Gouache Paint And Ink Spring Leaves And Buds

It may be a new week but I am still on a Spring inspired theme here on my blog! But as Spring is just starting to be Sprung (!) you can't really blame me can you? So my inspiration share this Monday to get you Springing into creative action for this new week is actually linked to the project I shared on Friday, did you see it? If you didn't then you can scroll down or hop straight to it via this link - Stylised Spring Flower Illustration blog post.

Today I'm sharing a pair of pieces, one with a Spring Leaves motif and the other with some Stylised Spring Buds.

[There are some affiliate links in this blog post, so if you buy through them I do get a small amount of money at no extra cost to yourself. Thanks for your support!]

I had so much fun with the Kuretake Sumi ink and dip pen on a Turner Gouache painted surface for my project share on Friday that I used them again for these pieces. These projects are a bit of play, practice and experimenting.

I used a lot of colour for the first piece, for the second piece I went for more of a pastel look. I'm not sure which look I prefer. How about you? Do you have a preference? 

So tell me, have you got any Spring-themed projects planned for this week? Let me know in the comments below if you do!

Kim

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Stylised Spring Flower Illustration

Is it safe to say that Spring is here in the UK? It feels like it has arrived. This week the sun has been out and it has been bright and warm. What a difference a bit of sunshine makes! So here today let me offer you a Stylised Spring Flower Illustration to bring a bit of Spring to your Friday where ever you may be!

It's worked in gouache paint and Sumi ink with a dip pen and is part of my recent experiments with shapes and line.

[There are some affiliate links in this blog post, so if you buy through them I do get a small amount of money at no extra cost to yourself. Thanks for your support!]

Originally I was going to work this idea with watercolour paint but in the end I grabbed for my Turner gouache paint instead, mainly because I had some left over from *Spoiler Alert* my Art Slice Video today, which will be going live over on my YouTube Channel at 1pm by the way!

I was also going to work the line with a marker pen and this changed too at the last minute when I decided to use a dip pen with my current favourite ink to use with dip pens, Kuretake Sumi ink which is such a lovely thick and deep black.

I'm thinking that I might do some more of these as they are such good fun.

I might even go back to my original idea and use watercolours and marker pen to see how it changes the design.

So a little Spring creative teaser for you and I hope it gives you some inspiration for the weekend. Let me know what Spring-themed projects you are up to at the moment!

Kim

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Fashion Artist And Illustrators To Follow On Instagram

Did you watch London Fashion Week last week? All caught up with what is hot and not this season and next season? I have to admit that I am a bit clueless when it comes to fashion, would not know my *insert current top designer's name here* from my *insert a different current top designer's name here*, yes it is that bad, I don't even know the current top names in the fashion industry, I did warn you I was clueless! But I do have a massive admiration, and a smattering of jealousy, for all the art and talent that goes into it.

From the textile art and surface design of the clothes to the artists that illustrate fashion, there is just so much to be inspired by. So fashionista or not, if you are looking for some people to follow on Instagram for a bit of daily fashion artist and Illustrator inspiration then here are some suggestions:


Fashion Art And Illustrators To Follow On Instagram:

1. Hodaya Louis @hodayalouis - Works in a whole range of different mediums and a varied style. Just love her face art but she also can render a fashion form seemingly effortless, which obviously it isn't, with just a few marks, it is pretty awesome! She also has a website, Hodaya Louis, and sells prints of her work.

2. Megan Ruth St Clair Morgan @mrscmillo - Works a lot in pen/ink and watercolour. I just love her continuous line style and how she can give the essence of the form with line and a touch of colour. She also has a portfolio website at MRSCMILLO.

3. Beth Briggs Illustration @bethbriggsillustration - Has a signature bright pastel colour style and I love her illustrative look. I also love that she really only started turning her hobby into a career after she turned 50. You can also find out about her in her etsy shop BBriggsIllustration.

4. Marie-Klara Gonzalez @marieklaragonzalez - Has a very contemporary illustrative style, I love her surface design and fashion drawings. You can also find her through Miss Capricho where she displays her client work.

5. Elena Ciuprina @elenaciuprina - Has a very bold line and block colours style which I really love. She is another artist who experiments with different mediums and different looks which is fun to watch. She also has a portfolio on Behance under her name Elena Ciuprina.

