2017 is my year full of color, each month I dedicate to a new color: 12 colors in 12 months, a trip around the color wheel. And what a trip!
July has been a feast of violet purples.
2017 is my year full of color, each month I dedicate to a new color: “TWELVTY”– 12 colors in 12 months, a trip around the color wheel. And what a trip!
July has been a feast of violet purples.
Each month gets a few pages in the TWELVTY art journal, where I dive deep into pattern making and monochrome mixed media doodling.
Layer upon layer upon layer. Circles in sqaures in circles in grids. Stitching on ribbon on page edges. Patterns of patterns. Doodles and scribbles and more.
In August We move round to Red-Violet: from magenta to mauve. Good times!
All through this summer I’m offering a special discount in my Etsy Shop to all the folks on my mailing list – so clickety-hop aboard today if you want to snag a bargain!
“Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.”
~ Andy Warhol.
100 days: 43-49
“Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.”
~ Andy Warhol.
The continuing saga of a daily drawing practice:
Because of reasons I can’t fathom – perhaps rooted in an overly developed sense of optimism – I sometimes take on ridiculously ambitious projects.
And because – and this is a weird one – although I have a good sense of what a period of time feels like when it’s quantified in a familiar way: a month, a fortnight, a weekend, a couple of hours… I could not, cannot, imagine 100 days.
100 days?
What does that even look like?
Translating it into three-and-a-bit months, or about 14 weeks, I still can’t get a handle on this length of time.
I wonder if it will take shape when I look back at it from the other end? I’m not sure.
I’m in the middle of it now and it feels quite large.
What I have learnt is, the tipping point of any time period, usually marks a change of pace: The second week of a fortnight’s holiday goes faster; The afternoon passes quicker than the morning. Familiarity, I imagine, makes it travel more easily and without catching on so many memories along the way.
I’ve hit the apex of this project now. Let’s see what happens next. Meanwhile:
Here is week 7:
day 43
The source of inspiration for every one of these daily doodles is the eclectic collection of photos on my phone.
Like everyone, there are the accidental photos – inside of pocket – blurred floor – you know the ones. Coupled with the fact I love collecting abstract images of cool shapes, textures or color, without a particular subject matter, I’ve got a few that I can’t be sure if I took them, or if they just happened. This is one of them. Its place in the timel ine reminds me it’s from the glass collection at the V&A art museum.
What I love in this is the contrast of glass, the shapes and swirls and reflections in the foreground against the solid square blockiness of the windows behind.
day 44
A drawing can have a character that comes from something outside of the person holding the pen. I’m coming to see this more and more with every day’s drawing. I notice it here in the expression on the face of this blue chicken – it seems to have translated from the photo with more than just simple representation of lines. Perhaps the daily practice is edging me toward more accuracy. Perhaps. But I sense there’s more to than that.
day 45
A through-the-looking-glass view of my nest. More yellow than I notice it day to day.
Misremembered details, slightly skewed perspective: every single drawing in this project is a metaphor for life.
day 46
Turkish coffee tastes like holidays to me. There’s this this tiny Turkish cafe near here, where it’s served in a fabulously ornate array of silver shininess!
day 47
Today is about swapping colours but keeping shapes.
Ferns fascinate me. I love their fractal qualities, I like the notion we live in a fractal universe, so any reminder I see in nature is pleasing to me. Why are my ferns orange not green? Just the first pen I picked up. I don’t always have big meaning behind what I do. Even with colour.
day 48
This one is a portrait entitled “LOOOOK!” because we all know if someone’s taking more photos of trees, perhaps more than a ‘normal’ person does, just saying “LOOOOK!” over and over isn’t always enough to grab their attention. You might have to photobomb those darned trees as well. 😉
day 49
Allow me to introduce the giraffes at London Luton Airport. These are the fabulous creatures who keep you company as you have breakfast and wait for your holiday to begin. Although I began with their natural setting, albeit a different shaped grid pattern, the unconscious choice of colors I ended up with gave them a more natural looking background than airport ceiling.
