Once upon a page that took forever to complete

This page took forever to complete!! The Quin gold background is off of my Gelli plate back in August.  At the time, I was making packing tape image transfers of some vintage photos I found at a shop in the big city.  I hadn’t realized that there was still quite a lot of glue on the tape and I was loath to remove them in case the paper peeled off.  I had originally put them on the page just so they had a place to remain flat. All I could do is “work with it”.  Then a story began to percolate in my brain.  I’m happy the way it turned out!

The chant is from a skipping rope song from when I was young and we would skip every recess at school.  Hmmm! Do kids do that anymore? I can’t recall the rest of the song so if anyone else does let me know.

Blind and semi blind contour drawings

These are only two that I created while I watched a meditation video by Salma Darling!  Very unusual.  I had never seen anything like it and I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. 

Assembly required

We were helping our daughter and son-in-law today with a couple of new purchases,  a mower and a snow blower.  Thankfully the snow blower came assembled.  I enjoyed filling this page to document the conversation that my granddaughter and my daughter were having while assembling the push mower. I always had my daughter read the instruction manuals when we bought new stuff way back in the day. Seems this type of learning is being passed down.

Oh how I hate putting stuff together!! 

Uniball pen then Derwent lightfast pencil crayons in my small Moleskine sketchbook 

Self- portrait of sorts

Many thanks go out to Sabra Issa for the tutorial.   I gave it a go with what I had.  No grey toned paper so I trotted out to the recycling and cut up a cereal box.  I prepared my substrate with clear gesso.  Where there wasn’t any gesso the charcoal pencil wasn’t as dark.  I didn’t add the scribble lines as I thought I should quit while I was still satisfied.  The darn white gesso refused to dry so that was another factor as to why I chose to leave it as is.  I was worried that I would become precious with the outcome so I used my non-dominant hand for 98% of this drawing.  I will revisit this method of achieving an image as it was so relaxing to let go and just draw and make some marks.

T is for Tow Truck

I have been by this truck before but I’m always going somewhere and I don’t have the time to stop.

I thought I should on my way back from my visit and lunch in  Stayner.  It is s lovely little town of 4,200 people with s nice art store that also had some interesting art fir sale.

The bake shop is gone but in its place is a good thrift shop! 

I used my pencil crayons, Prismacolor and Derwent lightfast 

Quirky birdie

 I followed a “Quirky bird” tutorial by Tamara Laporte from Willowing dot org.   I used pencil, pen, Tombow marker, Lyra watercolour crayons, watercolour and gesso.  I used the gesso to calm the background down as I thought it was a bit over the top. This isn’t something quite a bit different from what I usually create but I did have loads of fun “switching things up” this afternoon!!

In my regular Moleskine sketchbook.  Note to self: I should have gesso’d the page at the beginning because all the water, paint and marker bled through to the other side. 

V is for the Village of Victoria Harbour

V is for village and the village of Victoria Harbour (Ontario).  The last time I was here this business was open; clearly that was awhile ago!  Sadly, the village mercantile is not just closed for the season but closed for good.  It is such a shame that the building is abandoned. I parked in the empty lot and while I created my page I got to enjoy the music from cars stopping to make the turn.  Well, okay do I didn’t “really” enjoy their music but I had no choice to listen to it regardless. 

Derwent pencil crayons in my regular Moleskine sketchbook.  I’ve since added watercolour over the top and I like it much better. 

Here is my final page with watercolour painted over the top of the pencil crayons. 

M is for Moonbeam Ontario

M is for moonbeams and for Moonbeam Ontario!!!  I learned about this area in Ontario yesterday from a friend who is currently visiting Vancouver in our most western province.  The place name appeared on display dedicated to Ontario.  I had never heard of s place with such a unique name.  I checked the map and sadly it is too far north for a day trip.  

It is believed that the name was given by the first settlers when they saw the auroral borealis.  Coincidentally the fist settlers were a couple from Quebec with the last name of Leonard (there is an accent on the e but I don’t have a French keyboard).  Who knew!! 

There really is a novelty flying saucer beside the tourist information office! 

This is my rendition in acrylic inks in a cheap Mont Marte sketchbook that I got from Winners.  Terrible paper but it lays flat, I use it for acrylic paint only.  This was loads of fun! 

I went to the library today

L = Library So happy that our property taxes also pays for a library card in town.  I had s book on hold so once I checked it out I decided to draw while I still had money in the parking metre.

I wasn’t able to finish my page as I didn’t want bylaw enforcement to issue me a ticket.  Regardless, I’m happy with what I was able to do in the time I had.  

Uniball and pencil crayons. 

Waubaushene Ontario

I loved the coloured pencil class with Sketchbook Skool and yesterday I drove to Waubaushene Ontario  ( a village on Georgian Bay.)  Georgian Bay is part of the Great Lakes system.  I took a walk out to the end of the dock to sketch.  There was a brisk wind blowing off the bay, few were out on the rough water.  I sat with my back to the wind and used my pencil crayons to draw. I bought a small tin of 12 Derwent “lightfast” pencil crayons (which is still quite expensive per pencil at over $2 each).  I’m not a fan of their choice of colours in this tin but I just made them work. The wind was blowing so hard it brought those dark clouds overhead so quickly I was sure that it would rain before I got back to the car.   Thankfully, it didn’t.  This morning I applied watercolour.

I like my results and the memory it evokes of time well spent. In my hand bound sketchbook with Strathmore Aquarius II watercolour paper. 

Rose of Sharon

B is for bloom!  The Rose of Sharon that my father gave to me is in bloom and really lovely this year. I think it must be due to the fact that we covered it up last fall to keep the ice off.  

Sadly this bloom fell off when I moved some branches to get a better shot of one of the flowers.  That’s okay I brought it inside and put it in a bud vase.

This is one of the Gelli print pages that I did earlier this summer. It was perfect since it was mostly pink already. I used watercolour, watercolour crayons and gouache. I grabbed some white out correction tape to add my text.