6. Jacky Marshall @jackyblue__ - Uses all sorts of items in her work, lots of different types of pen work but then the odd addition of fabric and paper collage too. I love her quick line drawings and her use of colour and pattern.

I hope that you enjoy exploring the feeds of these artists.

So what about you? Which fashion illustrators and artists do you follow and why do you like them?

Kim



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The 2017 Dellow Daily Drawing Challenge!

Welcome to the 2017 Dellow Daily Drawing Challenge! Wahoo! Erm what?

Back in December I introduced you to one of my favourite creative exercises in a blog post called 'A Fun Sketching Exercise To Turn Into A Habit For 2017' because I love playing with it and I thought you might like it too.

When I wrote that blog post I was writing it as much for me as for you and I promised myself that I would make the exercise part of my daily habit and not just a couple of times a week habit that it has been up to now. But habits are hard to put in place, as we all know, and it does make it easier if you make yourself accountable to someone. So I thought that I would make myself accountable to you guys and post the practice up on Instagram. I have been for the last few days.

But here is the thing, I was just going to do this myself, but then lots of people have been in touch since I wrote that blog post, and started posting my practice on Instagram, and said that they were going to do it too! So I thought maybe we can all be accountable for each other to help us turn it into a proper habit? What do you think?

Want to join me?

The Exercise

Ok so if you missed my 'A Fun Sketching Exercise To Turn Into A Habit For 2017' blog post here is the exercise:


1. Grab paper and pencil/pen

2. Draw 30 *Insert One Subject Here* e.g. mushrooms or horses or daisies etc.

3. Make each drawing different

4. Quantity Over Quality!

5. Photo it, post it on Instagram hashtag it #DellowDailyDrawing to share

6. Repeat next day with new subject!


It doesn't require you to be an amazing sketcher, it doesn't have to take up lots of your time or be perfect. The idea is to get a lot of ideas down quickly. With practice you will build up your drawing level, your creativity and idea generation level, your hand-eye coordination and the ability to communicate ideas through sketches. Plus it will help you develop your style, you will soon figure out which ones you like and which you don't, and it will give you a catalogue of unique motifs and ideas to go back over and work up into other projects later on.

There will be no prompts, draw what you want, but here are some more subject ideas to get you started:

Circles
Hearts
Ladybirds
Lollipops
Aliens
Bicycles
Snowflakes
Fish
Leaves
Robots
Roses
Elephants

And if I haven't convinced you yet to give it a go take a look at the wonderful ideas and motifs Kay Whittaker has been doing!

So come on then. Let's do this together! Hands up if you are going to give it a go. See you on Instagram, hashtag #DellowDailyDrawing.

Kim






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A Fun Sketching Exercise To Turn Into A Habit For 2017

One thing that I've been really working on this year is developing my own art. I have a few goals with my artwork, such as to improve my sketching, to build up a portfolio of motifs and designs and to develop my own signature style. Do you recognise some or all of these goals as ones that you hold dear too?

If you do recognise these goals then I have a fun exercise to share that you might find helpful if you haven't already got it as part of your art habit or ritual and that is the 'Rapid-Fire Multi-Drawing Exercise'. OK, so I'm rubbish at coming up with names. Let me explain!

The Rapid-Fire Multi-Drawing Exercise

Actually let's just do it now! Grab a piece of A4 (8.5" x 11") paper or better still a sketch book and a pen or pencil, now draw 30 different mushrooms, but don't take too much time thinking about each one, do one, move on.

They do not have to be beautifully rendered or amazingly life-like, but each one does have to be different.

Go on, I can wait for 5-10 minutes, I'm not going anywhere!
...
...
...

OK, how did that go for you? Don't worry, some people will find it really easy and some people will find it really difficult and that is OK.

Why This Exercise?

Before I started as a full-time freelancing artist, crafter and blogger, would you believe that I taught creativity as part of entrepreneurship programmes for scientists and engineers at university? I know, it seems like another lifetime ago and I haven't really talked about it much here on my blog. It was during this time that I finally realised that I LOVED creativity, new ideas and just plain creating, but anyway that might be another story for a different blog post.

One of the exercises I would run in my classes was a very similar exercise designed to warm the class up, get them thinking and innovating. I've adapted the exercise a little for artists, so we are working on trying to come up with different ways to communicate an item such as a mushroom, a leaf, a robot etc. through drawing it in various forms. It is not a new exercise and I'm not claiming to have invented it but I really think it is a worthwhile one to add to your artist routine.