Once again I feel like these drawings are not originating from me, just passing through. They chose me as their vehicle to arrive in the world.
Half way!! Join me back here next week for the next exciting instalment!
If you missed the previous parts, you can find them here:
If you want to follow along this project day by day I’m posting on Instagram (where you can also see more WIP & detail pix) & Facebook
All through this summer I’m offering a special discount in my Etsy Shop to all the folks on my mailing list – so clickety-hop aboard today if you want to snag a bargain!
(and I’ll send you my ebook A Year full of Color as a thank you for joining)
“Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.”
~ Georgia O’Keeffe.
100 days: 36-42
“Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.”
~ Georgia O’Keeffe.
Since the beginning of June I’ve given myself a bit of drawing time. Usually it’s the first thing I do in the morning although some days it spills out into the evening, or some grabbed minutes while I’m waiting (something to boil, something to upload, something to dry or begin or finish… you know those waits, don’t you?).
This project has become part of the punctuation in my days. In my daze.
Here is week 6:
day 36
I always find sanctuary amid trees.
Light filtered through leaves and birdsong can right a lot of wrongs. I’ve done this ever since I can remember. As I wander, my mind wanders, to all the other folks who’ve walked amongst these trees over the years, the centuries, all of time.
Then I think about the tree roots reaching out and touching under my feet, the myriad of patterns and connections, home to zillions of bugs and small beasties.
And squirrels. I love squirrels too.
day 37
I like capturing the minutiae of my world because that’s where the memories are stickiest.
I bought these brass bells in London when I was a teenager and they’re among the few things I have from that time. The beads came later, in my 20s I got into glass beadwork.
This bundled collection of things lives on my wall of inspiration. I can look at it through someone else’s eyes and see a cacophony of color and mayhem, but what I see is the time line of oddities that brings me to now.
day 38
Today celebrates scribble. Something in the movement of a good scribble scratches the mental itches and unwinds the brain tangles. A big, full bodied scribble is the best exercise for body and soul, this little condensed few square inch scribble is the next best thing. Today’s photo is a Henry Moore sculpture in Kew Gardens, those swooping swerving curves are perfect to scribble around in.
day 39
Over in another ongoing project I’m immersed in purple this month, and look how one idea spills out into another: the ceiling at the Royal Albert Hall in all its gloriously sumptuous splendour. These domes are for acoustic effect, but they’re a delicious feast for the eyes as well like hundreds of satin jellyfish hovering over your head. Just magical.
day 40
Last summer I travelled through part of the US by train. One day I’ll edit together the video footage (it’s on the list!) meanwhile I look at the photos and I’m right back in my little sleeper carriage looking out, open mouthed, at the enormity of the scenery.
This is Utah.
Oh my days!
day 41
One of my most favourite things: street art. This face was smiling out from a metal shutter, watching the world go by, somewhere in Barcelona. I’m fascinated by his eyes.
day 42
42: the answer to the great question of life, the universe, and everything. And the image from the same exhibition I began this book with, Pink Floyd at the V&A. When I was a young thing, their music was my 42.
So it inadvertently came back round full circle. As things seem to do.
If you missed the previous parts, you can find them here:
If you want to follow along this project day by day I’m posting on Instagram (where you can also see more WIP & detail pix) & Facebook
All through this summer I’m offering a special discount in my Etsy Shop to all the folks on my mailing list – so clickety-hop aboard today if you want to snag a bargain!
(and I’ll send you my ebook A Year full of Color as a thank you for joining)
I’ve made a nest of art supplies at the table where I play each morning – I can’t use the studio – too much to get distracted by. Instead it’s me, my coffee, my phone (photo album & podcast player) and an ever growing amount of art supplies…
100 days: 29-35
“The urge to draw must be quite deep within us, because children love to do it.”
– David Hockney.
I’ve made a nest of art supplies at the table where I play each morning – I can’t use the studio – too much to get distracted by. Instead it’s me, my coffee, my phone (photo album & podcast player) and an ever growing amount of art supplies.
