Still Plugging Along on Pilgrim

I didn't achieve my goal of finishing Pilgrim, the book I've been altering, in 2011 as planned. That's OK because it's a big book. It's a really big book.

Did I mention that it's a big-ass book? So far I've altered 135 pages that are 12 x 13 inches each. When I think about it that way, it's no wonder I'm still plugging away at it. If I had completed 135 of anything else in 2011, it would feel like an enormous accomplishment.

Pilgrim has been a wonderful place for me to play and experiment. Some pages are just about pattern and color because I like pattern and color.

Some pages are just about mark making and seeing what can evolve.

Some pages were inspired by The Sketchbook Challenge. Others by song lyrics, favorite artists, books, movies, or experiences. This page was inspired by a book about vintage board games to which I added a quote that seemed appropriate.

I couldn't resist one more hand image. I think this is the third one in the book.

I re-discovered my plastic alphabet stencils and added favorite quotes wherever they would fit.

I've had a lot of opportunity to practice my lettering on these pages.

This page was done on Easter last year. I can't believe an entire year has passed since then. I guess Pilgrim is proof for me that even a big-ass undertaking can be accomplished line by line, stroke by stroke, mark by mark, and word by word.

Pilgrim is really close to finished now. Filling the last few pages and adding a bit more here and there is both exhilarating and bittersweet. A celebration will be in order when this big book is finally declared DONE.

The Runaway Doodle

Week Two of the online Strathmore Artist Workshop, Doodles Unleashed by Traci Bautista, produced what I call a runaway doodle. The object was to create a watercolor background using a variety of water soluble media such as paint, crayons and pencils. Apparently, my doodle wasn't about to become any one's background and decided to run away and join the doodle circus.

I decided to start with a "warm up" piece on watercolor paper before attempting this lesson in my journal. Step one involved painting with watercolor using various sized brushes.

Next came acyclic ink, and watercolor crayons and/or pencils. In retrospect, I should have stopped somewhere around this stage. But I didn't. I think the hardest part of this method of painting is knowing when to stop.

I decided to add white gouache into the mix. This is when I had my "OH CRAP" moment. Oh crap! What have I done? What was I thinking? Why did I do that? I have this moment during every piece of art I make. Once I feel like I've already ruined a piece, I have no choice but to venture on and see what happens.

As you can see, once I get going it's hard to stop! I continued adding watercolor and gouache until I ended up with this--the runaway doodle. Does this look like a background to you? Me either.

I think the cropped views are better than the whole shebang.

Once again, I'm glad I took photos of the piece in process. It helps me see what I should have done or what I should do next time.

Plus, I have digital files of the stages that I can never get back to again. I like this little view right here a lot. There's enough there to be interesting and it still has the spontaneity that was the goal of the exercise to begin with.

I started working on this lesson in my journal and I'll share that soon. Hopefully this time I'll quit before it gets away from me.

Happy doodling!

Hello 2012!

Happy New Year to all of my friends and followers!

As some of you know, I've been working in an altered book for the past year as part of The Sketchbook Challenge. Although I had hoped to finish it in 2011, I didn't quite get there. I've invested so much time and effort into this book that I want to finish it off properly. I guess it will have to spill over into 2012.

The Sketchbook Challenge is continuing into 2012 and January's theme is Doodling. Since I decided early on that I wanted to keep this book intact without removing any pages, I've kept "bulky" activities like collage, layering, and painting with acrylics to a minimum. That means that it's pretty much filled with doodling. I don't know why, but I really like using the outline of my hands on journal pages. You might recall another page where I traced my hands for last January's theme of Highly Prized. I doodled around these with a light gray marker.

These are some pages that I did last year that weren't necessarily related to any of the themes for 2011. I think they qualify as doodling.

I added some dimensional white paint to this page. I'm not so sure it was a good idea, however, as it makes the pages stick together a bit. On the other hand, I really love the added texture.

Yowza! Doodling to the max.

