Stippling in pen and ink isn’t for everyone. It requires a certain level of observation and focus, and especially time that isn’t always available. It can also get a bit boring after awhile. But I love the results, its ability to capture detail and the subtle shifts in form and tone, especially for complex subjects like ferns. Here’s my latest efforts. The shamrock (clover) took a couple of hours. The fern, a few more.
I feel like I have’t had too many good art days lately – those days where reality comes close to meeting expectation; when more things go right than go wrong with a piece of art; where you can put down the pencil, pen or brush and be satisfied, even a little bit happy, with the marks on the paper. This is probably because I generally prefer do a lot of detailed art and am always pushing myself to refine and achieve a certain level of work. But art, like most things in life, can become unfulfilling when the frustrations outweigh the positive outcomes. (I hesitate to use “failure” and “success” here as they are both subjective).
Here’s the wonderful thing about the creative mind though: it’s incredibly flexible. There are no parameters save for the ones we set ourselves. With that in mind, I decided to set aside my very limiting expectations, and just have fun. The only rule was that the process was more important than the outcome.
Below are three postcard-sized bits of art that didn’t turn out as expected, but I like them anyway. Mostly my goal was to test some new watercolour paint, use up some scraps of paper and jog my creativity. I had some idea of what I wanted to achieve, but decided it was best to remain flexible about the outcomes. Initially, the top card was meant to be some sort of watercolour blob creature in watercolour, to which I was going to add pen and ink on top. It ended up being a bunch of weirdly misshapen critters that I didn’t know were there. You have to love the brain’s ability to detect patterns in chaos. I especially like the gorilla on the trike on the far right.
The second card was going to be a blob bee, but ended up being a blob-hippo-rabbit-thing. I can also see a rhino-rabbit-thing. Finally, the card on the left was always meant to be a rainbow lorikeet, inspired by the noisy many around my neighbourhood at the moment. I was going for an even more loose looking blobikeet, so I didn’t expect it to look like a bird, much-less a lorikeet. I don’t mind how any of them turned out; they were never meant to be accurate or detailed, rather just a chance for some creativity that didn’t demand much input from the inner over-thinker.
I had a good art day. It was playful, enjoyable and pleasantly surprising. A good art day happens not when my art expectations are met, although those days are important too, but when I accept the unexpected.
“Did you know there are over 300 worlds for love in canine?”
Gabriel Zevin
I heard someone say many years ago that dogs are the best thing about humanity. That expression has stayed with me for a long time and every dog I meet proves it tenfold. No other animal is as forgiving, as loyal or as forbearing as a pooch. And yet the origins of the dog/human relationship is as mysterious as it is ancient.
The domestication of dogs by humans (or humans by dogs?) predates the domestication of any other species of animal. The details of exactly when, where and how are complex and still open to discussion. The oldest unequivocally Canis lupus familiaris fossil is about 14,700 years old, but the beginning of the story must have happened much earlier. Studies of Ancient DNA in 2015 suggested dogs split from their ancestors between 27,000 to 40,000 years ago. In 2016, another study of ancient dog genomes suggested dogs were independently domesticated in Asia and Europe at different times. Yet another study in 2017 suggested a single origin in Europe, from grey wolves, possibly as much as 40,000 years ago. An even more recent study (2020) of ancient dog DNA determined domestic dogs diverged from a now-extinct species of wolf, and not the grey wolf as suggested by other researchers. The debate continues.
Suffice it to say, dogs have accompanied humans for many thousands of years and have been and continue to be instrumental in the development of humanity.
And now please enjoy some pics of my fur babies. Lolly, the sweetest girl is on the left, and Sweetums, the most loveable monster, is on the right.
A couple of years ago I started a box for small art, which I intended to fill with postcard-sized pieces of art. Unfortunately I shelved it after I became deeply involved with half a dozen codex-style sketchbooks. Recently I was going through my paper supplies and found (too many) small scraps of Bristol and watercolour paper filed in various document envelopes. I remembered the box and decided to re-establish the project in order to make use of the scraps and other art supplies.
This format makes an interesting alternative to traditional sketchbooks, especially if you want to be able to sort the cards later.
Some other advantages:
I’ve given myself the task of filling the box with as many small pieces of art as possible, using all the art supplies I have. Even though it looks like I’m obsessed with plants, this is not going to the the theme of the box . . . or maybe it will? I’m not going to decide that. Instead, I’m going to let it be what it will be. That’s my motto for Creativity in 2021.
