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 :)

Keep Calm Kobo & Interactive Paint

Not mean to be absent for this long ...

It's just the neck pain has come back and seems like no matter what I do or don't do, it just sits there and refuses to go away .... :(

And in order to pick myself up, I had given in to two of my whims.  I got myself a Kobo and ta-dah ... acrylic paint. ;)

The "Keep Calm" Kobo and "Interactive" acrylic paint. 

OK, a bit of Hybrid J trivia here: I love reading and have been an avid reader since the age of 2.  (I used to flip through magazines sitting in my crib when my mum was out doing grocery shopping.  Or at least that's what my mum told everyone.)  And you would seldom see me without a book or carrying some sort of reading materials.  When eBook came out quite sometime ago, I thought it was the most ridiculous idea in the world.  I remembered I told my friends that they'll never catch me reading a book from a computer or any electronic devices.

But over the last few years, I began to see that no matter how often I buy book cases to store my forever growing book collections, there are always books lying around the house waiting to be sorted, read or put away.   And since I started to draw and paint, buying art books become a must.  And gee, those art books are gigantic!  A few of them could easily take up an entire shelf.  I'm sick and tired of doing this "storage catch up game" that I gave in to the idea of eBook.

As soon as the local Borders started selling Kobo about month ago, I bought one.  Well ... there's also another reason I got myself this little gadget.  The Kobo comes pre-loaded with 100 free ebooks of the English Classics. Now, how can anyone walk away from freebies!  Plus when I look at the price of the average eBook - it is almost about 1/3 to 1/2 of the  paperback / hardback version.  By switching to eBook, I'm saving space and money.  Plus I'm now carrying 100 books in my bag and could read it anytime, anywhere!  I think I just became a convert of eBook. :D

I'm re-reading my favourite crime stories - "The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes".

(BTW, my Kobo is actually of black color. I bought a "Keep Calm" gelaskin for it.  Check out the little history of "Keep Calm" by clicking this link.  I also got a Union Jack gelaskin as well.  And yes, you're right, I have a sweet spot of Englishness ...)

Now for the acrylic paint.  Honestly,  I have no idea why I bought it as I'm still learning to use ink. But I guess apart from using it as some kind of retail therapy, I must be under the influence of some of my favourite artists (see the Artist Link on my side bar).  A lot of them are either using acrylic or oil for their paintings.  From fellow blogger / creative, Lisa, I learn that it is easier to correct mistake from acrylic painting.  Probably that's why I want to give it a try.  The brand I bought (Atlier Interactive Acrylic Paint) is an Australian made re-wettable acrylic paint.  It is a new kind of acrylic paint which allows longer drying time for painters to work with.  I won't pretend to know what it means until I use it.

Anyway before I plunge in to use acrylic to paint, I decided to practice a little bit more of color mixing. So far I got my oranges, greens and a few browns.  I'm having troubles of getting more than two shades of purple. Been scratching my head to understand why.  Maybe I should just forget about it and use whatever premix purples the market could offer! ;)

 As of my drawing projects:

- Continue to develop "The Holeys" and will post them as soon as I think they are ready.

-  Hope to be able to start "Sketchbook Project 2011" this month.

That's all for now, my dear fellow bloggers & creatives!  Hope you all have a nice week ahead.  :)

Sketch Book

Yiiiipppppeeee ... finally got the sketch book from Art House Co Op. And now I'm the official participating artist of The Sketchbook Project 2011! :D

(Did you see me holding my neck to an angle and doing a one leg celebratory dance? You should see me. I'm sensational! HAHAHA!)


The theme I pick is: First thing in the morning, last thing at night. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to execute the theme. Sketch / Doodle / Draw / Paint objects, emotions, sensation! What about collage which I've never try before! Oh and the cover? I really want to do a killer work of it. But how?

O.K. enough of panic.

I still got a fair bit of time before I need to finish and send off the sketch book. Plus, I'm in no fit condition to draw right now. This is actually good. I could spend some time to look for ideas as well as brushing up my drawing skill for the project.

As usual, I urge my fellow creatives to join in the project. After all the sketchbook is fairly small. It's about 21 cm (H) x 13 cm (W) OR 8.5" (H) x 5" (W) and consists of 40 blank pages (not including the cover and back cover).

Come on, let's have some fun together!

Sketchbook Project 2011

Art House Co Op just opened another new project - Sketchbook Project 2011. Check out details here.

I've missed the one for this year (damned!) and there's no way I'm going to miss next year's. Yeap, just signed up and from the community link, I saw that I was the 1st Aussie to join in. YEAH!

For the 2011 Sketchbook Project, all the sketchbooks will be on tour to 6 major cities of USA during 2011. They are Brooklyn NY, Austin TX, San Francisco CA, Portland ME, Atlanta GA and Chicago IL. There will also be an online library of the sketchbooks.

All in all, I think it will be great fun to participate and also a great way to work on a project plus connecting to other artists!

So what are you waiting for, my fellow creatives and bloggers? Join in and bring forth our artworks to the States!