Drawing a lot of items quickly is a great way to train the hand-eye coordination and so improve your drawing skills. It will also help you to find a unique language to communicate your ideas to the viewer; hopefully through this you will start to see what styles and looks appeal to you and so help you to develop your unique style.

Another great benefit is that this type of exercise bypasses the more analytical parts of the brain. The point is to get a lot of ideas down quickly and not to judge those ideas, that comes later. The more forms of the subject you can get onto paper the more you can work through the rubbish, same old, same old ones and develop those special, only you can come up with ones. And a happy offshoot of this is that it helps you to build up a portfolio of motifs you can refer to and build upon in the future.


What Next?

Now look back at the page, or pages, you have just filled with mushroom designs and sketches. Are there any that you are particularly fond of, that just jump out at you? If there are then circle them. If there aren't, don't worry, this happens too and it might mean that you need to do another 20 now that you have the rubbish ones out of your system or it might mean that mushrooms just aren't your bag. Don't overthink it!

You can do one of two things now. If you are really in the mood work up your favourite mushroom designs/sketches into a new piece of artwork. Or file the paper/sketchbook away for now and refer to it again when you are looking for some mushroom inspiration.

Make A Commitment

As with all walks of life, practice improves everything, so if you are committed to improving your drawing skills, expanding your motif repertoire, building your artistic confidence and developing your style then promise me – no, scratch that, promise yourself – that you will come back to this exercise tomorrow and do 30 different robots, or 30 different flowers, or 30 different... well you get the idea. Hey, do 50, I ain't gonna stop you!

Oh and some of my regular readers may remember the two early sketches I did when I started my Art Slice Video series back in the Summer, you can see them above or catch the videos on my YouTube channel: 'Tribal Pattern Pineapple with watercolour and pen' and 'Watercolour Watermelon'. Both these projects came out of this very exercise.

Have fun with it and feel free to share any Rapid-Fire Multi-Drawing Exercise pictures that you do with me on Instagram, tag me so that I can see them! Boy, there must be a better name for this exercise than that?

UPDATE: If you want to join in and share the results we are using the hashtag #DellowDailyDrawing over on Instagram. See you there!

Kim



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Sharing Art Journal Projects

I've been really enjoying getting back into doing my art for myself this week. I don't know if this happens to you, but often I find that my own work can fall by the wayside when I have deadlines to meet and art to do for other people. But this week I have, for once, got ahead of my deadlines and have found some space in my schedule to do some play in my junk journals. So I thought I would share with you some of the results. It is a mixed batch of different things but with a common theme, which I seem to be going back to a lot at the moment, and that is black line work on a colour background.

The first one isn't actually in my journal but on some watercolour paper and is along the same lines as my recent 'Watercolour Worlds' Art Slice. You can see the video for that one over on my YouTube Channel if you haven't seen it already. It will give you an idea of how I did this one as I used the same technique, just a different pen.

I've used Prima Marketing watercolours with a Sharpie paint pen to make this floral cluster design. I'm pretty obsessed with watercolour shapes and inked detail at the moment, you may have noticed?! Got to work it out of my system!

Next show-and-tell art journal page is a couple of mandalas drawn with a ballpoint pen over the top of some leftover colour, where I've just cleaned my mark making tools in my journal.

The paint in the background is some of the PaperArtsy Fresco Finish paints. They make a really nice surface to draw over with an ordinary ballpoint pen, it is their chalky finish. I blocked out the spaces between the two mandalas with some fine lines using the pen.

The last share I have for you today is some pattern play in one of my junk journals. Actually this page is opposite the page above, but I've folded it over for the photography.

It's also based on a leftover paint page and I've worked the pattern with a white and a black Sharpie paint pen. It is really just an experimental piece trying to extend my patterns and try out different looks. There are no rules I just try to fill the page with different marks and shapes. It's fun, you should try it if you don't do it already!

I hope you have had some time in your schedule to play in your journals too, do share if you have, drop me a link below. I look forward to seeing them!

Kim

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Show Your Face - Change Hands

Hello amazing Facers, another week and another share of any face/ portrait we have been working at this week. Have you tried the optional Changing Hands prompt as suggested by Hazel Agnew? Hope you get a chance to give it a go at least once this month.

Ok, time to share!


First up the admin...

Schedule:

• Change Hands - August 2016 (try using your non-dominant hand to draw/ paint / make your face this month. Suggested by Hazel Agnew).

Remember all are optional prompts, you don't have to use them, they are there if you fancy playing, if not just link up your usual work as normal.

Don't forget:

• Show Your Face is a community link up for portrait work in any style or medium.
• the aims are to share, learn, practise, inspire, and be inspired.
• to make sure that the face artwork is yours, if you use any stamps or templates to build the face they should be designed by you.
• the link is open from 10 am (BST) every Friday and stays open for a week, so link away.
• finished pieces, works in progress or retro posts (i.e. older works, not from this week) are all welcome.
• to link back to the link blog post here for that week.
• Spread the word on your blog/social media outlets and use the #ShowYourFaceFriday hashtag in social media.
• There is a prompt every other month. Using the prompts is totally optional and just there if you fancy playing along. You can still post your face work even if you haven't used the prompt.

Looking For The Blog Button?

If you want to wear the blog button with pride then hop on over to Show Your Face 31st July 2015 to grab it and there are instructions on how to put it on your blog there too.


My Share This Week...

This week I am posting a sketch and before you ask it was with my dominate hand even if it might not look it! I like the eye but I think the rest rather lets it down, I think the rest is too sketchy and doesn't match the style of the eye. I might try it again if I get the time.

Over To You...

Link your faces artwork and spread the word on your blog and/or social media, hashtag #ShowYourFaceFriday. Please do let anyone you think would be interested in sharing their portraits know about our community here.

Catch you later Face-Artinators

Kim

PS. Some other places you might want to link your work to: Painted pages share at Paint Party Friday. Art journal pages, check out the new theme at Art Journal Journey. Those of you on Facebook ask Darcy Wilkinson if you can join her Face To Face page.

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Show Your Face - Quick Draw

Hello amazing Facers, are you ready for a new share? Remember that we still have the Quick Draw prompt, as suggested by Gibby Frogett, for anyone who wants to use it.

Let's get sharing!

First up the admin...

Schedule:

•  Quick Draw Faces - July 2016 (set a timer to say 10-15 min - or less if you dare! - and draw a face or several faces in that time. Suggested by Gibby Frogett).
• Change Hands - September 2016 (try using your non-dominant hand to draw/ paint / make your face this month. Suggested by Hazel Agnew).

Remember all are optional prompts, you don't have to use them, they are there if you fancy playing, if not just link up your usual work as normal.

Don't forget:

• Show Your Face is a community link up for portrait work in any style or medium.
• the aims are to share, learn, practise, inspire, and be inspired.
• to make sure that the face artwork is yours, if you use any stamps or templates to build the face they should be designed by you.
• the link is open from 10 am (BST) every Friday and stays open for a week, so link away.
• finished pieces, works in progress or retro posts (i.e. older works, not from this week) are all welcome.
• to link back to the link blog post here for that week.
• Spread the word on your blog/social media outlets and use the #ShowYourFaceFriday hashtag in social media.
• There is a prompt every other month. Using the prompts is totally optional and just there if you fancy playing along. You can still post your face work even if you haven't used the prompt.

Looking For The Blog Button?

If you want to wear the blog button with pride then hop on over to Show Your Face 31st July 2015 to grab it and there are instructions on how to put it on your blog there too.


My Share This Week...

Sketchy again from me this week and almost a doodle as I was working on some designs in my note book. It didn't take very long but I actually didn't time it. So I'm thinking around 2 minutes but knowing how I kind of get lost in what I am doing it could have easily been double that time!

Over To You...

Link your faces artwork and spread the word on your blog and/or social media, hashtag #ShowYourFaceFriday. Please do let anyone you think would be interested in sharing their portraits know about our community here.

Catch you later Face-Artinators

Kim

PS. Some other places you might want to link your work to: Painted pages share at Paint Party Friday. Art journal pages, check out the new theme at Art Journal Journey. Those of you on Facebook ask Darcy Wilkinson if you can join her Face To Face page.

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Sketching Terrariums For GROWLondon And London Terrariums

You might not know this about me but I love growing things. I might have mentioned that since our move, a couple of years ago, we now have a garden - oh how wondrous it is to have your own outdoor space, especially when you have lived in flats with no outdoor space for many decades. But I am kind of wishing now that I had tried growing a terrarium years ago. What a perfect way to bring a bit of contained garden into a small living space.

I was really lucky a couple of weeks ago as I got to make my very own terrarium with London Terrariums. It was a taste of the workshops that they will be running for GROWLondon, the contemporary garden and lifestyle fair on Hampstead Heath 24-26 June 2016 and I thought it would be a great subject for some sketches with watercolour and ink.

My terrarium is the one of the far right in the picture above. I know what you are thinking, how did you plant anything through such a narrow neck? Magic! Ok so it wasn't magic but it was possible, slightly fiddly but lots of fun.

I didn't get any time during the making of the terrarium to do any sketching as it was far too much fun and super absorbing. But I did take lots of photographs to make up for it and then to sketch from when I got home.

For our miniature terrarium gardens we had pebbles, some beautiful plants with variegated leaves, moss, activated charcoal and compost so some great textures and colours to play with not to mention some unusually looking tools to sketch too.

I used Winsor and Newton watercolours in a small landscape travel watercolour sketchbook. Starting with a pencil sketch from the photographs and inking it with a Sakura Pigma Micron pen then colouring with the watercolours.

It is not something that I have done a lot of but it is something that I want to do more of, I love the idea of a sketchbook diary and would love to make this into a daily habit.

I will definitely be taking my sketchbook with me to GROWLondon later this month, or at least my camera to capture the growing inspiration. There will be lots going on including workshops, as well as the terrarium making, running over the weekend at GROWLondon. Also London Terrariums runs workshops in and around London and the South too.

My terrarium now has pride of place on our dinning room table and you never know it might be subject for some more sketches soon. Massive thank you to London Terrariums and GROWLondon for the experience and the subject matter for some sketching!

Have you ever made a terrarium? I have my eye on some of the fun science vessels that London Terrarium uses for some of theirs. This might be the start of something!

Kim

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Show Your Face

Hey Facers, September is here which means no more 'Show Your Face Inspired By' and back to the regular 'Show Your Face'. Wahoo!

Before we rush on I would really like you to take a minute to think about what you got out of it 'Show Your Face Inspired By'. If you didn't get a chance to join in then don't worry, think about what you get from looking at other Facers' artwork in general.

What I Got From Show Your Face Inspired By
Here is my share of what I got from it. For me I found that 'Show Your Face Inspired By' really made me think about my process and style through trying to examine and include other people's style and processes into my work. It also gave me an added appreciation of how amazing you all are and how talented you are. You guys ROCK! Seriously!

I also loved watching people join in and connect up to fellow Facers. Ok, I will let you into a little secret I had another reason for insisting that you link up to the fellow Facer you where inspired by other than it is the right thing to do and a nice thing to do too! You may or may not be aware of this but linking to each other blogs is a great way of adding authenticity and visibility to all of our blogs in the eyes of the search engines.

It is more of a blogging technical reason and might not be of interest to some of you but I kind of hope that it helps all our blog without us realising. I'm not saying go mad and fill your blog posts with links out but every now and then it can't hurt now can it and, as I said before, it is both the right thing to do and a nice thing to do, blogging is a community after all!

Facers Needs Your Input!
I would like to run 'Show Your Face Inspired By' again in the next few months, but this is a community group and if you all hated it then I won't run it! Majority rule!

I was also thinking of running other occasional, month long, optional join in, prompts like 'In The Style Of' where we take a month to examine our favourite artists and try and incorporate or examine what they do through our own face practise. Or maybe a month focusing on how to do eyes, or noses or anatomy, or stylised faces. There is a lot we could cover!

The idea is to take us out of our comfort zone, make us re-examine our own work and hopefully push some of our boundaries as this is often when we learn and make the biggest improvements.

I'm assuming that whether you are a newbie (like me) or a hardened portrait professional you probably want to improve your art and be the best that you can be? Right?

So are you up for it? Is it something you would like to engage in? Shall we do it here on Show Your Face?

Let me know. Remember - Majority rule!

Also let me know if you have ideas of what you would like to study for a month with Facers, you can leave a comment, social media me with the #ShowYourFace Hashtag or even email me.

Thanks Facers!


Ok, on with this week's Show Your Face...