I used an egg-shaped, hotel coaster to doodle some random shapes on a page. This may or may not be finished.

Working in Pilgrim for an entire year has been both a blast and a challenge. I will admit that I'm ready to close the chapter on this project and move onto some new projects for 2012. I'd like to declare 2012 as the year of the book and try to focus on sketching, journaling, and bookbinding. I hope you'll come along and join me for another year of artful adventures!

Merry Christmas to All

To all my friends around the globe, I wish you peace and happiness during this Christmas season and for the new year. May 2012 be filled with inspiration, adventure, and creativity galore! I'm grateful for all those who stop by to visit, leave kind words, and generously share their artistic lives. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

What's Thanksgiving without a Pilgrim?

Well, hello Pilgrim! It's been a while since we've seen you here. What would Thanksgiving be without at least one pilgrim at the dinner table? Right? I know, I know. Thanksgiving is over and I'm behind as usual.

In fact, it was time to pause and reflect in Pilgrim about two months ago but I'm just getting to it now. Why? Because, as you can read above, I'm afflicted with 75% syndrome. As soon as any project reaches this point, I run out of steam, inspiration, and interest. I'm ready to move on. I like starting projects so much more than finishing them.

The dilemma I'm reflecting upon is whether I should try to catch up and finish Pilgrim in 2011 as I had originally planned....or if I should forget about my self-imposed deadline and just finish it whenever. Of course, that leads me to wonder if I will ever finish it at all, or if it will end up amongst all the other unfinished projects in my studio. What should I do? Advice? Anyone? Anyone?

This page was the first I did in Pilgrim with my brand new Lamy Safari fountain pen. It arrived in the mail from Germany on Wednesday and I haven't stopped using it since! I bought it for sketching since it's the pen of choice for so many urban sketchers, but it works well for lettering too. It glides across the paper much better than a marker and I'm still getting used to the feel of it. I can refill it with waterproof ink, so no more dried out markers. So far I have to say I LOVE IT!!!

Big Ideas vs Dumb Crap

Have you ever found yourself caught between these two worthy opponents? These are the guys that battle it out to see who can win over your time, energy and focus.  They dance around your life bobbing and weaving to see who can knock the other one out. In one corner you have BIG IDEAS who fights with pure adrenalin and creative agility. In the other corner you have DUMB CRAP who leads with a wicked left hook and mundane practicality. Lately, DUMB CRAP has been kicking the--well, um crap--out of BIG IDEAS. But BIG IDEAS isn't ready to throw in the towel just yet. It's not over until the fat lady sings. Right?

BIG IDEAS did manage to make a few little blank books to sell at the fair.

Chicken Soup for the Pilgrim's Soul

Pilgrim has been a little neglected lately since I've been sketching a lot in my watercolor Moleskine.  I looked around the house for an everyday object to sketch in Pilgrim and came up with the reliable old soup can. It worked for Andy Warhol, right?

I debated between chicken noodle and tomato, and the noodle won out. This sketch was done over a background sprayed with pigment inks in pink and red. The can was painted with gouache, watercolor, and twinkling H2Os. This time I decided to skip the black ink and use only paint to sketch the soup can. I tried to make the can recognizable while using as little detail as possible. I was going more for personality than realism. (Honest, I was.)  I kind of like the pinkness of it--so NOT Andy Warhol.

The Halfway Point

I'm a little late in posting my halfway reflection in Pilgrim. It's hard to believe that 2011 is already half over. It's even harder to believe that I've managed to stick with this project for six months!

Once again, I dedicated a page to my reflections on participating in The Sketchbook Challenge. This time I thought about what has changed since my last reflection at the quarter mark. I think the biggest change has been in accepting that this book is a place for experimentation and I care less than I did before about whether or not I like every page. I also am not as bothered by drips, smudges, and overspray. I'm not as protective as I was in the beginning and now those imperfections just feel like part of the process.

Here is a page that went "unfinished" for quite a while. I've recently been very inspired by street art and graffiti and used that inspiration to add more to this page.

