Friday, June 26, 2015

Lifebook Week 6 : Seeds of Love



In my first post on this blog, I mentioned my deep desire to learn and focus and improve on art this year. As I have no real experience in art  and had no clue how to go about it,I decided to take advantage of the immense amount of information and instruction available through online art classes. I am hoping this will provide some structure and rhythm to my learning.



One of the classes that I am taking this year is the Lifebook hosted and organized by Tamara Laporte which includes a year round mixed media instruction. Each week we have a new lesson and a host of very talented instructors.Till now I have been suffering from serious bouts of self doubt and fear and did not attempt any of the lessons, but the atmosphere and the gentle encouragement from all the teachers and the community has slowly convinced me to give it a try.

I also was not sure whether I wanted to follow the lessons to the letter or take my own individual approach. I have still not decided, but for now I am going to focus on imbibing the lessons as they are and then who knows maybe one day I will be confident enough to give these my own spin.



Having said that ,I am not really following the exact sequence of lessons.My first art work is based on Week 6 lesson by Tamara. This was called Seeds of Love and was a wonderful exercise in learning about colour and contrast. I am not into really bright colours but this was a lot of fun.

And just for fun, I played around in Picasa and created this.:-)


Hope to be back soon.

Cheers
Pallavi

Submitting for Paint Party Friday

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Anything But a Card : Out and About

This month's challenge theme at Anything But a Card Challenge is Out and About.

Use the great outdoors as your inspiration to challenge your muse; celebrate nature, your favorite place; World Environment Day June 5th; the seasonal colors at your place; or just having fun outdoors. Summer time is here which is everyone's favorite time of year - time for vacations, camping and cookouts!



My project this month is some botanical sketches I did in my sketchbook.I had gone for a mini vacation to the beautiful mountains in the North of India. Since I was "out and about", I decided to try my hand at nature journaling. For my first spread I decided to focus on Pinecones and trees which are in abundance there. All the sketches are done with a drawing pencil and Pigma Micron pens.

I did take some help from Google to study the structure and the lifecycle of a pine cone.:-).

After a while I decided to attempt to colour my drawing and promptly made a mess of it.I don't know why I find water colouring so difficult.I am hoping that with time,I will get better or maybe I will find out that it is not meant to be.Either way,I am going to keep trying.


Please do join us at the Anything But a Card challenge.

Cheers
Pallavi



 

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Sketchbook Stories :Degas Inspired

If I had to choose, I would say that Edgar Degas is one of my favourite artists. I love his work and I am totally smitten with his ballerina paintings.




As part of our design team assignment on Anything But a Card challenge in May, we had to create a project inspired by the masters and needless to say I chose Degas..

While researching for my project I came upon some rough sketches of ballerinas done by him and that is my inspiration for this sketch/painting.

I used a photo of a real ballerina for reference.This was done on book paper using Pigma Micron pens, Gesso and coloured pencils. I know that I have a long way to go with regards to my art, but I was pretty happy with this one.

Cheers
Pallavi

linking to Paint Party Friday week 15 year 15 check in.
Art Journal Journey -Masculine/feminine