I like birds...

I gave spent the weekend trying to come up with ideas for Christmas cards. The pictures have been copied from images found in books but I really enjoyed doing them. I am getting more and more relaxed with my drawing skills now, but really feel I need to loosen up quite a bit! I want to get much more flowy and free with my drawing. I try to put far too much detail in and fiddle around when I should stop.

Until I began this process of rediscovering my creative self, I had forgotten how graphic my art is. When I did my art foundation course (in the late 1980s) I focused on fine art. I feel now I should have focused on graphics. Why did nobody tell me?

Anyway, here are a couple of coloured pencil and ink studies I came up with as card ideas, I'm not going to use these but I quite like the studies anyway. I shall post the actual card design, after I have sent them out to friends and family!

I am also posting an ink and watercolour study I did of some pebbles. I love rubble! If I had been clever at science at school, I would have loved to have studied geology. But I wasn't, so I satisfy myself with a sizeable rubble collection. The picture is of fossils, pebbles, sea-glass and ceramics, found on beaches in Yorkshire and Northumberland.

When I have a minute I will design myself a better banner - the one I have at the moment is rubblish!!

Baby steps...

Here is a basic little picture I have produced of the old lighthouse at Flamborough on the Yorkshire coast. It is going to be a thank you card for my sister-in-law, who spends half her life there, I do hope she likes it!

I have had my day off from my 'proper' job and have spent as much of my time as possible producing some still life work, and trying to learn to use my paints a little better. I really wish I had kept a hand in with my drawing over the last few years, but sadly I have been rolling along with the rat-race, feeling that art work was far too luxurious a thing to be spending my free time on when other jobs needed to be done. When I get the chance I will scan some pictures and upload them - maybe this coming weekend. I hope that as the weeks and months pass, there will be a noticeable improvement in my work!

Many years ago I was self employed, producing hand-painted fabrics and textiles along with a very good friend I met at art college. Our business did well, on paper, but we never managed to earn enough to actually give ourselves any kind of livable wage. It's a sad fact that that's just how it is for many creative people. So, the art gear was packed away, only to be dusted down a couple of times and never with any serious thought to trying to pursue a living out of it again. I think my confidence had taken a rather large battering too. But life is too short to let that govern your life.

However, I'm older and (a little) wiser and, am looking to hopefully begin to earn from my art work again. If I can just get enough to pay the mortgage and the bills, that would be a wonderful start. We'll see. For now I won't give up the day job!