Paper Obstacles

I had a really clear idea what I wanted to do with this book from (almost) the outset last year – a rambling whirl of doodles, a stream of consciousness running through the pages.

The Sketchbook Project

It’s been a while since I checked in with you guys on this project, I’ve had to overcome a few obstacles along the way.

I had a really clear idea what I wanted to do with this book from (almost) the outset last year – a rambling whirl of doodles, a stream of consciousness running through the pages. Then I got ill, and the heavy duty pain medication I had in hospital inspired me with a really clear visual I wanted to recreate. As best I could, two-dimensionally on paper.

I began the line work back during Inktober, and looking back I remember at the time being aware of just how thin and flimsy the paper is in the book. I mean, super thin. It would hold up well to gentle care but I’m heavy handed and (because it’s all I had to hand and impatience is my biggest motivator in all I do) I used ballpoint pen. So my pages were already crinkling from the indentation of the lines.

That’s cool – it adds character – it’s my ‘style’ – go with it, I thought.

Sure.

I delayed the coloring stage until I finally got my new watercolors I’d been so eager to use.

Then the holidays, then life, then I finally began.

MixySketchbookProject2018-02 — this paper soaks up watercolor like a sponge.

Oh. My. Days!

You do NOT wanna use watercolors on this paper. Of course if I hadn’t been so hung up on the combination of:

This Sketchbook Project + These Colors + These Paints = Exactly What I Want To Do

then perhaps I wouldn’t have been temporarily blind the reality of:

This Medium + This Paper = A Certain Soggy Mess.

MixySketchbookProject2018-03 — Soaked right through to the other side 😦

Damnit!

Ok, I’m an adaptable kinda person, I pride myself on being able to change direction, to adjust and adapt.

Acrylics, I thought. Acrylics are the answer. They will sit on top of the paper and give it a bit more substance as well.

MixySketchbookProject2018-01 — Look at that paper curl! It seems I have angered the book now.

Nope. Not only is it a streaky mess, but the pages are actually curling up in disgust.

What do they want from me? light, delicate pencil? Do they know me AT ALL??

I heard a distant memory jangling about in the back of my mind – are there rules on what media we’re to use? – checking the website: sure, acrylics & gesso are discouraged because the pages get sticky and … yes, yes, I know all this…

So, my first plan of watercolor was back on the table – because, when I read on – we are allowed to rebind the book. I can use actual watercolor paper!

Now that time was getting squeezed, that forever-away-distant deadline was getting closer… I decided that keeping it simple was the best way forward. The elaborate plans I had to begin are on hold for a separate project later in the year, meanwhile I’m back with what I know best for the pages of this book: the idea that is fuelling my creativity and has done for a long while now: an adventure in 12 colors!

After all, it’s my thing, right?

My pages are complete and ready for binding, I’ll show the finished book as soon as I get some good light for photos – then it’ll be winging it’s way off to Brooklyn Art Library

If you want to be first to see what I’m making, and get exclusive discounts on these things, clickety-hop aboard my email list right here.

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(and I’ll send you my ebook A Year full of Color as a thank you for joining)

Your email is utterly safe to me. It will be wrapped up snug and nestled with a hot water bottle & a kitten until the spring arrives.

Are you ready?

I’ve worked my socks off to make this as fabulous & fun as I can, I’m really proud how it’s come together. So much so, if you don’t think you’re getting value for money by the end of the first segment, you can have your money back.

Ready for an adventure in color?

We begin TWELVTY 2018 on Monday 5th February!

Join Here!

Just £97 for a whole year of color (or 3 instalments of £33)

I’ve worked my socks off to make this program as fabulous and fun as I can, and I’m really proud of how it’s come together.

So much so, if you don’t think you’re getting value for money by the end of the first color segment, you can have your money back in full without a single quibble. Srsly, not even a little one!!

Join me and a group of wonderful creative spirits to share this adventure in color ——-Y’know over half of the 2017 group are returning for a second trip around the color wheel (some signed up before we’d even finished last year!)

I’ve even reduced the price, to make it accessible for everyone there’s the option to pay in 3 instalments.

Join Here!

Just £97 for a whole year of color (or 3 instalments of £33)

Guys, I don’t know if I’ll run TWELVTY again – it’s fabulous fun, but it takes over my life, so do join now if you don’t want to miss out.

Go on… we’ll have so much fun! it won’t be the same without you 😉

Join Here!

Just £97 for a whole year of color (or 3 instalments of £33)

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100 days as dreamscapes

I love to mix my drawings and graphics in with my photography experiments … these are glimpses into the dream scape of my imagination.

