Saturday 30 November 2019

Bobby Britnell

I spent a couple of days at Littleheath Barn doing a workshop 'Imaginative Design using tone & colour' with Bobby Britnell. This post is particularly photo heavy - I should, perhaps, have written two posts!

Day 1
For the first activity we covered the paper with charcoal and then drew into it with pointed scissors, charcoal and an eraser.

The second activity was a group activity where 4 of us on this table drew lines on the paper, moving anti-clockwise around the table.  There was another table with 6 people doing the same activity.

Then we each chose a pastel and started to colour in some of the shapes.


Then Bobby separated out the sheets and we each took one of the 10 sheets.

I took photos at various stages of the colouring in but I'm not going to show you every one.

Some of the lines were too harsh in this

 So I knocked some of it back.  We had to do more to it on day 2.

We went on to do line drawing where you don't take the pen off the paper.  We had to draw the person opposite.  I won't tell you who it is!  Anyway, we had to try 1. not looking at the paper and only at the person, 2. drawing with our non dominant hand, 3. drawing being able to look at the paper and 4. giving the face an expression.   Bearing in mind I was drawing a woman, I have here John Major puppet from Spitting Image,  almost Hermann Munster, Bruce Forsyth and who knows!

These drawings were of me

Then we moved on to some colouring exercises: Complementary, analagous, primaries (only I did secondaries with it) and black and one colour where I got carried away with the black!

Here's how it should have looked!

Lastly on day 1 we drew with a wax candle and then with wax crayons, followed by an ink wash.  I like the technique but didn't particularly like what I did.

 On to Day 2

We continued with the pastel drawing.  I had completed colouring all the spaces but went back to it to add more layers and to knock back some of the sharp edges.  I tried putting frames on various parts of the paper to isolate sections.



Sorry I didn't photograph this quite straight!

I took one last photo of the paper before Bobby gave me the next thing to do.

In preparation for the workshop, Bobby had drawn lines on the back of the paper, which none of us had noticed.   She had drawn 3 strips for us to cut off.

This one in particular looked like it could be made into a landscape hanging.

 Having cut off the strips I was left with a large square.

 I took various photos of small sections of the large square.  And tried the strips on top of the square.

 
The strips had lines drawn on the back for squares and rectangles.  I cut up two of the strips.  This was the best small rectangle.

We started a new exercise which I cannot explain.  I struggled to understand what we were doing.  It started with drawing squares with charcoal.

Adding some circles.

And then I added colour.  This isn't how it was supposed to look but it's my version of what I understood to be the instructions.  

We also did some tonal exercises which I didn't photograph.  I had done a workshop with Bobby before and some of the exercises are described here.

Congratulations if you've made it to the end of this post.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice








Tuesday 26 November 2019

Y is for YES

In our Living Your Word of the Year group we are using a fortnightly (bi-weekly) A-Z challenge throughout the year to help us focus on our word and live it out.

Because of the way I have made my journal it's a case of going with the flow of what background the pages have when I turn to them.

The thing about saying YES to something or someone is that you are making a commitment.  I looked for Yes verses and saw commitment in the verses even if the word commit isn't in the verse.



Just one letter left!

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice


Join Our Inspirational Facebook Group: Living Your Word of the Year
Join Mary Brack, Valerie Sjodin and I in our Facebook group where we are giving participants the opportunity to live out an A-Z of their own word throughout 2019.  Mary explains what we are doing in her blog post.  We don't like a lot of rules, so we will have suggestions and options to spark creativity, and to help in recording and exploring our word’s meaning in visual and fun ways. We will each blog about our experiences and our art.

Hashtags on Instagram:  #livingyourword2019

Check out the other blogs:
Mary: www.foundonbrighton.com
Valerie: www.valeriesjodin.com/blog

To ensure you get updates from Valerie, Mary & I why not subscribe to our blogs.

Saturday 23 November 2019

Exotic

November's theme for Snapshot Girls was 'Exotic'.  My life was really busy and I had no ideas for photographs.  I saw posts on Facebook from several people who had visited the Chihuly exhibition at Kew Gardens over the summer.

So I cheated.  I didn't get to Kew but I have been to the Chihuly museum in Seattle.  So I used photos I took whilst there.








Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice


Tuesday 19 November 2019

X

In our Living Your Word of the Year group we are using a fortnightly (bi-weekly) A-Z challenge throughout the year to help us focus on our word and live it out.

Because of the way I have made my journal it's a case of going with the flow of what background the pages have when I turn to them.

I read Valerie's post for the letter X.  She mentions that an X crosses things out.  This made me think about how Jesus died on the cross to defeat evil and sin in our lives.  When we accept Jesus into our lives we become a new creation.

I could see this image in my head as I thought about Jesus on the cross.  I made it on the computer.

Here are my pages together.

My word this year is Commit or Commitment.  There is no greater commitment from Jesus to us than to die on the cross.

'For the greatest love of all is a love that sacrifices all. And this great love is demonstrated when a person sacrifices his life for his friends'John 15:13 (TPT)

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice


Join Our Inspirational Facebook Group: Living Your Word of the Year
Join Mary Brack, Valerie Sjodin and I in our Facebook group where we are giving participants the opportunity to live out an A-Z of their own word throughout 2019.  Mary explains what we are doing in her blog post.  We don't like a lot of rules, so we will have suggestions and options to spark creativity, and to help in recording and exploring our word’s meaning in visual and fun ways. We will each blog about our experiences and our art.


Hashtags on Instagram:  #livingyourword2019

Check out the other blogs:
Mary: www.foundonbrighton.com
Valerie: www.valeriesjodin.com/blog

To ensure you get updates from Valerie, Mary & I why not subscribe to our blogs.

Saturday 16 November 2019

Cas Holmes

I have just spent 3 days at Littleheath Barn doing a workshop with Cas Holmes called: Stitch-Sketch-Books.

I love Cas' style of teaching.  It's a mix of her demonstrating a technique with her asking participants lots of questions so that we learn to explore alongside her.  We were given some activities to try on the first morning and then we launched into a practice piece to try out Cas' techniques.  I collaged two small pieces.

They dried overnight and the next morning I made two wider pieces.

I machine stitched and handstitched on my pieces and folded them to make a zizgzag book.



I had intended to cut up the narrower pieces and put them in between some of the wider bits.  However in the end I cut up the narrow pieces and sewed them into the main piece to make smaller zigzag books within the main zigzag book.


The back shows the stitches and some of the papers I used.  I can still work into the back if I wish.



Some of Cas' questions are really thought-provoking but some answers are quite simple but you're never sure which is which.

I must admit that several times over those days I was reminded of the old story about a Sunday School class:  A Sunday-school teacher asks the class of young children, "What is little and grey, eats nuts, and has a big bushy tail?"

After a moment one child replies, "I know the answer's probably supposed to be Jesus, but it sure sounds like a squirrel to me."

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice