Tag Archives: nanojoumo

nanojoumo #3- inspire

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nanojoumo- inspire
Originally uploaded by lessherger

I had to think to myself what inspires me, then I had to think what doesn't? This is my way of thinking about that.

I sketched out the globe behind the figure first and then sketched in the image of the face, uplifted and with a smile. The next time I decide I want to draw a face on the fold punch me in the throat.

I used my ink brush (fine koi water brush filled with india ink) and inked in the face, body and around the world. I used watercolors to add color to the world and deliberately left the face black and white. I colored in the "shirt area" with watercolor pencil. Using a brush I filled in the black background with india ink and a brush. I spritzed the shirt area with water to allow the ink to run down it.

I hit all that with my drier and dried it out. I then used my gelly roll pen to add some fine line doodles and swirls. I used a brush with liquatex silver ink to add more depth and then added some white acrylic to add more swirls and doodles.

You can't see how awesome and neato the silver ink is in the pictures. Also the curve in the face distorts the face more than it is in reality and makes the whole thing look kinda weird in the photo. I'm not overly happy with it as a finished piece, but I tried to make this a little less complex than the last few images I did.

nanojoumo- purity

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nanojoumo- purity
Originally uploaded by lessherger

I get a kick out of all the online "purity" groups. SO when the word purity came up for nanojoumo day 2 I had to lampoon it. The purity "logo" was put online as a purity card for a church group. It looks far cooler here than it did on the card. I pulled the card in to MS Publisher, reversed it and resized it to be about 8×10, i then printed it off onto a sheet of transparency film. I put it on the right side of the film this time and used a great deal of matte medium to transfer it to the pages.I had to cut it into 2 pieces to get it on, and I'll tell you the fold was a beast. the original logo was clearly going for a "urban and graph" feel. So the tendency of the transfer was a perfect medium to really take it there. I then outlined the letters with my pentouch pen, pressed down to get dribbles and runs. While that dried I looked at hundreds of images of scantily clad women bent over various objects, and quite frankly there are things that can't be unseen. Just the very act of attempting to find the image for the right corner has left my brain irreparably damaged. The things I do for art. I found the perfect picture, of a woman, scantily clad washing a car. I wanted the legs to frame the corner, so I first drew the leg for the right most side in soft pencil, added the crotch area and then the left leg. Next was to mix up some white person flesh tone and layer it over the drawing. I added her thong and it's all set. I blocked in some green coloring to set off the legs. Then I mixed up some gesso really thin and used a liner brush to spatter it on the page…

Maybe not the most pure purity page, but it's exactly what popped into my head when I first saw the word as the prompt.

art journaling progress and an update.

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Its been a quiet but beautiful couple of days here. Warm and windy perfect Halloween weather. Also great art journaling weather. I had hoped to get out yesterday and draw at the park or beach but it ended up being far too windy for that. Instead I sat at home and made 2 technique videos and a possible video for materials. I thin that the art journal materials video would be better as a page on this blog than a video.

The second new video isup on youtube and I'll put it at the end of this entry behind a cut for faster loading. I'm still getting used to the camera but so far so good.  It can only get better from here.

If you haven't heard about the storm taking over the art/ visual journaling world here it is NaNoJouMo! Head on over to d'Blogola to get more info and the daily one word prompts. The idea is to work in your art journal everyday, which is a goal I can get behind. You don't have to finish a page every day just put something into your journal everyday. I'm not sure I'll be able to do it everyday, considering what is going on for me from the 18th to the 30th of November. I 'll be in Maine then while my Mom has open heart surgery and then I'll be getting her settled back home and cooking Thanksgiving dinner. The surgery has already made its way into my journal in the form of lots of anatomical hearts and rib cages.

Over the next week I'm going to be shooting videos for the rules of art journaling- I've posted about them here before, so we'll see how that translates to the tiny screen.

I've been working on some transfer techniques in my journal. Years ago when I was working for a crazy company that had taken over a building that had previously housed a rug store and previous to that an audio visual sales warehouse we founds several boxes of inkjet transparency film.* I should have snagged it all but convinced myself I shouldn't DOH! Sadly I've only got 50 sheets left but oh what a blast it's been. First thing I learned- print on the right side of the film. If I accidentally print on the wrong side of the film the images are a total bitch to get off the plastic sheet. Oh and let me tell  you how awful it is. I'm surprised the neighbors didn't call the cops due to my cursing. I prevailed and I have several nice transfers in my journal. The other thing I learned? Don't use too much matte medium. Yup. Need to find just the right amount. Liberal spreading of the medium and moderate bone folder pressure and not allowing it to dry completely is best. I may do a video on it. It could be a fun thing to try with my own drawings as well as the fun anatomical clip art I found on line here. It says it's for educational use, but I recognize many of the images from a giant clip art book I bought in college that was copyright free.

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