Monday 4 April 2016

Highland retreat artwork


On our recent break in the Highlands, we both managed to do some painting and drawing.  We have very different styles.  I can't draw so represent things rather than draw what I see while Himself can draw recognisable landscapes.  Sometimes I doodle which is what the mandala is - a round doodle using the colours of the hillsides we were surrounded by.  Muted oranges, heathers, olive greens and soft browns.  


Then I wanted to draw the hill across the loch but when I looked at it I couldn't work out the colours. They seemed to be blocks of colour so I drew that and painted them using my favourite distress pens.  I can only show you a section of that drawing for complicated reasons involving a new laptop a wonky cloud and my not being teckie enough to work out how to get my devices to talk to each other.



But maybe these photos will be enough to give you a flavour of how I went about (not) drawing my subject.  I can't draw foliage either so that was represented with leaves which I can draw.  Trees were turned into triangles on sticks and so on...
 

Perhaps drawing isn't about replicating exactly what the landscape looks like.  Perhaps it's the fun of representing how we see rather than what we see.  Not an original thought I know but one which was brought home to me by my attempt at a landscape!

And on the subject of not being very teckie,  our break gave me time to think about this blog and what I want to do with it.  I started with the idea that I'd try blogging for 6 months to see how I got on with it.  Four years later, I'm still here but in all that time  I haven't changed my blog layout since the first post and I never did properly work out how to use blogger and I never really shared my background as a craft teacher or that I had several projects published in magazines.  Someone recently said not only do I not blow my own trumpet, I don't tell anyone I have a trumpet.  

That's all going to change, oh yes indeedy.  Soon there will be an updated blog layout with links to my You Tube channel which is currently under construction.  The purpose of the channel is for high speed mixed media layouts which is where I've been focussing my creativity recently and I feel it's time I put something back, having benefitted from many fabulous You Tube tutorials and inspirations.  The blog will keep it's usual variety of craft subjects but I hope to be able to sort them all out a little better so new visitors don't have to scroll through too many dog pictures if they're here for baking or paper crafting!  I don't have a deadline in mind, it will just come as a nasty shock nice surprise sometime  :)
What's that?  You're here looking for a dog picture?  Oh ok...





1 comment:

  1. Thank you (belatedly) for your good wishes on my engagement. I think drawing and painting, especially with landscape IS about interpretation, and is often more interesting for it. And find your trumpet, please. :-)

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