I’m getting more into watercolor – I love the immediacy – quick coverage instead of painstaking doodles. I’m sure to flip between these two approaches as the 100 days winds by. Maybe? We’ll see…
Here is week 5:
day 29
Do you get as excited as me about tiny mosaic tiles? Gold coloured ones? Yep, I thought so. I needed something undemanding today, something fun. Like lots of different ways of making lots of different little squares in pencil and pen and paint. Some with edges and outlines and scribbled bits and some with none. Each one beautifully individual. And essentially the same.
day 30
If there was room in my backpack, I would have bought this thing without hesitation. But that’s the case for too many things in this shop of treasures I stopped at travelling through Washington. Ah, but this thing, with it’s mirrors and circles and spaces in between, it is all I could ask from a beautifully pointless object. I love how the design is so simple yet tangled me up in drawing it, getting lost in the connections and the spaces.
Another day, another metaphor for life.
day 31
Something about lizards and geckos really fascinates me. (Don’t get me started on axolotls). I saw this little guy in Barcelona. Now he’s scuttling forever through my scribbled thoughts of the day.
day 32
Things I’m realising in this #100dayproject : the photos I think will be easy to draw often aren’t, and vice versa. It’s getting easier to let go of expectations and just draw, but I have to re-remember this almost every time.
In Betty Edward’s book on drawing she recommended when copying from a photo to draw upside down. This was in the back of my mind today. Only, of course, a photo like this doesn’t have an upside down. My brain, instead, chose to try and mirror image what it was seeing. … Poor little brain, sometimes this game is more of a stretch that it wants before the coffee has fully soaked in.
day 33
Who could resist this ferocious toothy beast? I can’t remember where he came from. But he’s here now. I wish I could credit the original artist, but somehow all memory of the origin of this has escaped me.
day 34
What a difference a color makes, this flint wall has turned into opal. Have I discovered my own alchemy here folks?
Why revery? It’s just a word I heard, it travelled from my ear straight down my arm, out through the pen onto the page. That’s all. Defined as a ‘state of dreamy meditation or fanciful musing’ – I think the word knew it belonged on this page and didn’t need to consult me.
day 35
“You can get the monkeys off your back, but the circus never leaves town.” ~ Anne Lamott
Of course these aren’t monkeys, these are zombie kangaroos. But I heard this quote while I was drawing and it would be long forgotten if I didn’t write it down.
Today is another window view, this one from Seattle. I like the blended worlds of reflections and the other side. Inside/outside mish-mashed into a form of ephemeral art of its own.
This is a place I’d like to explore more. (The ephemeral-reflection-art-idea-place. And Seattle too)
If you missed the previous parts, you can find them here:
If you want to follow along this project day by day I’m posting on Instagram (where you can also see more WIP & detail pix) & Facebook
All through this summer I’m offering a special discount in my Etsy Shop to all the folks on my mailing list – so clickety-hop aboard today if you want to snag a bargain!
(and I’ll send you my ebook A Year full of Color as a thank you for joining)
Last year I had the great pleasure of producing an online class for 21 Secrets all about color.(If you know my art – you’ll know this is my thing!)
In the class I teach you how to make a really fun variation on a color wheel, using collage and mixed media painting techniques, to inspire new ways of combining colors in your mixed media art. This would be fab as a school holiday project for creative little ones!
And another 23 teachers (yes – this time there are more than the usual 21) share how they use color in their art.
(By purchasing through the links in this post, I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.)
All through this summer I’m offering a special discount in my Etsy Shop to all the folks on my mailing list – so clickety-hop aboard today if you want to snag a bargain!
(and I’ll send you my ebook A Year full of Color as a thank you for joining)
100 days: 14-21 “The way we do anything is the way we do everything.” ~ Martha Beck Do you have patterns you keep falling back to? I’m three weeks into this 100 day project, and I’m noticing more patterns – not only the literal doodled patterns and shapes I return to in my drawings, but […]
100 days: 22-28
“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”
~ Thomas Merton.
Received wisdom states it take anything from a couple of weeks to almost a year to form a new habit to the point whereby it feels automatic. Of course some folk are more habitually inclined, and for anyone a habit that’s enjoyable is easier to fit into an exiting routine.
