Nature makes beautiful art

I’m sure red cabbage will trigger an abstract painting in me one day. Maybe I should paint it in cabbage juice, since that turns an interesting indigo colour.

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Sketching badly on the train

I haven’t had much time to myself where I have access to a table, so I tried a sketch on a wobbly train and made myself a bit motion sick. But here it is: one art achieved today.

Quick sketch

I took a photo about a year ago that I’d like to turn into a painting. This is a first sketch so I can do a few rehearsals. Originally I wanted to use oils, since that’s what I’m most comfortable with, but I know watercolours would be better for the look I want – if I can get the sketch right. Lots of practice required.

Something I did at the Tate Modern last year.

…and it wasn’t selected for publication by whoever vetted visitor doodles for the social media feeds, so that’s not a claim to fame.

Taco dragon

Today my boss/ toddler asked me to draw “taco dragon”, her toy that came with “Dragons Love Tacos” by Adam Rubin and Daniel Salmieri.

Turned the Pinterest fail into a win… and into a fail again

I tried to paint over a logo on a T shirt last week and labelled it as a Pinterest fail, which isn’t quite fair because it was a trial run of my acrylic textile medium. (I’m not sponsored by that shop).

The medium works, but isn’t opaque enough to hide a bulky printed logo. It did however provide a nice surface to apply more paint to and reduced the contrast between the white print and black T shirt.

I disguised the logo by incorporating it into a design, a bit like a cover up tattoo.

If you want to paint on a T-shirt with acrylic paint and textile medium, definitely put cardboard inside the shirt, because paint soaks through and can stick the front and back of your shirt together. Yes, I used cardboard 😛

Before:

After:

I’ll have to see how well it survives the laundry to decide whether it’s a big win, or just a fun experiment 🙂

3rd September 2019 update: after 2 washes it’s looking really bad. There isn’t an obvious reason why some bits have peeled and others haven’t. Some pure textile medium bits are fine, others are really bad. It’s the same story with the bits painted over the logo, so I don’t think the medium or original print are the problem. Next time I’ll either accept an unwanted logo, or use appliqué.

Pottery painting with Van Gogh

My family goes to a local pottery painting place every year, but I rarely know what I want to paint until I get there. This time I thought I’d try something in Van Gogh’s style, because although they tell you to paint 3 layers to get an even colour, I know from experience that it looks patchy when I try to do blocks of colour. I find it easier to go for pointillism or impasto.

I started off with Van Gogh’s brush strokes, but changed to pointillism halfway through when I realised I was going to run out of time. I was also working from an image as it appeared on an iPhone that kept timing out! Here’s the picture I was working from:

And here’s my pottery version:

I think the white speckles came from someone else’s palette, when I was running low on a colour and didn’t realise they’d got the speckled version.

I’m not sure I’ll try this technique again, but everything’s a learning experience.

Art versus bored toddler

I know she’s too young to actually learn technique, (the red scribbles are her colouring in), but you’ll try anything to stop a tantrum while waiting for food. Well done Franco Manca for providing pencils, paper and food in quick succession, before my little art critic could kick off.

Look at that face. “Mummy, this is not art. Where’s my juice?”

Collaborating with a toddler

I’m recycling old notebooks and introduced Toddles to “sticky” today. She just needs to work out that the side you put glue on has to go on the page – not your hand, face, dolly, or mummy.