victorian era and illustrated a different approach to painting and capturing objects on paper and canvas.

James Guthrie, John Lavery, Arthur Melville and E A Hornel

The works have been drawn from a large number of sources including other galleries and museums, although there was a huge number of rarely seen works from private collections and individuals.  Indeed, I’ve heard it suggested (from people that know better than I) that there is likely to be a huge number of paintings in the lofts of houses all around Glasgow, perhaps this exhibition might encourage a few more to be dusted down and brought out into the light of day.

If I’m being honest I found some of the works to be rather prosaic, if not outright baffling, although it was interesting to see how some individuals styles developed over time and note where their focus lay.  Some of the paintings, for example, had hands and faces painted to almost photo-realism standards whilst clothing and background would be almost abstract or entirely ‘out of focus’.

I think that the exhibition is well worth a visit, even just to catch a taste of local culture and history, all the more so if you happen to have so much as a passing interest in painting yourself.  Adults get in for £5 (Concession £3) whilst under 16′s go for free … although a bit of a bore for younger children I’d think!

This exhibition will also be showing in London at the Royal Academy of Arts from 30 October 2010 – 23 January 2011, well worth a look if you can get the chance.

I made a paperweight! decorated a stone and called it a paperweight!

It’s just a painted stone with varnish to protect the paint.  I’ve learned a couple of things in the process – black felt tip isn’t black, it’s blue and clear varnish isn’t clear, it’s brown.

Anyway, it works as a paperweight, which wouldn’t be hard really because the unpainted stone would have worked just as well!

Skot is another artist found through DeviantArt where he goes by the name Lord Hoki, living on Austrailia’s East Coast Skot works in a variety of media creating a range of drawn, painted and sculpted objects.  Much of his DeviantArt account is taken up with his Hoki range of work such as those pictured below:

Above is just one of a wide range of character sketches featured in Skot’s DeviantArt account.  Aside from the sketches there are also fully worked up paintings (see below) in what is probably best described as, full 21st century technicolour:

I really love the blending and highlighting used in this painting, the background providing a wonderful richly textured contrast with the smooth features of the the face itself.  It could be that I’m attracted to these works thanks to the eyes – eyes being something of an obsession for me – and what eyes these are!  I almost feel like I could fall into them, a real focal point of many of these Hoki works.

If you like these characters painted, then you may well like them painted on t-shirts (below), wear an original work on your chest … I’d pay for that!

It only seems right that the Hoki’s be brought to life in an altogether more 3-dimensional fashion, and so it is we discover Captain Hoki:

The Captain here is a sculpture in papier mache that really fits in with it’s 2-dimensional forebears, the nose and eyes being the main feature with colouring and details in keeping with the designs I’ve already featured here and the others in Skot’s gallery.

Given what’s gone before you may well be forgiven that Skot is something of a one trick pony, yet nothing could be further from the truth and so, before I finish this post I’d like to share a few of Skot’s other works with you.

A pencil sketch entitled “My Dad”, we presume it is … his … not mine!

A couple of bird boxes made from reclaimed and recycled materials … makes me think that the birds we get around where I am are a bit rubbish.  Having said that the Buzzards, Grouse and Barn Owls are pretty cool … oh! and we don’t get deadly spiders, snakes or other nasties!!

As ever I can’t recommend enough that you check out this artists gallery which is available here.

Painting, or more specifically, what constitutes a ‘good painting’ is something that has no doubt been contested since the dawn of time when man first began daubing paint on cave walls.  You can almost discern, through the mists of time, the first critic carefully contemplating some abstract image of a hunting party bringing down a mammoth, I  wonder how long he paused before delivering his verdict with the business end of his wooden club … and creative types think the critics now can be harsh!!

Jolene and I spent the day yesterday wandering around the Kelvingrove Art Galleries and Museum, a long day with kids in tow but well worth it for the fantastic range of arts and crafts from across time from Egyptian artefacts, to Scottish pre-history through to reflections on modern society.  The Art Galleries have an extremely fine selection of paintings, not least of all one of Jolene’s favourites, Salvador Dali’s Christ of St John on the Cross, and my own personal favourite, Van Gogh’s, A Portrait of Alexander Reid, pictured below:

Jolene and I actually decided to buy a small framed reproduction of this painting from the museum shop, although we weren’t necessarily so keen to be hanging Jolene’s favourite Dali anywhere in the house!

Coming back from the galleries, and having enjoyed a quiet dinner down at the pub, we came home well fed and well motivated, if for no other reason than it can be difficult to wander around any gallery now without looking at some of the exhibits and wondering just how some of the items can be considered to be art, let alone of high enough calibre to be hung in a prestigious gallery.  Faced with paintings that you feel your three year old could produce given half the chance it’s difficult not to think, I could do that!

So we did!

Jolene started it when she began slapping red paint onto a canvas (7″ x 9.5″), and to be honest I thought that that would be that, I had already named it ‘red paint on canvas’ … a masterpiece to behold and clearly befitting of any up market gallery.  Alas there was no stopping her and she carried on initially by gluing on a foreground and then over-painting this with some actual subject matter, by this point she had already made some of the ‘modern art’ I’ve seen elsewhere look amateurish and so it was she ended up with the picture above.

Meanwhile, I wasn’t about to be outdone by Jolene and had made a grab for my own canvas (12″ x 12″) – typically for me it already had some unfinished rubbish on it – following Jolene’s lead though it wasn’t long until I too had daubed over the canvas with red, indeed I had already named this one too, ‘even more red paint on canvas’ … genius, eh?!

I was kind of perturbed when I saw that Jolene wasn’t going to be content with slapping some paint on the canvas and that I might actually have to put some thought in to what I was doing, I ruminated a some ideas many of which I had to discard as they were too involved, beyond my ability to execute or clearly plagiarised from somewhere else and instead I ended up with this (below).

It’s funny though how ones attitudes change to art as you get older, there was a time when I couldn’t understand how someone might stand and look at a painting for any more than a moment, yet when you actually see some of the true masterpieces in person there is so much to see beyond the bigger picture that it can be difficult not to look at them with a more discerning and focused eye, you don’t need to like everything you see, but you should be able to decide what you like and why.

Just from a general interest point-of-view I thought I would just upload a couple of the other paintings we have hanging around the house.

We were gifted the painting above by Jolene’s mother and father who brought it back from a trip of a lifetime to Nepal.  The one below was picked up during our Holiday last year in Wester Ross from a lady who ran a small shop out of a shed selling soap, her son was the artist and he had produced a few of these paintings featuring a central Celtic Knot design.

We were recently gifted this painting by my mother who, after a long period of abstention, has finally lifted a paintbrush again.  Jolene and I were delighted to receive it, not least of all since it’s a painting of our (and our neighbours) house, it’s based on a photo from a couple of years back and features one of my nephews a long with our wee lad and lass.  Of course, all we need to do now is find somewhere to hang it which, given the state of disrepair our home is currently in is easier said than done!!

Typically, the photograph has washed the colours out and no amount of fiddling in the photo editor, with my limited skills, was going to fix that I’m afraid.  Still it was a lovely gesture and Jolene and I will be delighted to hang it … just as soon as we have somewhere to hang it!!