January 2013 Back to Basics: Looking for Lines

Wordless Wednesday

Food Fun this Friday

This Friday I simply collected cardboard cracker boxes to paint.  Not sure exactly where this will lead but will keep you posted.

Wordless Wednesday

Training the Eye to see: images in continuous line drawings

Sometimes just a pen, paper, and drawing a continuous line lends itself to an exercise in looking for interesting shapes and images.  Here’s a few continuous line drawings.

I see an animal in the line drawing above.  I drew a few more and coloured in the shapes I liked.

The next continuous line drawing reminded me of snakes.  I coloured them in and when the picture was completed I felt they needed a context.  I traced the image again onto another paper and the three snakes became history graduates at convocation. Ah such fun!

Food Fun this Friday

This Friday the focus is on wood carving lines into bamboo cooking utensils.  The wooden spoons are much easier to wood burn than these bamboo ones.  I love my wood burning tools and the effects they make.  The idea is not original for this craft.  Credit goes to the amazing Alisa Burke.

Wordless Wednesday

Training the Eye to see: images in scribbles

Scribbling is a great way to use line to generate emotional energy and spark some creativity.  Here are my top five reasons for incorporating scribbles into my art practice.

1. Loosens your muscles to create random marks on your page.  Scribbling frees you to put more of your physical energy into your mark makings.

2. Experiment with new materials and mark making tools.  Make quick and random marks with pencils, brushes, markers, and ink.  Play with new colours, inks, and dyes.  Drag string or plastic forks through gesso.

3.  Scribble daily over a period of time.  Observe the emotional energy represented in your scribbles.  The pressure of the pencil strokes and the weight of our lines reveal more than we may have initially realized or intended.  Keep these scribbles for a reference when trying to capture a mood in your work.

4.  Look for interesting shapes and designs in your scribbles. What can you do with them?

5. Scribble, crop, and replicate these lines into other pieces of art.

Here are some examples of my recent scribbles. I really liked the shapes and highlighted some of the spaces with red markers.

The scribble below was cropped from a larger scribble drawing.  It reminded me of the face of a male super hero.  I traced over this cropped image to make the image of the man made with candy wrappers earlier this month.  Here he is again.

I continued to crop with a makeshift viewfinder and found some interesting shapes that I may replicate and use in pendants. Here’s a few samples below.

 

Food Fun this Friday

These are great low-cal oatmeal bars.  I can’t remember the original source for this recipe otherwise I would certainly cite the author.  I do recall it was from a cookbook featuring low-cal meals and snacks.  My husband makes these weekly and they are tasty and provide a really nutritious boost to your morning.  I love them! I also really appreciate my husband making these for us each week.  Try them out and enjoy!

Low-Cal oatmeal bar recipe

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine 3 cups large flake rolled oats

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2. In a smaller mixing bowl, cream:

1/2 cup non-hydrogenated margarine

3/4 cup suclarose (e.g. Splenda TM)

1 egg

1 cup non-sweetened apple sauce

1 teaspoon vanilla flavouring

3. Place the wet ingredients from the smaller bowl into the dry ingredients of the larger bowl; stir to moisten and add: 3/4 cup dried cranberries

4. Line a 12×8 baking pan with parchment paper and fill with the mixture.  Smooth evenly.

5. Place in a pre-heated oven of 350 degrees farenheit and bake for 25 -30 minutes or until slightly brown on top.  Be careful not to overcook!

6. Remove and cut into squares.

7. Eat and enjoy!

Training the Eye to see: images in sidewalk cracks

Carla Sonheim is an artist who paints whimsical creatures.  I love her work!  She has written three books: The Art of Silliness; Drawing and Painting Imaginary Animals; and The Drawing Lab for Mixed Media Artists.

Carla provides such fun and easy ways to create various creatures for all ages and all skill levels.  It’s all about playing with shapes, colours, and lines to create art.  Recently, I signed up for Carla’s newsletter and joined her Crack of the Month club.  It’s free!  Once a month Carla sends newsletter subscribers a picture of a sidewalk crack to transform into an image generated by lines in cement.  It is fun exercise and trains the eye to observe and the imagination to soar.  You can check out Carla’s blog here  I did several of my own that I used for this year’s sketchbook challenge over at  Arthouse Coop.  Here are my interpretations of sidewalk cracks morphed into a variety of people, animals, mountains and flowers.

 Wordless Wednesday

The long and winding road.

Training the Eye to see: Line

Ever have those moments where you are stuck and can’t seem to come up with a new way of seeing something?  Well I do, so I have come up with one hundred adjectives to describe line.  The next time I want to try drawing something familiar but with a fresh perspective I can refer to my list.  Hopefully it will become a useful reference to try creating something with lines which  I do not typically use in my drawings.  I am fine with straight and crooked lines but how about joyful lines?  Hmm… Well here’s my list:

1. straight 2. broken 3. zig zag 4. wiggly 5. dotted 6. sharp edged 7. curly 8. fuzzy 9. continuous 10. thick 11. bold 12. faint 13. thin 14. fleeting 15. fluid 16. calculated 17. architectural 18. controlled 19. reckless 20. loose 21. rigid 22. relaxed 23. smudged 24. blurred 25. coiled 26. coloured 27. perforated 28. swirled 29. whimsical 30. rapid 31. melodic 32. jagged 33. horizontal 34. fanciful 35. purposeful 36. confident 37. timid 38. messy 39. circular 40. spirals 41. twirly 42. choppy 43. whispy 44. rugged 45. flowing 46. parallel 47. diagonal 48. vertical 49. perpendicular

50. gentle 51. smooth 52. joyful 53. angry 54. bee line 55. dynamic 56. passive 57. quivering 58. shaky 59. consistent 60. invisible 61. invasive 62. elegant 63. ornamental 64. decorative 65. bumpy 66. bended 67. crooked  68. intersecting  69. undulating  70. wrinkled  71. scalloped  72. frizzy  73. direct  74. short 75. long  76. infinite 77. criss crossed  78. wavy 79. energetic 80. forceful 81. weak 82. flimsy 83. rotating 84. static 85. erratic 86. flickering 87. double 88. harmonious 89. deliberate 90. traced 91. fragmented 92. even 93. hazy 94. shivering 95. perpendicular 96. hesitant 97. crisp 98. slow 99. quick 100. delicate 

Here’s a few exercises made with line.  One is simply practicing a few lines from my list above.  Another is a simple design made with various lines.  The third is using black bold lines to create another face.  I call her zebra girl.

Food Fun this Friday

Each Friday I plan to post something based on the topic of food.  It might be a recipe, photograph of a food item, simple print from the end of a vegetable stalk, or it may be an inspirational source generated from some of the wonderful packaging out there. Who knows?  This week was easy because I was  motivated to eat more chocolate.  The wrappers were converted into a headdress and inserted into a simple collage.  Yes it is only a simple project but it helps just a little to justify all the chocolate I ate over the holidays!

Candy dish with chocolate.

This month it’s all about training my eye to see more of the basic elements of art that I encounter each day.  It’s about getting back to basics.  I’m starting the year by looking for the element of Line.  I found a wonderful example of crooked lines and straight lines right outside my home.  It’s a beautiful representation of the union between nature and human construction.  It’s also my submission for this weeks Wordless Wednesday.