doodles – Page 5 – Mixy's Art Blog

that time again! (1 of 2)

Looking back at things I made in 12 months makes the year stretch back further. January feels like a lifetime ago now…

My 2016 in art journalling has looked like this

The tail of the year, the time to look back & look forward, funny cos in so many ways it’s an arbitrary number, tomorrow will still be tomorrow whatever we call it. But I enjoy the process of evaluating where I am in this life from time to time, so now’s as good as any!

Join me tomorrow and I’ll show you the second half of my 2016 in art journaling.

Want to make 2017 brighter and more colorful?

Join me in TWELVTY! beginning January 1st.

Can’t wait that long? sign up below and get a lovingly hand crafted ebook all about color right now!!

…then join TWELVTY…obvs! 😉

yearfullofcolorbypenngregory_page_01

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

Be well, my friends, Much love to you all X

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(Your email is absolutely safe with me, I’ll just pop by and check up on it time to time, feed it biscuits, plump up its cushions, that sort of thing.)

The more I look…

…the more I see.

I was in London all day Saturday. A rainy grey day, the view from our second floor window crossed over a patch of garden to the grey stonework and concrete of the buildings opposite. These short December days barely get light and the wet and wind dulled out any colours.

The only life on view from up here was a solitary grey squirrel scampering along the spindly limbs of the near naked tree-tops.

But amid the gloom was the last remaining brightness of the season: with every gust of wind a few remaining golden yellow leaves danced about, tumbling, sprinkling, shining.

I was transfixed.

My mind is full of color, it is my ‘thing’.

And as I’m focussed on yellow in the prepration of the first chapter of TWELVTY I suppose it’s no wonder I was so captivated. But it made me ask myself if that’s why: would I have noticed so keenly? Would I have seen it in such glory? Would it have held that measure of magic?

I have no control group of me, no comparison, so these questions are unanswerable

But I have come to observe that the more I actively look, the more I absorb, and the richer my life becomes. When there’s so much enjoyment available from the everyday and mundane, life is lusher and days are fuller.

I’m so full of ideas for TWELVTY, I’m almost bursting! so much so I’m waking up in the night and having to write stuff down. I’m literally dreaming about it! It’s filling all the corners of my mind.

The program begins in the new year with shiny bright yellow so I’ve been warming up my drawing-and-painting-in-just-yellow vibes in readiness.

I love to use just one color (I love using ALL THE COLORS!) but one-at-a-time has a really special quality. This is one of the big things that I want to share and explore further with you.

I’m putting together a Q&A

If you want to know more about what TWELVTY’s all about comment below to let me know 🙂

What would you like to know?
What would you like to learn?
What really lights you up about some colours, and not others?

Read all about TWELVTY & sign up here

just lurking

Hello lovely friends of the internet, I’ve missed you, where have you been?

I haven’t posted in a little while due to an absence of images.

This is the coming together of a doodly thing I did a few weeks back

Watercolour and fountain pen, intricate and involved but in a stilted inhibited style, so I left it there

My creative mojo has dropped off temporarily, the tide’s gone out, so I’m patiently waiting it out.

Meanwhile, I wish you all a beautiful Solstice, whatever that means to you. Be well, lovely souls X

something familiar going on…

We’ve all got our own way of categorising, organising, ordering our worlds about us. And we often aren’t even aware of this until we encounter someone whose ways differ greatly from our own.

For me, it’s by colour. (no shit…really?)

Back in a previous life when I was an office bunny who shuffled papers and rattled at a keyboard all day I sought out opportunities to invent new systems I could colour-code.

I’d spend any spare time buried in the stationery catalogues, choosing folders and files and highlighter pens.

What I came to realise much later on was that I just had a thirst for colour and creativity that was going unquenched.

Beyond that, colour is the defining visual attribute I’ll notice over any other: He’s the guy in the blue shirt, it’s the house with the red paintwork, the shop with the green & yellow signboard … I don’t know any of their names, but I usually know what colours they are.

It occurred to me today, as I edited these images from my current journal to show you, a habit of mine to spend a time with a group of colours.

I revel in their company, their character, the memories they muster and the feelings they stir up.

When sated, I can move on, visit a different range of the spectrum.

I never know which colours will appear next, or how long I’ll be in the company of my current companions. But while we’re together, they will seep into aspects of my day without me even realising.

I put these images together, here I am in the realms of purple and a little to either side, and I felt a pang of familiarity, a sense that something’s closer than I realise…

I looked down at what I’m wearing….

Oh yeh… I see what’s gong on here!

friday afternoon thoughts

The unfolding of my days now includes this nightly ritual,

no matter what time I have between getting home and going to sleep, at least part of it is spent between the pages of this book. I make the time, eke it out, surprise myself how much page can be covered and how many doodles will flow.

It’s a dumping ground for thoughts and feelings, fragments of information, part formed thoughts. Ends of words that doodle off into a cat’s face. That sort of thing.

(the dictionary pages are back… yes, the same dictionary)

And collaged people. I don’t know who they are or where they came from.

This one emerged from nowhere. I don’t know him either.

Wishing you all a good weekend, dear friends. X

A is for Alphabet

I’ve had this book, Alphabetica by Lynne Perrella, on my shelf for a long time.

It’s a gorgeous reference for folks like me who play with mixed media art, and who love language, lettering, and for things to be organised alphabetically.

This year I’m taking a 12 month course by Carla Sonnheim called Y is for Yellow, where we have a new class each fortnight, one for each letter of the alphabet (26 fortnights: 26 letters)

So here two aspects of my creativity have overlapped beautifully and I’ve dived right into the All the A-things. Abstractly Adding All the A-things that come to mind here……

38 in 52

I’ll let the pictures tell the story for this week.

digtal fings

hey folks, hope you’re all keeping well n keeping warm!

"Circle of Life" doodles & photoshop — “Circle of Life” doodles & photoshop

I’ve just been looking through some pics from last year on my computer, and thought I’d share with you some of my digital doings.

digital collage - this looks familiar from somewhere..! — digital collage – this looks familiar from somewhere..!

For about 10 years, pretty much all the art I made was based in the digital world.

"Golden London", photos and doodles — “Golden London”, photos and doodles

Having a small space in which to play was the reason I got started like this – it’s pretty much impossible to make an actual mess – you can’t spill pixels on the carpet and get in trouble with the grown ups for a start!

"Abstraction" Photos n Photoshop — “Abstraction” Photos n Photoshop

I became entranced, as I learnt new skills I was seduced by the squillions of options, and I poured my spare hours into learning more and more.

"Digital Pond Life", doodles in photoshoppery — “Digital Pond Life”, doodles in photoshoppery

While I still enjoy a good dabble, the world of inks and paints and stained hands (and, ahem, carpets… shh don’t tell!) and all that has, for now, won my heart.

Who knows what comes next! 😀