Tindaisies

The Third Street Sisterhood of Lepidoptera Illlustrators Wash and Wear Bus Tour of Europe

Graphite, chalk pastel and old canceled postage stamps on paper. 8.5 x 11 inches

The sisters  opted for a wash and wear style that would adapt to any climate…. and luckily too, because it was to be a lengthy trip… and in no particular order.

They arrived home looking as fresh as the day they left!

Well, no, this isn’t a true story; this is a page from my sketchbook. Imagine how many butterfly illustrators there would be in one city in order to have a club  for just one street!

I have been spending a fair bit of time working in my sketch book, lately. I have a few sketchbooks, this drawing is in the one that I work out my ideas and problem solve in. This drawing was a rough idea that became more and more embellished.

I cut old cancelled postage stamps and collaged them into the drawing. They were from a rumpled old kraft envelope of doubles I had amassed during my childhood stamp collecting days. Sometimes being a pack rat is a good thing. It felt wrong to cut the stamps up, though… just like how you weren’t supposed to cut into National Geographic magazines or the set of Encyclopedia Britannicas for school projects.

Cracked

I’ve been having fun making found poetry this past week. It’s like collage only using words. The poem written in the above image reads:

cracked
found in the sand
between you and me
contents emptied
forgotten by now

Each line is from its own source, found as a complete phrase in some of my own creative writing, a recipe from a cook book and an instruction manual.

The doll head in the drawing is real. I found it in the garden two autumns ago while picking brussels sprouts. We live in an old farm house and the back of the property must have once been where a previous family  dumped things they no longer wanted. After heavy rains or wind, the soil shifts, revealing household remnants of china and glasss shards, buttons, rusty belt buckles, tarnished coins, tiny medicine bottles, marbles, wheels off toy cars…

The doll’s head was by far the coolest thing I have found yet. I wonder how long she stared at us walking by her before I discovered her. She would have been tiny,  her head is about an inch long; she is wearing a 1920’s flapper hat with a blue stripe on it. She has a mischievous smirk, she is not a classic beauty, but she is exquisite in her own right. I call her Betty.

Adaptation

Symbolic drawing of a bird with human characteristics in a nest made of bricks. Graphite pencil on Canson Mi-Tientes paper

Adapting and being flexible beyond our capabilities results in the loss of the essence of who we are to the point of impossibility.

This image began as two unrelated sketches on the same sheet of paper. I had drawn the sketch of the bird and at some point, I drew a human face on it out of curiosity and whim. The bricks were for another idea I had and suddenly, on my way into the kitchen to make coffee, this image flashed in my minds eye, for no seeming rhyme or reason. I love it when that happens because then all you have to do is put the image down on paper.

Here is the sheet of sketches:

Rough Sketches

Graphite pencil on bond paper

Left: Original drawing and Right: Pancake doll based on drawing

Harold Wideman

Harold is prototype number 2 in my pancake doll project. The first was Alice O’Grady.  Harold is the father in  The Widemans vs the Narrowsmiths (link this) story that I drew three years ago.

Harold went together easier than Alice.  Reasons for this include a rudimentary pattern was already made and a procedure had been established – and the Jeff Beck CD didn’t seem to hurt, either.  =D

Front

Back

The biggest change I made with Harold was opting to embroider his facial features (and the hairy chest) rather than using permanent marker.

I really like the effect of the outlining stitches, they seem more “definite” and appropriate for a sewn object. The lenses in his glasses are painted on the cloth with acrylic paint. I also elected to not sew the limbs at the elbows and knees because that seemed to stiffen them which was opposite to the effect I’d wished for.

The hair was sewn directly into the seam where the front of the head joins the back, exactly like Alice’s hair only much shorter.

Left: Original drawing and Right: Pancake doll based on original drawing

Aunt Lucille

Lucille is the aunt in the infamous Baked Spaghetti Casserole story.  Lucille’s fingers are separated with black thread, in keeping with the quality of the simple line drawings that inspire me to make these dolls. Lucille came together yet easier than Harold, but her hair was a real challenge. Harold Wideman’s and Alice O’Grady’s hair were sewn into the seam that joined the back of the head to the front.

Back

With Lucille, because her beehive hairdo is piled on top of her head, the back would have been bare, which I found unacceptably odd. Four tries later, I arrived at a very simple solution.

Aunt Lucille's Baked Spaghetti Casserole

Here is the baked spaghetti casserole. I used variegated orange embroidery thread for the spaghetti and liked the glossy quality to the thread because it looks convincing enough to make around the mouth turn orange, as greasy spaghetti will do.

Hmmmm…..