In the digital re-imagining of my art that I was telling you about yesterpost, I’m creating one of these collage postcards series entirely from the images in the 100 day project from earlier this year.

I’m finding the journey of a creative practice follows a spiral path, revisiting and reinventing along the way, enriching and inspiring from the past into the future.

These drawings nestle up together in their new arrangements as one edge blends into another.

They contain hidden messages and fragments of found poetry from the words and phrases that wandered through my mind as I drew.

These are glimpses into the dream scape of my imagination. And I’m only just beginning!

If you’re quick you can catch them in my Etsy store …

If you’re super quick you’ll catch the This-Weekend-Only-Sale of 15% off EVERYTHING and catch international shipping before the holidays! Lawks!!

There are currently Two sets of Three Postcards available:
You can find Set 1 here & Set 2 right here

If you’d like regular monthly updates on my latest colorful antics, delivered right to your inbox (all the good stuff I don’t share here on the blog + special discounts on my classes and Etsy things) Hop on my mail-list right here:

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Your email is utterly safe to me. It will be wrapped up snug and nestled with a ring tailed lemur until the spring arrives.

Digital Dreamscapes

I love to mix my drawings and graphics in with my photography experiments … these are glimpses into the dream scape of my imagination.

You know how I love to find new ways to find new ways.

I love to mix my drawings and graphics in with my photography experiments by way of digital collages.

I’ve been having the most fun doing this lately and new art is emerging as I spiral around in this creative practice.

I was so pleased with the way these designs came out I had some printed up as postcards.

They are gorgeous!

I love how they contain hidden messages and fragments of found poetry as snippets of words and text peep through.

They are glimpses into the dream scape of my imagination. And I’m only just beginning!

If you’re quick you can catch them in my Etsy store …

If you’re super quick you’ll catch the This-Weekend-Only-Sale of 15% off EVERYTHING and catch international shipping before the holidays! Lawks!!

<a href="https://mixygecko.wufoo.com/forms/z1pfxfus0jq7ftl/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Fill out my Wufoo form!</a>

and I’ll send you my ebook A Year full of Color

Your email is utterly safe to me. It will be wrapped up snug and nestled with a hot water bottle until the spring arrives.

A life full of color

Some lifetimes ago, a sixteen year old version of me failed to get the place in art school that she’d pinned all her early hopes to.

Dismissed by the grown ups who’d repeatedly explained: ‘being an artist isn’t realistic’ led to years floating adrift from my calling.

(They were wrong. And this isn’t what I do, I’ve come to realise, it’s what I am)

Some lifetimes ago, a sixteen year old version of me failed to get the place in art school that she’d pinned all her early hopes to.

Dismissed by the grown ups who’d repeatedly explained: ‘being an artist isn’t realistic’ led to years floating adrift from my calling.

(They were wrong. And this isn’t what I do, I’ve come to realise, it’s what I am)

A few years ago, rattled by some mid-life reminders of mortality, I finally fulfilled my life long ambition. But being an art student was as far as I’d thought this plan through. After spinning around in a self made feedback loop of regret for two decades, while I loved my time at college, I’d completely lost sight of the purpose.

My confusion was confounded when my course was cancelled after the foundation year. Before I’d time to consider my options my personal life fell apart, as a few weeks later my mum died.

Now I was free falling and had to find something to grasp onto, something simple I could rely on to slow the descent.

I needed a project to latch my focus to. I needed a subject I could immerse myself in. It had to be something creative, it had to be something colourful.

It just had to be color.

I hadn’t the bandwidth for anything more complex. I needed colors, but one at a time. No other rules. Just me, a book, and whatever paints and pens and things I had to hand. In just one color. I began with the color I felt most drawn to at the time, which was red-violet, magenta. It was soothing. It was all I had space for.

I took that year, one color at a time, one month at a time.

After another family bereavement a couple of months into my year long color project, I knew I needed some accountability, some way to keep this project afloat. That’s when I started this blog.

By the end of the year I’d created a this whole book full of color.

It’s still with me in my studio as a resource for inspiration – (that’s something I didn’t foresee when I began this project.)

(You can see it page by page here)

12 in 12 from mixy gecko on Vimeo.

As I showed my book of 12 colors to more of my artist friends, the idea of revisiting a year full of color began to develop. And they wanted in on it too.

So in 2017 I invented “TWELVTY“, a way of sharing the adventure around the color wheel with other creatives as an online program.

It’s been an astonishing journey, (which isn’t over yet) and I’ve learned so much (more on that in another post).

I didn’t expect to run Twelvty as a program with others again after this year – it’s been all consuming and I had other plans for 2018 – but Twelvty has plans for me too, it would appear.

