Atlantic Lobster

 
I've been manipulating a lobster over the last couple of days to try to do a gyotaku print.  A hard shelled crustacean is difficult to print well and as a lobster has a a number of prickly point in its armour it makes it more difficult to mould paper around the shell without tearing it.

For crustaceans the indirect method of gyotaku is the best, using fabric - a light weight cotton or silk and tamping colour through the fabric instead of inking the beast itself.  I didn't have the right fabric on hand, so I used the lightest rice paper that I had as well as a bit of unryu.

The body just wouldn't do what I wanted and the lobster's crushing claw came away from the body, so I took advantage of the fairly flat surface of the large claw to print just that section.  These will not be large pieces, measuring around 8 x 10, and I'll experiment with a couple with added background colour as well as leaving a couple as just the print itself.

And for those who wish to know, here's everything about Atlantic lobsters!

Romanian hay stacks

Haystacks at Magura

This month's Virtual Paintout is in Romania.  Its a region of the world that I know little about, so I had a interesting time wandering in urban and rural areas and seemed to find something new to paint everywhere I looked.

As usual, I head straight for the countryside, as I love to know how other parts of the world farm for food, raise animals, etc.  Its usually just a different scale of things but the buildings and landscape change, sometimes dramatically.

This piece was of haystacks in or near Magura, Romania.  I loved the little hand built stacks supported by frames of wood and knew they'd have to be painted.  I used acrylics on an 8 x 10 canvas board.

I had painted over a previous image with red and like how that shows through and gives warmth to the piece.  The red complements the greens well here.  I must use more coloured grounds under my paintings as they add a richness.

Daily drawing page

Its always feast or famine with me.  

I have so many ideas in my head, I can't them onto paper fast enough and there aren't enough hours in the day to capture them.  I need to capture them because I know there will be a fallow time when nothing inspires me and nothing translates onto paper or canvas as I want it to.

I've found that very early morning tends to be my most prolific time.  My sleeping patterns change constantly and if I wake at 4am, I have learned not to fight it, but just get up and start drawing or painting.  This month, I'm doing daily drawings in addition to other pieces I have in progress.  I've created a separate page on this blog to record the drawings at least for this month.  It may last longer than that, but I don't want to bore people with my daily graphite scribblings or have them lost in the body of the blog.

Today this little dog was drawing on the back of a flyer with a felt tip marker at 6:30am.  Another early morning piece using whatever materials came to hand.  Sketches don't have to be on your best paper, and, Murphy's Law, often the pieces that you wish you'd used good paper for, come out to be your best. Its all good practice, no matter what the medium or what the support.  Just draw!

More jelly...

Today was a snow day due to a storm that arrived overnight.  It tapered off in late morning but snowclearing then had to take place and I decided it wasn't worth life and limb to tackle the roads at that point in the day.  By the time I would have gotten to work, it would have virtually been time to come home again.

So I took advantage of the day to work on the jellyfish.  It is good to work on black paper in daylight.  The colours are so much easier to see.  With working, I only have daylight at weekends, but the daylight lamp I have does help when I have to work after dark.

I noticed today that there is a slight scrape across the surface of this board.  Its not an indentation but more a line that's slightly lighter in colour.  Its noticeable under certain angles of light and I may end up having to add something to that area to cover it as I can't think of any other way to get around it. I don't want to draw a background, I want the black to be the background only. 

Black is danger prone. It shows fingerprints and any movement of something hard on the surface.  I think it was my bracelet perhaps that may have grazed the surface, even though I use a hand guard while I draw.  I'll have to try some tracing paper to experiment with options and see what I can add there to mask the mark.

Jellyfish

I'm keeping drawing foremost in my head lately and have had the idea for this piece in several forms kicking around for awhile now.

Jellyfish are so graceful and lovely floating and pulsating their way through the ocean.  Some are clear, almost glass-like, others have colours, some reflect the light as it filters down through the water.  They do come with a sting in most cases and are usually best seen from a distance in the water.  Often I've seen them from small boats, bobbing along next to it.

This is the start of a coloured pencil piece done on 16" x 20" Canson art board.  It doesn't have much tooth but enough to get the minimal colours needed to capture this creature.  I quite like drawing on black paper and love the contrast it provides.  I know there are some papers that seem to 'absorb' the colour, but I think its more a trick of the eye and lighting.  The dark paper does show through as much as white would in providing light but so far it seems to be working in my favour.

I haven't used this Canson art board before and picked up a few pieces in my last order of art supplies, both in black and white.  Its pretty sturdy stuff and can be used for most dry media and watercolour also.