Continuing with the isolation art challenge, at the rate I going I’ll be finished in a year instead of 60 days, no matter, I’m still managing to do a theme every so often; now is the time to sow and plant, and everything’s growing like mad, so the chores in the garden get more compelling …and now I must water the garden…….
Theme 8…MISS. 19/04/20. The magnolia, I missed it flowering this year, because we had to move it when in full flourish last year, a necessity because of drainage work. It was such a wrench, my mum bought it for us 25 years ago and after she died it meant so much more than just a shrub to me. It’s sprouting slowly from the base here and there so there’s still some hope it may yet live. Anyway here’s a mixed media pastel/watercolour I’ve done from last years photo when it was in full bloom, before we moved it.
Theme 9…RANDOM. 26/04/20
I’m way behind with the days, (on the day of posting this they’ve passed 60 now!) but so far I’m doing the themes in the correct order. This is a random collection from our local forest, just a step away from our house, I took a photo of the collected items in 2016. I rediscovered the photo by randomly picking a year, then a month, then a day, then a photo from that day from my photo library.
Soft pastels on recycled paper: feathers, lichen, pine cones, a birds broken eggshell, a broken snail shell, a fronded flower from a sweet chestnut tree and some hysterical looking moss.
Theme 10, COVER. 30/04/20
As in bedCOVER. I did a quick sketch on the iPad, unfortunately the admin of the group don’t accept digital art, so I used my sketch to work from. Starting as an experiment of pastel on MDF, not happy with colours I then I washed it with water, overlaid with acrylic, started fussing over it too much and ended up with this. Should have left well alone, looking back at the photo of the pastel it now looks as though it was going OK but ..it’s too late now! Size 30cm x 24 cm.
Theme 11: HUMAN. 04/05/20.
Graham building flatpack pergola, the poor climbing rose is desparate for support, his 2 helpers…. me: sketching, and dog Gypsy: watching, both standing by ready to drop everything and help (once the swearing has died down). Pen on recycled paper.
Theme 12. ESSENTIAL . 06/05/20
Water being essential to life, I’ve chosen to portray rain. Still struggling with pastels, and still not sure if I’ll keep on with them; Although because I love drawing, I love the marks they make, but I’m finding some of the colours too vivid, it’s frustrating having to mix them on the work itself, well…it’s all a learning curve!
Theme 27 ANATOMICAL. 12/05/20
I participated in the BBC life drawing class on May 11th ( as did at least 19,000 others) so I’m skipped a few themes to show the drawings I did because it fitted the theme. Something happened to the TV when I pressed the red button for “uninterrupted pose” all the figures distorted and appeared longer and thinner, especially the cellist so I had no choice but to draw them that way!
Theme 15, NATURE. 21/05/20
Initially I was trying to do consecutive days, but that’s gone out the window because I felt like drawing one of my favourite trees, so I searched the list and found a theme to fit….( is that cheating?)…. I meet this sturdy old fellow every day in the forest when walking Gypsy dog; an old chestnut tree gnarled and twisted with age, with broken branches and a hollowed trunk, he has a few new leaves sprouting so he’s still alive. Charcoal on canvas 1m x 80cm.
lizkingsangster 
Love these. Such an interesting process. Was yours a deciduous magnolia? I’ve never seen any here. They were common in North Carolina and an early bloomer. Most years they didn’t make it because a frost with kill the blossoms. What was glorious one day was brown and sad the next.
Lots of love, Nancy
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Yes it is deciduous ( nearly said was, but more green leaves are sprouting hoorah,) and the flowers were always magnificent, it wasn’t/ isn’t good at telling the time, sometimes it started flowering in early January sometimes 2 months later. I’ll dig out a photo, my drawing doesn’t do it justice, lots of love xxxL
This is all lovely, Liz. I look forward to seeing the pergola. Love M ❤️
Thanx MX!
Terrific Liz. Even if we don’t do everything, these challenges do get us moving a bit don’t they? Wonderful, varied work full of life, well done, it’s more than I’ve managed to get done recently !
Absolutely, and the joy of it is there’s no competition, and no working towards an exhibition in order to sell…… (well, on the pessimistic front there won’t be expos for a while I don’t suppose ) and it makes you think too, think in a different way because the themes are so diverse. All of which makes it useless for an exhibition anyway, “they” don’t like diversity, always wanting an artist to concentrate on one theme, or one style…….there that’s got that off my chest!!
On the contrary you seem to have done loads, I’m always envious of how prolific and focussed you are!
Ah, I’m so with you there Liz, if I had a pound for every time I’ve been told I need to make a body of work in the same style or on a specific theme . I juts have to remind myself that some of the artists i admire the most work across many different styles and media 🙂
Yes isn’t it strange that experimentation and diversity is only acceptable when the artist is famous and therefore sellable, or extremely un-famous and not attached to any dealers! Which is why we choose to make a living in other ways in order to fund our art…..!
Yes, I worry about it less as I get older Liz, wish I’d been more wised up when I was younger lol
Me too! One of the few advantages of ageing!😐
How great your drawings, in any material actually! And the ‘thin’ cello player reminds me of my study in fashion and the drawings of my fathers. Both coming from fashion we elongated our persons haha, you are just being a fashionista!
Give hugs to G&G! I wish we could come over in summer….
kissis!
Thanks dear one! Ah so that’s the trick is it? I’ll leave the TV in that mode then! (Pun)
I wish you could too, but maybe , just maybe…? It’s got to end some time! XxxL
What a nice varied group of works. 🙂 I particularly like the pastel watery Essential, the Human and Anatomical sketches, and Nature tree. And Cover is inventive too. Ah well that’s most of them. 🙂
Keep it up Liz
Thanks Andy, supportive as ever! The next subject is “ calm”, I’m not sure what to do for that one in these turbulent times!
How does you decide, do you get a eureka moment? My imagination fails me, so many other things to think about, I think I need some new brain compartments, like memory-sticks.
Thinking…. Calm water, calm sky, a self portrait of yourself meditating in front of a mirror. your dog sleeping 🙂
That’s a great idea, I can do a dog sleeping, now that’s right up my street! I didn’t want to do the usual calm water, sunset, mountain reflections etc, …on the other hand maybe I should, it would be more of a challenge…..there I go again , swithering…!