So here we are, in preparation for:

We begin the journey in the new year, but registration is open from November.

I think it speaks for itself that some of this year’s Twelveteers have already joined up for a second trip around the color wheel in 2018!

There are a limited number of discounted places available to folks on my mailing list. If you aren’t signed up already – what the hey?!! – scoot down to the end of this post to add your email before they’re all swooped up!

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100 drawings: the closing pages.

“I try to create fantastic things, magical things, things like in a dream. The world needs more fantasy.”

~ Salvador Dali.

100 days: 93-100

“I try to create fantastic things, magical things, things like in a dream. The world needs more fantasy.”

~ Salvador Dali.

100 doodles from 100 photos in my phone.

This is the final instalment of my extended summer project. I set out on this adventure on 1st June and I doodled the last doodle on 25th October. Life got in the way in the middle so it took longer than planned, but I’m so glad I saw it through. This is what the last week of pages look like…

day 93

Day 93 is another quirky animal, one of a pair of china cats in the Brighton Art Museum.

Here’s something I’ve noticed they all have in common: the facial expression that says “c’mon, aren’t you done yet?” Like they got somewhere else to be.

(China Cat Sunflower… You humming along?)

day 94

One of the lessons this project has taught me is that the images that look relatively easy to reproduce are almost always the trickiest. There are ways around this. One of the ways is to crop it down to just one detail, just a corner, or in this case, just one bird.

day 95

These last few days/months (maybe more) reality seems to be sharper and more tense. So a well timed word from Mr Salvador Dali himself seems to fit today.

I got this little clip-on fisheye lens doodad for my phone, this was its first outing, and what could be better to distort than the master of weirdness himself?

day 96

Practice, practice, practice… faces are tricky. The trickiest. The character lies in the lines and the details and something I can’t quite get. Yet. But I am getting closer.

This is is George Morris.

A while back I was scavenging the internets to find out about my family tree. I traced my mum’s mum’s side back 100s of years, but mum’s dad was not so easy. This might or maybe get not be my mum’s dad’s dad. (A long story, not for now). But if I’m right in my research then my great grandad was a jockey in the late 1800s. This photo was a newspaper I found on eBay. I know! The internet is amazing.

day 97

One day last spring, a last minute change of plan meant I had a free afternoon. so I took myself off to London to find the legendary Atlantis art store. I was not disappointed. This is their sign.

day 98

The part of the story where Alice is either to tall to get through the door, or small enough but can’t reach the key. Oh, Alice, I know this feeling so well. I’m there. How did the key get back up on the table? What is going on??

day 99

Time is such a curiously paradoxical thing. This project of 100 drawings feels like it’s been going on forever, in one sense, and yet these final days appeared so suddenly.

Huh? How does that even happen? I’ve literally been keeping count!

But the end was always forever-away right up until page 99. And then suddenly it was almost over. This day was a pyjama day. These are my pyjamas. Seems fitting for the evening of the project.

day 100

The final doodle from phone photos is a mural I found in Barcelona. What are these? Are they fish or are they space aliens? Or alien space fish? Whatever they are, they made a fun end to the book.

So that’s all, folks! I’ve learned so much in doing this. I’ll tell you more about the surprising lessons soon, but that’s for another day.

If you missed the previous parts, you can find them here:

Week 1 ~ Week 2 ~ Week 3 ~ Week 4 ~ Week 5 ~ Week 6 ~ Week 7 ~ Week 8 ~ Week 9 ~ Week 10 ~ Week 11 ~ Week 12 ~ Week 13

For regular monthly updates on what I’m doing, making and thinking about, direct to your inbox, hop aboard my little list here.

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(and I’ll send you my ebook A Year full of Color as a thank you for joining)

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100 drawings: almost full circle.

“Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere..”

~ Carl Sagan.
100 doodles from 100 photos in my phone.

This is the last but one week of my extended summer project. The last steps of a marathon. I have mixed feelings about it ending …

100 days: 85-92

“Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere..”

~ Carl Sagan.

100 doodles from 100 photos in my phone.

This is the last but one week of my extended summer project, the last steps of a marathon. I have mixed feelings about it ending – I’ll be glad in a way – as all challenges need to come to a close. But as it’s become a part of my daily habits it will leave a gap. Already I’m looking forward to the next projects that will fill the void. I’ve been eying up new sketchbooks online…

Meanwhile, the story continues:

day 85

As this project moves on I’m exploring more than just straight drawing from photos. By playing with scale, finding a detail I like, making a drawing more than just copying some shapes. As the days and the pages mount up I’m looking for more challenges.