Existing routine – did you hear that? Like I understand the meaning of this phrase!
However, this daily drawing habit is a month old for me now, and I’m really enjoying it. Each day I’m learning more about myself in ways I never though would be possible through such a simple activity. After all, I probably draw something most days anyway. But this is different. This has got rules: use a phone photo. Even when you don’t want to. That’s the basis of all these drawings, even if it’s a scribbled outline with free-form-jazz-doodles going on inside and all around. And I post the drawing daily. Even when I don’t want to. So what you see here isn’t curated highlights, it’s the day-to-day ordinary.
Here is week 4:
day 22
It’s just about a year since I had an enormous revelation that I still can’t express in words. So I look for symbols instead, in the hope that by collecting them I’ll be able to turn the understanding into words I can share. It’s about connection and communication, it speaks of time and fragility. Impermanence, and the whole essence of what we’re here for. I can see it in this image and I can’t explain how. This week I had another revelation: I don’t have to have the words. I can just be with this as it is for now.
day 23
I saw this in the V&A, I was entranced by the colours, the shape, the sheeny-shiny glaze, all those edges and faces. I want to make one of these!
day 24
This guy was hanging around outside Barcelona Zoo- it’s ok, he wasn’t alone – there were a few of them.
day 25
I’m back in the Barcelona photos … cos it’s such a photogenic place! In a three day trip earlier this year I must have taken hundreds of photos. Already bewitched by the art of Antoni Gaudi, I was in bits when I found myself actually walking around inside of it.
day 26
“What thinks?” Are thoughts generated somewhere inside this head? or is it a receiver for energy that’s outside of us? Today It feels like floating in a soup of information, drenched in world noise, trying not to drown.
I like to listen to podcasts as I draw. As an on/off meditator and long time student of Buddhist practice, I really enjoy the podcasts produced by the Insight Meditation Center, Audio Dharma. They get me thinking about thinking…
day 27
Who, what is this? He’s inspired by a series of fabulous creatures by Jane Alexander at the Tate Modern. Everyday I’m learning so much, about drawing, and on a deeper level through the drawing practice. My observation is getting sharper, but more importantly I’m getting better at course correcting when I don’t get it first time. And I’m kinder to the part of me that’s learning , practicing, not expecting a perfect representation (I’ve already got a photo- this is something else) I’m developing the art of allowing.
day 28
When I’m not hung up on accuracy I can forget the details and just go for the essence. I can float back in time a few months and return to the awe that floated me around these magical dreamlike Gaudi buildings. I can’t pretend this is easy, but I’m learning. I am, and it is, all a work in progress. It’s such a trip.
If you missed the previous parts, you can find them here:
If you want to follow along this project day by day I’m posting on Instagram (where you can also see more WIP & detail pix) & Facebook
All through this summer I’m offering a special discount in my Etsy Shop to all the folks on my mailing list – so clickety-hop aboard today if you want to snag a bargain!
“The way we do anything is the way we do everything.”
~ Martha Beck
Do you have patterns you keep falling back to?
I’m three weeks into this 100 day project, and I’m noticing more patterns – not only the literal doodled patterns and shapes I return to in my drawings, but the patterns of thought in my behaviour and habits.
It’s the spirals and swirls, AND it’s the haphazardness and self talk that accompanies every process. The consistency of my inconsistency, how I dart between the extremes of all & nothing, the wonkiness of the line and skewed perspective, the mid range despair before conceding: this is my way. I gotta learn to like it, keep practicing, don’t stop and dwell here. Keep moving, keep learning, trust the process.
Here is week 3:
day 14
The 100 day project is teaching me so much already: about commitment for instance. I did not want to post this one. I could easily have drawn something else, or skipped on to the next day, and no-one but I would have known. But there’s the key: I would have known.