This page started out with inspiration from another one of my book sale finds--a book about Paul Klee--but then it took on a life of its own.

It's done with pencil and gouache over a sprayed background.

I think I would classify this as geometric doodling with gouache.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you're having an inspiring, art-filled summer.

More Pathways

I've been pretty inspired by this month's theme of PATHWAYS for The Sketchbook Challenge. I think it's partly because anything with lines reminds me of pathways and I guess I like to use lines a lot. The page above doesn't use lines, but was instead inspired by a quote. (Another thing I like to use a lot.) I had so much fun with my experiments to paint with gouache that I wanted to try more of that. I also wanted to try lettering with gouache instead of a marker.

That's the nice thing about a sketchbook...having a place to experiment.

It's also a place to just let loose and have a little fun.

In the last post, I mentioned some little art books that I picked up at a local book sale. One was a book about Ernst Nay, a German abstract painter who I was not familiar with. You can read a little bit about him here. I can't read the book since it's written in German but I can admire the pictures. I really like his abstract paintings that use intersecting black lines and round shapes between the lines. (If you scroll down to the photos of the books in the last post you can see an example on the cover of the book about him.) Since lines remind me of pathways, I thought I would attempt my own abstract painting inspired by Nay in my sketchbook.

Of course he probably used oil paint on canvas and I'm using gouache in my sketchbook. I couldn't resist adding my favorite stripes and dots here and there. I especially enjoyed making the gray stripes.

What I really about abstracts is that you can crop in and create a new composition using a smaller piece of the whole.

I'd like to point out that before creating the pages above, I had never even opened the tube of black gouache that came in my starter set of five colors. Everything black in the sketchbook was done with markers and everything painted with gouache was done by mixing three primary colors and white.

See the lonely unused tube of black there? I took a painting class once and the instructor told us we should NEVER use black paint. He said it was better to mix your own black and gray by combining other colors. (Then why the heck do they make black paint???) I don't think that's the reason why I didn't use the black gouache. I think it's more about liking bright colors and not being very sophisticated at color mixing. I don't really consider what I do with paint as "painting" most of the time anyway. I think of it as just adding color to something. I don't believe there are any rules in art and I don't like when people say you should NEVER do something this way or you should ALWAYS do something that way.

Boy did it feel good to use that black gouache straight out of the tube! Another first in Pilgrim and another first for me on my little artistic pilgrimage.

Pilgrim - Pathways

The Sketchbook Challenge theme for June is Pathways and this is my first interpretation of the theme. I've been working on mounting my map series (still!) so I had maps on my mind when I started this page--specifically road maps.

As you can see, I'm still not tired of making marks with gouache. I find it so relaxing and enjoyable. Now I'm even venturing into (ack!) painting with gouache.

A few weeks ago, one of the local universities held their annual used book sale. I've always wanted to attend but it usually falls on a weekend when I have other plans or I happen to hear about it after the fact. This was the year I finally went. Imagine an entire gymnasium filled with table after table of used books all neatly organized by subject matter.

I was torn between buying books for reference and buying books to cut up for collage. I guess I comprised because I bought some of both. The books above were from the art section and most are older than me and written in German. They are compact and lovely, filled with beautiful watercolor paintings. They were around $1 each. Except for the one in the top right corner which was 50 cents and contains the religious frescoes of an artist named Giotto. I thought I would cut this one since it was cheap and I have no idea who Giotto is, but then was inspired by the picture below.

The image on the right is a close up of the image on the left. I thought it would be fun to try to paint it with gouache. (Don't you just love the age on the paper? So pretty!)

I didn't get the angle of the face quite right, and it probably needs more work...but I don't HATE it so that's something, right? The best part is that I really liked painting with the gouache. It definitely behaves differently that either watercolor or acrylic and warrants more exploration.

The art books will go into my growing art library, and I was lucky enough to fine four huge atlases for 50 cents each that I can cut up for collage. All in all, it was a fun and productive outing that I'll make sure I don't miss next year!