Don't forget:

• Show Your Face is a community link up for portrait work in any style or medium.
• the aims are to share, learn, practise, inspire, and be inspired.
• to make sure that the face artwork is yours, if you use any stamps or templates to build the face they should be designed by you.
• the link is open from 10 am (BST) every Friday and stays open for a week, so link away.
• finished pieces, works in progress or retro posts (i.e. older works, not from this week) are all welcome.
• to link back to the link blog post here for that week.
• Spread the word on your blog/social media outlets and use the #ShowYourFace hashtag in social media.

Looking For The Blog Button?

If you want to wear the blog button with pride then hop on over to Show Your Face 31st July 2015 to grab it and there are instructions on how to put it on your blog there too.

My Share this week...

My share this week actually carries on from the work that I did in the last Show Your Face. This time it is a study from a tea-room and just of one face. I tried three sketches starting from the top left and working clock wise. The picture at the bottom was the last one and was the one that was nearer to the look of the face and the tilt that I was going for. Took me three attempts but I got there!

Oh and the chewed pencil? That was one of my cats! She seems to have a taste for twigs and the occasional pencil.

Over To You...
Link your faces artwork, leave a comment on what you got from 'Show Your Face Inspired By' and if you would like to do it again.


Ok, so I know that some of you just scrolled down to link your face but please do take the time to read the first part of this blog post, Facers Needs Your Input!


Catch you later Face-Artinators

Kim

PS. Some other places you might want to link your work to: Art journal pages link up with Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's Art Journal Everyday post. Painted pages share at Paint Party Friday. Art journal page with a window theme link up to Art Journal Journey. Don't forget Ayala Art's Sept 2015 29 Faces.

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Taking Time for Some Surface Design - Mandalas

Do you doodle? When you doodle what do you mostly do? Have you ever tried mandalas? I found myself doodling some mandalas last weekend. Settled in for a bit of Middle-earth adventuring with the Hobbit Trilogy, pen and paper in hand I started to draw mandalas.

My first design got us most of the way to our first peek at Smaug. Ok, disclaimer now, if you haven't seen the Hobbit films then that is so not going to make any senses to you, my apologies for that. Just take it as read that it took me about the length of the first film to draw and colour my first mandala.

Working away in my new 5.5 x 8 inch Strathmore visual journal. I found the whole process somewhat hypnotic, it could have been the epic journey I was watching but I think it was the mandala.

[Some of the links in this blog posts are Affiliate links.]

I enjoyed the first mandala so much that I decided to cover a whole page with them. I picked up a Sakura Gelly Roll Opaque pen, and it happened to be one in my favourite colours at the moment, It's an orange-red, think of the Morocco Tsunkineko Memento ink or the Abandoned Coral from the Tim Holtz Distress ink range.

This kind of large style mandala is new to me and I'm pretty sure it was inspired by the work of Alisa Burke. Alisa uses mandalas a lot in her work and she even has an online class focusing on them if you are interested.

The faint patches in the design are where my pen started to run out, the ink doesn't go very far in Sakura gelly pens does it? I love the glossy finish on them though.

My mandalas were all done freehand, I didn't draw around any circles or use any tools to make them I just started in the middle and worked outwards with doodles. I'm not even sure I can call them mandalas seeing as I have not used any symbolism or stuck to any mandala-creating rules. But as an exercise in surface design and a relaxing way to watch a film I would totally recommend having a go at making them.

The page took me through the battle with Smaug and out to the big battle with the five armies (there she goes again, talking Hobbit gibberish to those of you that haven't seen the movies!) and even through some Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs (ya what now? It's another film, go look it up if you don't know it).

I'm wondering now how well these would work up into stamps, I might transfer my favourites to some Speedball Speedy-Carve and try curving them into stamps. Might be fun. Oh and I started another one last night, this one in blue whilst investigating an alien disturbance in the Quatermass Experiment, just be aware of any part man, part cactus creatures in your vicinity (don't worry, it is another film!).

Are you a Mandala fan? If you have been blogging about Mandalas or have pictures in your gallery please do leave a link in the comments, I would love to come and have a look.

Kim

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Art It Friday - Show Your Face With A Surprise From Craftsy

Hey Gorgeous Facers – before you go rushing off to link your face at the bottom of this post, I have a little surprise for you! So read on.