I’m doing this for all sorts of reasons, and getting better at drawing ‘real’ things is one of them. And showing up to myself is another thing. So here I am literally doing this! Morning panda eyes, this is me. (Oh, and how I see my hair: full of doodles.)
day 15
The word that stood out in the whatever-I-was-listening-to today was Dissolve. I’m enjoying the connection between this, the meaning of ‘forming a solution’, merging to become a part of, and my unending seeking of answers. And to let all that dissolve too. Let it all go.
The photo I used is a fabulous light I saw in Barcelona. It’s like the sun ☀️ . .
day 16
Somewhere between keeping it simple – 1 color, black pen & pencil – and totally over complicating with all the doodles and patterns. Both. Everything. All of it. .
One thing I’m working on in this project is the notion of leaving white space. Breathing space. Moments of quiet.
So by making quiet space a part of my drawings I’m training myself to let this into other parts of life too.
day 17
I went to the Tate modern gallery on my birthday, and walking up from the station I was captivated by this image. So many lines and angles, triangles and patterns.
I just noticed the synchronicity of the numbers: Day 17, and my birthday is the 17th. I like when you his happens. I take it as a clue I’m on track with what I’m doing.
day 18
‘Do What You Love’ it said, and round the corner ‘Love What You Do’.
That’s it. Right here. That’s what I’m doing.
day 19
Today is made of wonky lines of words and scribbles. Some days have more words than others, and this was one of them. Been thinking a lot about dreaming, last night was a series of distinct dreams within dreams, like Russian dolls, fractal layers.
This morning I found a podcast series about lucid dreaming, so that was my ‘morning drawing listening’ for today. .
day 20
I take so many photos like this, I can’t resist the textures and patterns in stone walls 😊
The words ‘safe understanding’ meant something at the time I wrote them, but I either got distracted or overestimated what me-in-the-future would remember about the context. Nonetheless they’re good solid words to be on a wall.
There was a time when photos would exist only on paper, and once developed would get muddled and out of synch. I would not have kept the memory of seeing this wall in the chronological organisation that digital images have, so would have soon forgotten that today’s image was within minutes of the following (much more memorable) one. Things like this counter balance all that’s infuriating about digital life.
day 21
I invited this girl I found while I was exploring Sacramento. Last year I tripped across the states by train from Seattle to Chicago. I had just a few hours here between trains, it was early morning before the day had really woken up so I strolled around looking for art. And I found it!
If you missed the previous parts, you can find them here: Week 1 & Week 2
If you want to follow along this project day by day I’m posting on Instagram (where you can also see more WIP & detail pix) & Facebook
All through this summer I’m offering a special discount in my Etsy Shop to all the folks on my mailing list – so clickety-hop aboard today if you want to snag a bargain!
(and I’ll send you my ebook A Year full of Color as a thank you for joining)
So here’s the thing: I’m not ordinarily a jump-out-of-bed-filled-with-enthusiasm-for-the-new-day kinda gal
(Oh, how I wish… I’m working on this one)
And I get twitchy at the thought of constraining myself to a regular routine.
I’m not quite sure why the disparity between the me I’d like to embody and the me I currently am, other than – the reason for most things – people are complicated creatures.
It’s part of my BIG WHY behind taking on this challenge.
It’s a practice within a practice, the bigger challenge of this life: to keep learning, keep evolving, keep shape-shifting – to become a morning person, a person who carries a sketchbook, a person who can draw circles and faces and recognisable things without drowning in judgement and criticism…. a person with a wholesome, creative, regular daily habit — to who knows what next.
I figure only practice will get me from the version of the person I’m being now to the one I want to be next.One step in front of the other, one page at a time.
Here is week 2:
8/100
I am magnetised by trees, hypnotised. I can just stand and stare at them. And I do. One of the (many) reasons, I love the shapes the branches make – the gaps and spaces – like windows to the sky.
9/100
I forget what or where this was. I don’t think that matters much. What’s most interesting to me is all the metaphors this brings to mind. Today I’m thinking about junctions, connections, the joining togetherness and shifts in direction.