Have you ever done something like this project? I’d love to hear what you learned in the process.

day 86

There’s looking at a thing, then there’s looking with a view to drawing a thing.And then there’s the kind of looking while drawing a thing. And there’s a subtle, but big difference.

In redrawing this illustration of a duck I noticed it was made up of things. But until I came to draw it, I didn’t see that that thing that made it’s head was a tomato. Or the thing that made it’s eye was a spider. (Not really, but that’s what it looked like as I drew it)

This will stay with me every time I see a duck now. And every time I see a tomato. Just one example of how drawing enriches the everyday things in life.

day 87

I saw this poster outside an exhibition I didn’t go in to see, by fashion designer Mary Katranzou. All sorts of metaphors here: emptiness – butterflies – blindness – you make your own story up. For me on that day it stood for the empty vagueness I’ve still got lingering after being sick, a sense of merging invisibly into the background. I feel like I’m here, but not entirely. The parameters are visible, the boundaries still in place, but the essence isn’t showing through like normal.

day 88

I’m trying as many techniques and styles as I can find and remember though this project. Today we have a blind contour drawing. I figured as faces and hands are the trickiest things to draw, how much harder can it be to draw without looking?

(not so much, as it turns out)

day 89

Today’s drawing is from an 18th century Indian shadow puppet in the Brighton Museum. Oh those eyes!!

day 90

It’s all about nuance in capturing a face. The angle and weight of the line can totally change the expression and the character. And the species too, sometimes. Today’s curious beast looks like a dog in my drawing but the photo is more furious sheep (I think – can’t be certain.)

day 91

Anything orange makes me happy so this time of year is one of my faves. These jellyfish are everywhere in October 😉

day 92

One of the tricks to drawing I’ve discovered is not to be deterred by images that are way too complicated to accurately capture. Because accurate capture is what the camera is for. This thinking really takes away the pressure; it doesn’t matter if the proportions are skewed, the bits don’t line up, the missed details, the shapes and shadows that aren’t as they are in real life. Once those expectations are set aside it’s much easier to get on with the actual drawing. And that’s how the practice gets done.

Join me back here next week (-ish) for the final exciting instalment!

If you missed the previous parts, you can find them here:

Week 1 ~ Week 2 ~ Week 3 ~ Week 4 ~ Week 5 ~ Week 6 ~ Week 7 ~ Week 8 ~ Week 9 ~ Week 10 ~ Week 11 ~ Week 12 ~

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

For regular monthly updates on what I’m doing, making and thinking about, direct to your inbox, hop aboard my little list here.

<a href="https://mixygecko.wufoo.com/forms/z1pfxfus0jq7ftl/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Fill out my Wufoo form!</a>

(and I’ll send you my ebook A Year full of Color as a thank you for joining)

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100 drawings: continuing the learning.

“Only that in you which is me can hear what I’m saying.” ~ Ram Dass.

100 doodles from 100 photos in my phone. The story continues…

100 days: 78 – 84

“Only that in you which is me can hear what I’m saying.”

~ Ram Dass.

100 doodles from 100 photos in my phone. The story continues:

day 78

I saw this funky door handle in Casa Batlló, the modernist building designed by Gaudí in Barcelona. Is it me or does it look like a slightly surprised, cross eyed Disney character? I guess being grabbed repeatedly by the nose would do that to any of us.

day 79

This tiny snail. I love how patterns repeat in nature, it’s a constant source of inspiration for my art.

day 80

Life might be a bowl of cherries, it might be a bowl of chillies. This is a bowl of chillies. I think I took this photo for the color, but I like the shapes too.

day 81

I saw this dude at the Brighton Museum last week (he’s a Javanese puppet). Another character in the book.

I write little notes to myself on some of these pages, some while I draw, some are on future pages. Mostly I don’t remember why. Today’s is one of them “decisions and beliefs. That’s all”.

Maybe it’s a message for another day.

day 82

Here is a wonky eyed lion. I fell in love with his smile although I don’t think it came across in the drawing… See what I mean? It’s one of those derpy smiles you can’t help smile back at.

day 83

This drawing is inspired by a close up of a tiny detail on these most incredible beaded wall hangings at Waddesden Manor, a house overflowing with outrageous opulence! Seriously – these are just tucked away in a corner of a hallway …

day 84

I chose this one from a whole collection of gift shop zebras. What’s not to love about a zebra? All the best animals are stripy (or cats) (stripy cats being the ultimate in animal perfection, of course).

Join me back here next week (-ish) for the next exciting instalment!