It seems almost as soon as the ice sheets cleared after the last ice age, there were people in Finland. Perhaps they followed the migrating herds, hunting, fishing and gathering as they moved in to new areas that had once been inaccessible. Those earliest people left behind some exquisite objects.
In my wanderings through the archeological pages of the internet I came across the Elk’s Head of Huittinen and was immediately enchanted, so I drew it in my sketchbook. A few hours and many pages of Finnish history later, I ended up with a snapshot in to the earliest days of the peopling of Finland. I read a lot more than I could fit on one page, so, as always, it in no way does justice to the rich and expressive cultural, linguistic and genetic history of Finland and her people’s.
Most of my time at the moment is consumed with a fairly large mixed media piece I’m working on. I haven’t had much time for sketchbooks, so I thought I’d share some progress pics on the piece instead.
The first image is the pen and ink sketch which probably took too many more days than it should have to complete. In the second image I’ve started laying down the first layer of watercolour, mostly washes with a little bit of deeper shading, trying to get the greens of the moss right against the dull grey/green of the bark and the blue/grey of the stones. It’s a pretty ambitious piece, and a bit of a gamble as I’m trying new techniques and strategies to achieve the results I’m after.
The painting isn’t based on a reference photo or a real place; rather it is a medley of scenes from my mind’s eye, collected from years of staring at pictures of megaliths and trees, two of my favourite subjects. I saw the scene as I was drifting off to sleep one night. The next day after I’d prepared the board and paper, I started mapping out in pencil where the stones lay and the larger trees were situated. Ordinarily I sketch out thumbnails digitally and then print them to be transferred to watercolour paper. This scene was already written in my mind and I felt like I knew it well enough to go straight to paper. I still have many more hours of work to do as I attempt give the painting the substance and depth I see in my mind’s eye.
Following is painting I did last weekend on a whim, including the ink rendering and then with watercolour over it. It was a good exercise in not overdoing the ink when I know I’m going to paint. I wanted to create more depth with watercolour rather than have the pen and ink do all the work.
Note: this isn’t based on a location from the real world; it exists in my own imagination. Some of the fun is inventing the rest of what is “off-screen”, like a prompt for story tellers.
After a brief hiatus I’m back to working in my sketchbooks and art journals. It has been a strangely mild summer for south-east Queensland. Until the last few days. There isn’t much to do but find a cool place to read, research and render. My goal for this year is to finish a couple of sketchbooks I have going, especially the archaeology journal. The latest entry is dedicated to the Natufian culture.
The Natufian culture is a prehistoric culture which lived in the Levant from around 15,000 and 11,500 years ago and whose appearance heralds significant cultural, economic and technological changes. They are among the earliest (if not, the earliest) semi-sedentary and sedentary hunter-gatherers. The Natufian’s lived in semi-permanent villages across the region; they hunted wild game, and more importantly, gathered and processed wild grain. It is unknown if they invented farming practices or inspired later groups to development them.
Moreton Bay Figs, sometimes Australian Banyan, (Ficus macrophylla) come in all shapes and sizes, as you can see from the photos. The first two photos were taken at Old Petrie Town, not far from my home. These individuals are said to be at least 300 years old. The third photo was taken at the Sydney Botanical Gardens a couple of years ago during a tree-finding excursion to the Sydney Botanical Gardens. I think it was planted about 150 years ago. They are endemic to eastern Australia. Its common name is derived from Moreton Bay in Queensland where they are still found growing naturally. In the rainforest, Moreton Bay Figs usually begin life as an epiphyte, high in the canopy, where they send down roots to help support its massive bulk. Eventually a fig will grow so large it envelops and kills the host tree. This might explain why many individual Moreton Bay Figs resemble several trees and have seemingly chaotic root systems.
Believe it or not, the buttresses of the largest trees at Petrie were at least as tall as my daughter and she’s about 1.4 metres tall (over 4.5 feet). Everything about them is huge, including the leaves, the largest of which can be up to 30 cm (almost 9 inches).
I’ve spent many weeks observing and rendering my own Moreton Bay Fig as a gift for my sister. Here is the result: It’s rather hefty 700 mm x 500 mm (27.5 x 19.6 inches) pen and ink rendering.