10/100
I notice how today I’m just not feeling it. I get caught up in the details and miss the bigger picture. The perspective is skewed and botched. And I say ‘but it’s art, it’s a drawing not an exact copy. It’s *inspired by* …’ while all the while I’m wanting to practice and get better at observing, at seeing the whole picture, at planning and scaling and accuracy and all that stuff. It’s all metaphors and it’s all practice.
11/100
This is a path I’ve walked down hundreds of times, a shortcut between two rows of houses. In the morning the sun shines through the tunnel of overhanging trees and dapples the path. Already I’m thinking I’d like to revisit this photo, see it through the eyes of a me-on-another-day.
12/100
I found this curious group in a shop in Washington. I was travelling light so could only come away with this photo. In my drawing I could only fit three of the characters, so the others might appear later in the book (I feel like they should be together in some form). In the drawing the two on the left look a little conspiratorial while the green dude on the right looks worried. I only noticed this just now. What do they know that I don’t? Has separating them from the herd caused some friction?
13/100
It’s curious (to me) how taking a photo traps a moment, a memory, and holds it, contained in a little rectangle. This rectangle contains the mixed feelings of the drive to the airport, going home from a holiday, in a place I called my second home for sometime.
If you want to follow along this project day by day I’m posting on Instagram (where you can also see more WIP & detail pix) & Facebook
Do you have a daily creative practice? I’d love to know how you find it effects the way you make, the way you process your ideas…
All through this summer I’m offering a special discount in my Etsy Shop to all the folks on my mailing list – so clickety-hop aboard today if you want to snag a bargain!
(and I’ll send you my ebook A Year full of Color as a thank you for joining)
100 daily doodled drawings from photos from my phone. Week 1.
MY last trip to the art store was for essentials: gel medium and canvas. I passed through aisles filled with rainbows of paint and pens and all manner of glorious goodies. I resisted the urge to take home so much of so much.
Until I saw this.
my companion for the summer
I keep seeing on instagram folks doing this #100daychallenge and feeling the tug of a challenge I wanted to play along too… straightaway I knew this little sketchbook would make the perfect companion for me through this summer.
Beginning 1st June I’ve been taking my morning coffee with this new friend. Together we ease into the day. The light mornings mean my days begin earlier in the summer, it’s still quiet out in the world and nobody knows I’m awake, not even the internet.
Each day I choose a photo from the extensive collection in my phone (I’m forever seeing and catching patterns or shapes that intrigue me – finally I’m using this library – to begin my day’s doodles)
Here’s the first week of the adventure:
1/100
Photo from the Pink Floyd retrospective at the V&A – PF have been part of my life since I was a kid and I’ve got so many memories tangled up in their music. I don’t listen to it much these days, so hearing some of those songs again, I got quite emotional. When I was a teenager I went through a real hippy dippy phase. (It could be argued I haven’t come out if it yet) and I adored early PF and all the psychedelic things.
2/100
Still in the V&A, I forget what this is the detail of, but the patterns appealed and was enough to form the beginning of today’s doodle. I was listening to an Unruffled podcast, chichis where the quote “comparison and envy are just a different form of procrastination” came from. Food for thought for the day.
3/100
Today’s doodles began as I absentmindedly drew round the shapes showing through from the page before. The indentations in the paper. The shadows and ghosts of yesterday. Then the shapes from a photo in the Cathedral in Barcelona, I was really taken by this arrangement of diagonal lines and circles. It’s one of a few similar photos 😉 .
4/100
The photo that launched today’s doodle was a shop window display. My inner magpie saw those colors, those zigzags, and had to catch them. The reflections making new shapes on top were a bonus I didn’t see until later.
5/100
The photo is of a metal grid thing at the train station in Sacramento, I saw while waiting to leave on the second part of my big train trip across the US last year. I like the perspective, the contrast in grid shapes. It set the scene for this doodle.
6/100
Mmmmm…. foxgloves. What more can I say – aren’t flowers amazing?!
7/100
Continuing the theme of nature being amazing, with this twisty tree from Kew Gardens. “Healing in Expression” was a phrase I heard as I played. Which is truly what this is.
If you want to follow along this project day by day I’m posting on Instagram (where you can also see more WIP & detail pix) & Facebook
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