If you missed the previous parts, you can find them here:

Week 1 ~ Week 2 ~ Week 3 ~ Week 4 ~ Week 5 ~ Week 6 ~ Week 7 ~ Week 8 ~ Week 9 ~ Week 10 ~ Week 11

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

For regular monthly updates on what I’m doing, making and thinking about, direct to your inbox, hop aboard my little list here.

<a href="https://mixygecko.wufoo.com/forms/z1pfxfus0jq7ftl/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Fill out my Wufoo form!</a>

(and I’ll send you my ebook A Year full of Color as a thank you for joining)

Inner Space: Art Cards

I love how life and art spiral round, how patterns repeat on a range scales, how it’s all about the context.

Art Card Inner Space #15 — Inner Space #15

I began working on this series back in July, but the paintings from which I collaged these tiny works date back much further.

Art Card Inner Space #14 — Inner Space #14

I love how life and art spiral round,

how patterns repeat on a range scales,

how it’s all about the context.

Art Card Inner Space #2 — Inner Space #2

Then I zoom out and I see this project in the context of all the art I’ve ever made, and all I have yet to imagine.

It’s a place on a timeline, and that line spirals round.

Art Card Inner Space #10 — Inner Space #10

These 15 pieces are the first of a multi-part series: “Inner Space”

Art Card Inner Space #8 — Inner Space #8

In this iteration I’m zooming in.

Next look at these thoughts will be both from afar and close up.

The micro & the macro.

Art Card Inner Space #7 — Inner Space #7

There’s so much more yet to come,

I’m so excited to show you how this develops!

Art Card Inner Space #5 — Inner Space #5

All these paintings, inclusive of their mounts, measure just a smidge over 5 inches square.

I think their magic is in the tiny details.

You can become lost in these itsy-small worlds.

Art Card Inner Space #6 — Inner Space #6

All of these one-off art cards are available in my Etsy Store from today. International shipping is available — catch ’em while you can!

AND If you’re on my mailing list you’ll be getting a little note from me today with a special coupon code for one week only – just for you. If you’re not on my mailing list – why the bejeepers not?! scooch on down and sign up now!

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When you hop onto my mailing list I’ll send you my ebook all about color.
Your email is utterly safe to me.
I’ll sing it to sleep when it lands with me, and bring it tea and a bun if it wakes up.

100 drawings: continuing the beginning.

100 doodles from 100 photos in my phone. The story continues:

It’s past 100 days since I began this project now, but I’m going to see it through..

100 days: 71 – 77

“We all have 10,000 bad drawings in us. The sooner we get them out the better.”

~ Walt Stanchfield.

100 doodles from 100 photos in my phone. The story continues:

It’s past 100 days since I began this project now, but I’m going to see it through. I lost most of a month being sick and I’m still going slowly to catch myself up. It’s a lesson to learn, to accept the speed life moves at, with grace.

day 71

This sculpture is in the gardens of Claydon House. I love how the middle face is floating, and the serenity, which now I look again I see more as a sadness. Even though it’s one time I did seem to recreate the expression in the drawing, I didn’t really see it until now.

day 72

This is “Pinkle” on account of her pretty nose and ears, a visiting cat who seems to have made herself at home in an almost perfectly camouflaged spot. (We later found out which neighbour she (mostly) lives with. She is now called “Mr Pinkle”)

day 73

Another day, another lizard. This glitzy lizard (that’s his name) lives on my bathroom door. His nose is a bit beaky in the drawing, but I like his shadow. I’m learning more about drawing and more about observation with every day’s drawing practice. …

When I set out on this 100 day project of daily doodles from the photos in my phone, I had no idea what the 100 pictures would be of, so it’s interesting to see what emerges. More animals than I expected, and more little corners of my home….

day 74

This is a project I’ve been secret-squirrelling on this summer. I will tell you all about it very soon, because it warrants a post of its own.

This is the 3rd evolution of what I’m calling “Wishes“. They are something a little bit magical. And I think I’ve finally nailed the design. More on these soon!!

day 75

I wrote about this project recently.

So here’s what I’m noticing in this one: how balanced I got the proportions. Translating from the size and dimensions of a phone screen to a 5 inch square page is one of the challenges I’ve had throughout (sometimes I’ve cropped the photo to a square to make it easier to draw).

You know the saying – ‘the way you do one thing is the way you do all things’ – I think of this when my drawings are utterly out of proportion and disjointed… so perhaps I’m improving on that too.

day 76

This is possibly one of my favs so far.

I love the patterns in obscured glass, and the patterns it makes of all that it obscures. And in this case, the leaf pattern obscures the view of actual leaves.