LB2016 : The Simple things
A bonus lesson from Life Book 2016 with Angela Kennedy called "The Simple Things" caught my attention the other day. She did a deceptively simple face using mainly just a stabilo watersoluble pencil blended with water for shading and I'd watched the video with interest.
Yesterday, after a lovely extended family lunch, I had some time to create, but wasn't feeling 100% and disappointed myself by wasting time on the computer instead. I'd been looking at the Documented Life latest PAC prompt which was "Celebrate White Space" and as my husband left to buy takeaways, I decided that in the 20 minutes he'd be gone, I'd just have a go at that lesson. I had no expectations that I'd create anything great - just that I had a piece of watercolour paper lying on my desk : 6" x 8" (with some bits of colour splatter) and I thought I'd just pick up my pencil and see what I got. I fully expected that I'd start, not be happy with it, and throw it in the bin. I didn't rewatch Angela's lesson and my face looks nothing like hers, but I quite liked the face that appeared within a few minutes - she seems to be looking at me with kindness and reminding me to not be so hard on myself - I wrote this in my daily journal on Thursday night last week :
Added a bit of colour with my graphitints - used the Port for her cheeks and Aubergine for the jersey
and then it was time to add finishing touches - just a little more shading and a stitched frame. The lesson was appropriately named - the simple act of doing this face made me feel so much better that I'd found time to create art, and satisfied that I've fulfilled the DLP challenge for this week - it's no small feat for me to leave some white space! She reminds me to give myself a break, that nothing's perfect, that sometimes I need some "blob" time, while giving me hope that I'd be able to get stuck into another art "something" the next day (which I'm happy to report did happen). I am very much looking forward to Angela's main lesson in September.
Click on the photo to see it larger, or go HERE to see my Flickr album of all my Life Book 2016 projects. You can see all my posts about Life Book this year HERE.
Lovely face with just a hint of colour! Funny how we work best when using scrap materials. I did three versions of this lesson and I only remotely like the first one, which was my trial run on a piece of scrap paper. I haven't posted it yet as I'm not entirely happy with it and wanted to have another go. It's great that you got there with the first try! I know I need to be less critical of myself.
ReplyDeleteI have those Graphitint pencils too! I find the Stabilo dissolves better with water and has a much stronger effect - the Graphitints are softer.
I have the Inktense pencils as well - much brighter but I like the Graphitints the more I use them.
ReplyDeleteI haven't used my inktense for over a year now! I used to obsessively buy coloured pencils and I almost never use them, but I wouldn't give them up for the world! It's so nice just having them in their metal tins. (I realize how silly that sounds!) I'm sure there will come a time when I start using them.
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