out of the sketchbook!

I’m so enjoying the page a day project, and the 12 in 12 (updates on that one soon) but it has meant that not so much art has been going on outside of the sketchbooks.

So I decided to venture out of my papery comfort zone and onto canvas. This is a first for me! It’s still a work in progress, but here’s how it’s starting out…

Being a deep canvas I want to incorporate the edges. With no particular plan I started out with acrylic glazes….

Starting out with collage bits the trial layouts begin then gluing commences!

Bit by bit…

More glaze to bring the bits together,

And some dyed scrim for a bit of texture

More paint, blending some of the raw edges together

More layers

More dyed scrim

And doodles in thread

I’ll post more as it develops, but so far I’m pleased with the way it’s coming together.

Sat urday

With the rest of the alphabet stencils cut (ok… v, w, x, y, z aren’t done yet… it’s a bit fiddly and I wanted to get on and play!) today’s page is all about sat sat saturday…


Layering up the letters, positive and negative cut-outs

Using a mix of acrylics, glazes, watercolors, gouache, pastels and charcoal to see how they work out

the what and the why of ‘a page a day’

When I began this project (a month ago today) I had no idea how long I’d stick with it. Or how easy/difficult, much fun/much of a slog, it would become.
Or for what reason I wanted to do it.

But I did want to.

So I began.

A Page A Day, the project.

Ingredients:

  • New A3 sketchbook
  • All my paints, pens, inks, dyes, brushes, forks and sticks… if it makes a mark, it can join the game
  • This blog. To record and evaluate, to review and assess, keep track in a different medium of unfolding development. Regularly (I thought maybe daily, yeh…)
  • A spare 1/2 hour or so each day to fill that day’s page

That’s it, no rules.

Just one page at a time. One day at a time
(With maybe a little to-ing and fro-ing in between, but with the majority of today’s page being created today.)
Day 1, Page 1

Day 1: 16 March 2012. A Friday.
Home from work with the whole evening set aside to arty things, with the possibility to spill out over the weekend.

And wow did it spill! Everyday is painted, collaged, drawn on, doodled on, written on; dripped, splished and splatted on.

(I’ve posted previous pages if you’re interested here, here, here. And here n here!)

There are days that I’m more pleased with the result than others, but isn’t that a metaphor! If I find something really wanting on a page I’ll go back and add it. Using my sketchbook as a work surface (no drips of color go to waste in my world!) means some ‘new’ pages will begin with splishes and spills of color. S’okay.

Today ‘s page looks a lot like a page with inky paper towels stuck to it.


That’s cool. Cos I’m not so interested in what the page as a whole looks like.


These are the bits I like.

The miniature landscapes,

The inter-mingling of inks and dyes,

The light and the shade cast by wrinkles and dimples.

running with color

As the book of daily doodles progresses, it must be time for another catch up…

As the days and the pages go by I’m seeing how there’s so much more to this project than I ever expected. And I’m not even 3 weeks in!

This page was play with acrylic tar gel and inks. The ugly scratchiness and clogs in places are more than outweighed by the fun in doing this and the lessons learned.

Dr PH Martin’s Inks have a delicious gloop to them. They make for good splotting and over-printing with a wooden print block. Adirondack dye ink spray has a fine mist sometimes a little spitty. Inky mist, spit and splot are the essence of this page.

Not truly done justice in the photos, but the effect of dripping the Dr Martin’s inks and swishing with a sponge when a little bit dried was too fluffy and gentle to draw over.

So instead, I drew around it

From humble beginnings, a new character is born. This page is seen through Eyebird View 🙂

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