Harold and Lucille and the Baked Spaghetti Casserole...

Here they are, together. The unfortunate thing is, Harold looks exceedingly uncomfortable. Is it because he has succumbed to the wiles of Aunt Lucille and is worried about Mrs Wideman finding out, or is it because he is worried he will be offered some of the Baked Spaghetti Casserole?

Maybe I should make Mrs Wideman next …!

Pride Takes the Stage

Here stands pride.

This is a simple little drawing that is perhaps a bit too humble for its subject. What I should have done was to have paid enormous amounts of money to have it plastered on a billboard so I could go about puffed out with pride about my drawing and how everyone will get to see it as they drive by.

No? Well, everyone knows form should follow function… this could be life imitating art, see?

Anyway.

Pride is puffed with hot air.  It puts on its best show. It precariously perches on the edge of its stage, filled with pretention that belies its vulnerability. This is a pretty negative image of pride.

Is pride a sin or virtue? It can be both.  In it’s best light, pride is the reward for a job well done.  When it becomes inflated with unfounded self worth, it becomes irritatingly obvious to all but the one who is proud.

This is my drawing for the Illustration Friday prompt, “Theater”

Solomon Grundy

Where does the time go? Why does it seem the older we get, the faster time flies? The weeks zip by in a blink. I design a quarterly publication, three months pass by and before I know it, I am in meetings again.  I had my first meeting for the summer issue, today. As if that’s not enough, I’m staring at another approaching birthday in the upcoming week, in fact, I know a number of people whose birthdays are in April, but now I’m prattling – just practicing for my old age (which is how many quarterlies away)?

Solomon Grundy’s  entire life blows by in one short week.  The verse is  a 19th century nursery rhyme and each day represents the Seven Ages of Man. I admit, I like the Sesame Street version better:  poor Solomon Grundy washes a part of his left side each day and at the end of the week, only half of him is clean.

Solomon Grundy,
Born on a Monday,
Christened on Tuesday,
Married on Wednesday,
Took ill on Thursday,
Grew worse on Friday,
Died on Saturday,
Buried on Sunday.
That was the end
Of Solomon Grundy

This is my entry for this week’s Illustration Friday prompt “Fleeting”

Cinnamon Buns

Chalk pastel, graphite and Conte  pencils on Winsor and Newton 90 lb hot press watercolour paper

It began last Sunday after I baked a pan of cinnamon buns. I’m always amused at the willy nilly spirals that form from the dough and the over all effect when they are bunched together in the pan.
Then, on Thursday, I read in the news about an Artist fined over inflatable artwork that killed 2. As tragic as that was, the story got me thinking about monumental art work such as that of Christo and Jeanne-Claude and then Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty.

I was back to spirals. It got me thinking about cinnamon buns again. No, I didn’t bake another pan, I drew pictures instead:

Spirals - To each their own

Chalk pastel and graphite on Canson Mi-Tientes paper

Eddies - Chain of events

Chalk pastel and graphite on Canson Mi-Tientes paper

Jetties - Cause and effect

Chalk pastel and graphite on Canson Mi-Tientes paper

Alphabet Soup

Contour drawing. Pitt artist pen and ink wash on Cougar paper

There is only one line in this drawing. I glanced at the paper once or twice while drawing this image and that was while I drew the perimeter of the bowl to be sure I was not traveling off the paper (which i did).

I decided that one line was appropriate; it spills, flows and is fluid – like soup.  The bowl has a wide brim with roses embossed around its perimeter (they were fun to draw).

Cougar paper is very smooth and bright white. It’s really meant for printing but it takes India ink beautifully and with the art pen I was able to make smooth lines with good control.  It takes a light wash very well, but you have to know exactly how much and where to apply it before the brush hits the paper because  the paper soaks it in like a sponge.

The soup was made by me and was pretty to  look at;  it had a variety of vegetables, chicken breast and of course alphabet pasta.  I was pleased that I had the foresight to take pictures because if I’d decided to draw from the real thing, there would have been none left  by the time I sat down to work   After finishing the drawing , it occured to me that it might have been nice use Yupo paper and wash with a bit of colour.

Homage to Muffin

Contour drawing, graphite, pastel, coloured pencil and conte on Murano paper.

Three muffins on a plate:  lemon cranberry,  chocolate chip and raisin.

This drawing is for Inspire Me Thursday’s prompt, breakfast. Unfortunately I was late for breakfast as the prompt was for last week… but I did bring muffins.

This is a simple contour drawing. My intention was to draw this in one continuous line, without lifting the pencil, but I added the background later, so I cheated.

So out of the three, what’s your favourite? Mine is raisin.