Merry X'mas & Happy New Year!

Sketch Book Project 2011 - Last Update

Finally sent off the Sketch Book yesterday and here are the rest of the spread pages.

Page 10

Page 13

Page 14

Page 15

Page 16

Page 17

Page 18

(For the last image page - Page 18 - I used some of the left over paper strips to make up the page.  Not for any special reasons, just for the heck of it! Hahaha!)

Below are Cover, Intro page (first page before the spread pages) and Thank You page (last page of the Sketch Book).  A word on the Intro page - just a quick note on my idea and the how to.  If you're interested, just enlarge the page to read about it!  ;)

Sketch Book Cover

Intro

THANK You!

Though it had been quite a struggle, it was a good project to stretch my creativity.  It gave me opportunity to observe and understand what sort of creative person I am. I'm still processing it and might write up a post later. Anyway, I think I'll continue with the project next year!

(O.K. What's next ... ??)

Sketch Book Project - More Progress ...

Well, basically I finished the Sketch Book Project last night.  Just waiting to take more pix but here are some which I took over the weekend.

Page 4

Page 5

Page 6

Page 7

Page 8

Page 9

Page 11

Page 12

Not sure if you can see it from the photo, I have re-sized page 11 so that part of page 12 showed through.  And when you look at page 12 (pink page), it's almost like there's a run-away orange speck.

I've read so many artists who have great trouble to part with their work and I thought I would feel the same.  But interestingly, I actually had a great urge to send it off right away.  It's as if I could not wait to rid of it.  I found this a bit alarming as I have spend quite some time working on it.  Especially when I had a bad start for more than 10 spread pages before I changed the idea and execution totally.

Hmmm .... maybe the idea of completing a project hasn't really sunk in yet.  I have to admit that there are lots of time in my life I have "delayed reaction" to happenings.  It's like when I'm in the middle of something, all my energy is spent on dealing with it on a practical level.  It's only afterward, when it's over, then the emotion will start to come out like droplets or at times like currents.

I think I'll let the Sketch Book sit with me for a while before I send it off.  After all, once when it is gone, I'll never get it back.  It will become a permanent sketch book collection of the Art House Co Op.

Well, my dear fellow bloggers and creatives, what do you think of the pages so far?  Any one's your favourite?  I'll tell you mine in the next post.

Cheers and have a wonderful week ahead!

Sketch Book Project 2011 - Progress

As continued from last blog post re Sketch Book Project, here is what's happening to the Sketch Book.

Theme:

First Thing In The Morning, Last Thing At Night 

Idea:

I'm taking a rather "literal" sense of the theme work to think of the 1st thing I "see" in the morning and the last thing I "see" before I drift into dreamland at night.

There is a kind of visual game I like to play, especially when I'm on my own.  I like to close my eyes to see what's inside (behind?) my closed eye lids. Depends on how hard I squeezed my closed eyes together, I could usually see floating specks swimming around.  Don't know what caused them but I'm pretty sure my eyes are in good shape.  (I follow through with my annual eye check.) Anyway, as soon as I remember this game, I decided to use the specks for the Sketch Book Project.

How:

Basically, I'm using "collage" to do the main speck work while I might include some line work for fun!

Each spread page is a representation of the morning (colored, left side) & the night (black, right side) of a day.

Page 1

Page 2

As you can see the morning specks are of color while the night specks are of white.

Page 3

All the color pages and specks are hand glued onto the Sketch Book.  It's a slow process, but I enjoy the meditative quality of this kind of collage work.  Also when working on the specks, I felt like I was doing some form of "paper beading" ;)

Here are the basic tools I used for the paper bead work. The specks are made from using hand punch on color and white paper.

I'll continue to post more of my Sketch Book pages in the coming weeks and would love to here of your comments about this paper bead work.

Cheers and have a wonderful week, my dear fellow blogger and creatives!

Creative Hurdle

It's been almost a month since my last post.  So what's happening?

Work -

It's winding down and I'm about to have 4-weeks off around X'Mas - a much needed time for rest and creative work! ;)

Creative Projects -

Got myself into way too many projects and tutorials.  Hence I've been freaking out often, which was not good when you're on a deadline to finish a project such as the Sketch Book Project.

I've been drawing onto the sketch book for a week or so last month.  Before I started with the drawing, I was concerned that the paper were quite thin that whatever I drew would show off on the next page.  After a few rounds of googleing, I learn of several ways to overcome that.  But I was too stubborn to follow my so called "artistic vision" that I refused to do anything about it.

After about filling up 10 spread pages, I found myself got bored with the Sketch Book.  Though I knew I had to finish it in time for submission (and, trust me, I have HUGE respect to any schedule), I found myself avoiding to go near the work table.  Something was not right!

While I was mulling over the Sketch Book, I also began learning a few art journal techniques.  One of it is "collage" which re-acquaint me to scissors, glue stick and double sided tape.  As I was trying out a new journal page, the penny dropped.

The main reason why I didn't want to go near the Sketch Book was my stupid EGO.  I didn't want to admit that my so called "artistic vision" was just plain stupid and I let my EGO to blind me to my instinct - the thin paper issue.

As soon as I had this realization, I started to panic.  I thought it would take me a while to struggle with my ego before I knew what to do.  And thanks to one of the tools for art journal, DOUBLE SIDED TAPE (which I now named as the Greatest Invention of the Century), I had my solution.

I spent about 2 nights to tape the pages together to make it thicker.  This reduces the book to about 20 spread pages. And I've also figured out a new way to work on the theme.  I won't talk too much about the execution now as I'm still experimenting with it.  Hopefully, I'll have something to show in a week or two so that I could explain to you what I'm doing with my theme: First Thing In The Morning, Last Thing At Night.

Here are the before and after (double sided tape) of the Sketch Book for your musing.

Before "Double Sided Tape" - see the drawing of next page shown underneath original drawing ... Arrrrrggghhh!

After "Double Sided Tape" - Now I have new spread pages to work on :)