First, let's get the reason why we are here sorted:

For anyone new here this is a regular place to come and inspire, be inspired, but above all to share our portrait progress week by week. Every Friday at 10 am (BST) a new Show Your Face blog post goes live with the linky to add your blog post or online gallery picture to with any portrait work you have been doing.    

Your face can be drawn, doodled, painted, stitched, be made using any materials and can be any style, all I ask is that it is your artwork. If you use templates, stencils or stamps to build the face anatomy, then they should be ones you have made yourself and not someone else's.    

Finished pieces, works in progress or retro posts (i.e. older works, not from this week) are all welcome, so come join in and spread the word on your blog/social media outlets. Use hashtag #ShowYourFace if you like!  


Surprise!
OK, that's done, now for the surprise: I'm an affiliate with Craftsy (and yes, I have some affiliate links in this post but I think you are going to like it!). If you don't know Craftsy, it is an online learning resource and they are offering you, my facers:

50% off the Simple Techniques for Better Portraits taught by Alisha Dall'Osto.

No code needed just click through using this link or the one above to get this class for £9.50 ($14.99) instead of £19.00 ($29.99). The discount is valid until 6.59 am BST (11.59 pm MT) Friday 26th June 2015.

Cool, right?

If you haven't got a Craftsy account, it is free to join and there are even some free classes you can try out too.

I'm in the middle of this class myself, which is why I thought you guys might appreciate it. I've been really enjoying it, so I hope you do too and find it useful.

That brings me neatly to my Show Your Face share for this week. I'm watching the chapter on Mass, Proportion and Features, which is lesson 2 in the course, and it breaks down the facial features into easy shapes, so that is what I've been practising this week.

I think I'm finding the nose the hardest to do, but eyes are fun to do aren't they? Practise, Practise, Practise!

Which reminds me, did you have fun with my little warm-up exercise from last week? How did you get on with it?


Over To You... Link your faces artwork and spread the word on your blog and/or social media, hashtag #ShowYourFace for those of you that use them.

Catch you later Face-Artinators and hope you enjoy the 50% off the Simple Techniques for Better Portraits. Massive thanks to Craftsy for this fab offer!

Kim

PS. Some other places you might want to link your work to: Art journal pages link up with Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's Art Journal Everyday post. I do use affiliate links to help me run this blog but only for things I use or think you will love. If you want to know more, please do check my Disclaimer and Disclosure page. 

An InLinkz Link-up

Art Journal Sharing Thursday - Marrakech Sketching

Hey guys, my Art Journal Sharing Thursday this week is a travel sketching work in progress and a shameless excuse to share some travel photos from our recent amazing trip to Marrakech. Only a couple of photos, mind you, if I posted them all you would be reading this post for days!

Some of you might remember that last year I took part in a blog competition run by Cox & Kings. 

[My competition entry - a handmade sketch book]

The prize was a two night stay in the Mosaic Palais Aziza in Marrakech and much to my complete and utter amazement I won and we took the trip a couple of weekends ago in March.

Obviously we took a lot of photos, I mean A LOT of photos and as I didn't really get an awful lot of time to do a lot of sketching, we were just too busy sightseeing, I've printed some of the photos out to use as source materials for some sketching studies that I want to do.

I plan to fill up the sketch book I made for the competition (the first photo in this post) with sketches and memorabilia from the trip. So it will be a sketch / scrap / journal book for our weekend in Marrakech. At the moment the book is with the other competition pieces on display at the Cox & King Headquarters. But once it is back I will set about filling it up.

I'm a bit of an architecture freak and love all the windows and doors. The fine details and decorations are just so stunning and complex to sketch out, especially for a novice sketcher like myself so I'm looking forward to filling the book with all these details, plus perhaps a selfie or two of us...

and of course some pictures of markets, I mean you can not go to Marrakech without some market pictures...

Then there are the tiles, seeing as it was my love of the tiles that got us there in the first place...

Oh and did I mention the markets?

With all the sightseeing and shopping all that is left is a relaxing cup of tea by the pool back in the oasis of the Mosaic Palais Aziza hotel.

We loved every minute, massive thank you once again to Cox & Kings, the Mosaic Palais Aziza hotel and my fellow artists (Vandy Massey, Jenny Keal, Concetta Perôt and Alan Reed). 

And to you guys for popping in today to share my Art Journal Sharing Thursday project this week. Let me know if you have any art journal pages you want to share too, I would love to see them.

Kim