42nd-street

42nd-street

Went to see a great production of 42nd Street for my birthday.

I didn't have any black acrylic or gesso on hand, so I used the kids Poster paint, not really ideal as it is not waterproof when dry and smears a lot. Had to seal it with fixative to work on it further. The neon signs were drawn with gold pilot pen and coloured with watercolour pencils.

in Moleskine sketchbook

Dance

Dance
Originally uploaded by JournalEYES

A study for a larger artwork I am thinking of doing

Watercolour crayons and gesso in Moleskine Sketchbook

The Road

The Road
Originally uploaded by JournalEYES

“Just finished reading Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Road’ and felt inspired to do a journal page. I wanted to try out a new material - Safmat, a transparent film, from Letraset that you can print onto.

I edited a couple of photos of winter trees in photoshop and printed them onto the Safmat. I then peeled off the backing and stuck the transparent film with the printed image into my Moleskine sketchbook. I had used a grey PanPastel on the page first, deliberately patchy, to create the dusty landscape depicted in the book.

Quite pleased with the Safmat, it is very thin and ‘almost’ invisible, so a good way of getting photos into your journal without creating too much bulk.”

Too many clocks...

Too many clocks...
Originally uploaded by JournalEYES

Things are getting ridiculous - I had to adjust 29 clocks when we changed to British Summer Time last week...

Pitt pen and soft pastels on Moleskine Sketchbook

Sophie's Bear

Originally uploaded by JournalEYES

My daughter's bear has played such an important part in her life that I wanted to make sure I captured the memory - what better place than in my journal.

The drawing was done in a Moleskine Sketchbook with watercolour pencils, the photo was an inkjet photo transferred with Sheer Heaven - see technique on my blog here -

Journal Craft Inspirations blog

Ebony's favourite toy

Ebony's favourite toy
Originally uploaded by JournalEYES

Ebony has been having such fun with the toy she got for Christmas I thought it would make a good subject for a journal page.

Moleskine sketchbook and watercolour pencils

Hand study watercolour

hand study watercolour
Originally uploaded by JournalEYES

Moving on from the hand studies we did in charcoal last week. Learning to create flesh tones in watercolour.

Hand studies in charcoal

hand studies charcoal
Originally uploaded by JournalEYES

First attempt at drawing with charcoal since High School (hated it then!), but I must say I quite enjoyed it today - I think I have become less timid. These studies were done for my Art and Drawing class.

Charcoal on cartridge paper.

Sophie's self-portraits

Sophie's self-portraits
Originally uploaded by JournalEYES

When my daughter left primary school recently, the school presented us with a folder containing all her school reports and a series of self-portraits that she had drawn each year. It was such a lovely leaving gift.

It is interesting to see them all side-by-side showing the developmental stages of her drawing skills - the first one features the all important belly-button that all children seem to include in their early pictures! and the last one the introduction of shading. It is also interesting to see when she chose NOT to draw the glasses that she has worn since the age of 6...

Cactus

A prickly subject.... again painted at the garden centre.

There is something very interesting about this particular garden centre, it is a family owned business, and one of the original founders is a lady of 101 and she still comes in to work every day! Well they say doing what we love keeps us young - she must be the proof...