Mandalas

Posted on 18th March 2019 by perfectly4med

I’ve noticed recently that on drawing lines, such as writing or outlining, I’ve had a noticeable (though very minor) intention tremor. Now, this may be medication side effects, but I decided it was more likely to be lack of practice and a resultant deterioration in fine motor control. Noticing it in the first place may be due to my perfectionism as well! As a result, I’ve started drawing mandalas using my fountain pen, both for their repetitiveness/meditative process and for retraining my fine motor muscles. Here are the results so far, in date order. I’m pleased to report that after just six to seven hours of drawing over eight days, the tremor has all but gone.

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They’re not tangle patterns… but they’re close!

Posted on 13th November 2012 by perfectly4med

Me again – I’ve survived a three day stint demonstrating and teaching at the NEC Hobbycraft exhibition, and it’s back to college and catch up time! Last week we were set loose to develop our own style in our drawing lessons, and I’ve returned to making repeating patterns from elements of my bead collection. Each of these patterns are A4 in size, in my sketchbook, and have been painted with black acrylic ink. They are all based on the same shapes which I have cut out from a preceding pattern, rearranged and then traced onto the page before block colouring. They’re not tangle patterns… but you could still use them in your zentangles…

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Drypoint print – the gallery editions

Posted on 23rd May 2012 by perfectly4med

As I mentioned in my original post, I planned to further work on my drypoint prints, adding tone and colour. Here is a gallery of the results – and the bottom right is the print I have given away, number 13 of 15 – and may be the winner will want colour added? Most of these are now mounted for the end of term exhibition. There are some other prints available to purchase if you’d be interested…

I think some work better than others – I’m not happy with the tea dye one, it’s too dark. I am happy with the greyscale/monotone trees with the colour window. The pastel is very much in keeping with Jacek Yerka’s work on which this is loosely based as he prepares his paintings with a pastel version first. Let me know what you think 🙂

Two Point Perspective

Posted on 11th April 2012 by perfectly4med

I’ve spent all afternoon on my still life homework for the holidays… an exercise in two point perspective. An hour of reading, a couple of outline sketches and some more research led to a couple of hours doing all the construction with vanishing points at the zenith and nadir rather than on the horizon line – but I kinda like the effect. It then took another hour or so to enlarge, trace and shade the image, and here it is. Those that know, feel free to critique!

Mixed Media Still Life #3

Posted on 16th March 2012 by perfectly4med

It’s Friday, and another mixed media lesson 🙂

This week we had to do a candle wax resist rendition of the still life – clear wax on whitish paper made the initial stages very tricky. However, as the dye wash revealed, I did fairly well! A bit of charcoal and a smidge of oil pastel here and there, and I was done.

Mixed Media Still Life #2

Posted on 9th March 2012 by perfectly4med

I’ve done another still life this week – this time using oil pastel resist technique. The objects were drawn in oil pastels first and then a dye colour wash applied for the fore and background. A bit of bleach, charcoal and chalk later and I got this:

Life Drawing – Term 2 – Week 3

Posted on 6th March 2012 by perfectly4med

Here’s my life drawing from this week at college. We are experimenting with expressive strokes in black Quink ink washes, and this week added in rust colours using oil pastels. The black Quink is ideal for this as it is full of every blue and brown colour you could wish with a few grey tones chucked in as well! I used a blue, orange and brown for the rest of the colouring, blending as I went, over the top of the tonal ink washes.

College – Still Life – Weeks 6 & 7

Posted on 20th December 2011 by perfectly4med

It’s the end of term and hand-in time – and here’s what I’m handing in for my still life module. Hopefully you can appreciate that it’s a close up of a hydrangea head, and see that we’ve been concentrating on learning about tone and form this term. I’m really pleased with it, and once again the charcoal ground works wonders!

College – Life Drawing – Weeks 1-7

Posted on 19th December 2011 by perfectly4med

Well I’ve just finished the first life drawing module of the course, and we were assessed today. Indications are I’m doing very well… Perhaps you would like to judge for yourself? These are phone photos of my drawings – I’ll get better pics when I get the drawings home and use a proper camera. By kind permission of our life model.

Life Drawing - Week 1 (2x 20m)

Life Drawing - Week 3 (2x 45m)

Life Drawing - Week 4 (2x 45m)

Life Drawing - Weeks 6 & 7

The last one is our final piece – three sittings (45m, 45m and 60m) in (more or less) the same pose. It was great to hear one of my classmates comment ‘it looks so 3D’ 🙂 I like working on the charcoal ground – it seems to help me capture the form of the figure much better.

College – Still Life Week 4

Posted on 1st December 2011 by perfectly4med

Here’s something I did earlier this week. It’s week 4 of the still life module and we’re working through the basics of line, tone and form. This is the exercise to bring them all together: