Try Something New

What does it say about your personality when you have an idea to try something you know bugger all about, and think "I can't do this, but I'm doing it anyway?" I don't know, either, but here are the results! For a long time, I have thought that adding a few videos of works unfolding and techniques in action might be fun for me, and interesting for you. I have a lot to learn, and will possibly need to relocate to an area where I can access a much bigger Internet data quota (apologies to the Aussie Government, but this NBN thing isn't working out so well for us out here), which isn't such a realistic idea. I think there is a lot of research and education in my immediate future if I'm to follow this notion any further. 

However... this was fun for me, and I hope you find the video a little bit interesting. It's a time lapse look at creating a background with tissue paper on canvas for a mixed media work. The background was done without any firm idea of what the focal point might be. That realisation came a little later.

Small Wonders 

©2015 Tracey Hewitt  Watercolour and mixed media on canvas

After the addition of some acrylic paints to introduce a little colour, it occurred to me that this would be the perfect background for another challenge I'd been hankering to take on. A photo of our Granddaughter, Payton, in a rare moment of stillness, had been whispering it's longing to be drawn or painted for a couple of months. For someone who, a few years ago, wouldn't even attempt to draw a face or human form, because "that's not my thing, I just can't do them"; I'm pretty excited to have captured a resemblance to a human being, much less enough of a resemblance to a particular human for her parents to know she was the model!

 Her features were sketched in, with Derwent Graphitint pencils. These babies might be my favourite art supply. (Even as I type that, a hundred other little special art supplies are clamouring in my mind to be named favourites, as well!) These pencils - as the name suggests - are much like a graphite pencil, with the added appeal of a range of beautiful, subtle colours, as well as being water soluble. They're not as intense as some of the other water soluble pencils out there, so the results are soft and delicious. A little watercolour for the pink in her dress and lips, a few touches of inky black for details, and she was done.

That little butterfly she's so intently looking at? That is a perfect example of the glorious serendipity of layering materials and media. It wasn't until after I'd drawn Payton in, that I noticed that little butterfly on an underlying layer of tissue paper, perfectly placed to seem to be sitting on her hand, and the focus of her rapt attention. Sometimes, there are forces at work when we create that simply cannot be explained. Happens to me all the time. And, it's the best feeling.