Inspired by a song

Many years ago, after dinosaurs roamed the earth and before the age of the Internet, I dabbled in songwriting. I would often try and think of different scenarios and see it in my head like a mini film and then write a song. My page today is inspired by one of those songs called 'Lonely People' (its about being alone in a cocktail bar in the early hours) ...and be thankful I never uploaded the actual recording of it :)
I have added some of the lyrics below so you can (hopefully) imagine the scene too.
 
This will be my last page for my 'Inspired by' theme at AJJ this month. It's a watercolour and a little different for me as I like adding words but didn't as I thought it made it seem more empty and lonely and also I deliberately didn't paint all of the wine bottle.

I staged the scene that I wanted to paint.
Please note that the glass had just a little drop of Marsala in, and the whisky is my husbands although I confess I used the empty bottle of wine from lunch. And the 'Whisky and Wine' in the song lyrics was just artistic license from a rhyming point of view - of course! 

I wasn't sure that I was capable of painting this though - so I decided to take a photo on my tablet to help.

I used a grid I found in the photo editing app and drew a pencil grid in my journal and this definitely helped me to draw more accurate.

For fun I made a digital version as well... 

however she doesn't look very lonely to me

I have had a wonderful fun month with hosting the 'Inspired by' challenge at AJJ (thanks Susi and Elizabeth for having me) and now looking forward to seeing what the July theme is :)

On the first day of June Yvonne's page used a beautiful Gustav Klimt image and I realised I didn't know much about him so I made a note to find out more. But day by day I kept being inspired by other things people mentioned or showed and my list has grown quite long with the last one noted yesterday to investigate Colour theory as mentioned by Susi...  :)

Thank you so much to everybody that joined in with us at AJJ and sharing your amazing pages and what inspired you... and thank you for all your lovely comments left on my blog also.

That's all for now....

Thanks for stopping by,

Have a great day!

Gill x

Inspired again.....

Another piece for 'Art Journal Journey 'Inspired by' challenge.
and as I had so much fun with the Modigliani style painting  I did last week, I really wanted to create another piece inspired by him again. Its mixed media with some collage and a digital quote by Marcel Proust.

I had fun with patterns and mark-making on this and it was a bit of a journey which started with blue card -  a friend gave me a stack of A4 blue and pale yellow card that she didn't want so I am making good use of it :)

I used torn bits from books, dabbing on white paint with no real plan at this point

I used acrylic paint. gouache & Neocolour 2's

The stamped bubbles were using an old wooden stamp made by 'Anitas'

Its sort of looking a bit better - sort of :)

Added lots more colour and defining the lady more

I traced (on tracing paper) over the shape of hair to make a template for her hair which I then cut out of patterned paper and then made a template also for her dress and did the same. 
The beads for the necklace and earrings were done using a shiny red paint used for Pergamano.
The digital quote is by Marcel Proust and the font is called Cheddar Salad BTN Cameo'.
I wanted a quote that fitted with the lack of eyes which are often seen in Modigliani paintings.

The quote says:

 The real voyage of discovery
consists not in seeking

 new landscapes,
 but in having new eyes.  

Thats all for today... have a great day

and thanks for stopping by

Gill x  

Inspired by Elizabeth and TH paper dolls

I've had a packet of those lovely TH paper dolls die cuts with all 'the found ancestors',  since last November and have just looked at them occasionally and 1) wondered what to do with them and 
2) wondered who these people were, what were their stories and what would they think of times now. 
Then the other day I saw a fabulous, humorous page made by Bleubeard and Elizabeth and was inspired to make a page for AJJ 'inspired by' challenge  (there are still several days left to join in this challenge).

So I used one of the TH dolls and sat him on the shoulder of my water colour on mixed media paper.
Also used white and black posca pens and black Stabilo all pencil.
I wrote a quote on hat; something I can imagine an ancestor might say. 
Now I must think of something to do with the other 100 die cuts :)

And because  'Try it on Tuesday' has the theme of 'For the boys' I am linking to them also today :)

That's all for today.. thanks for stopping by...

I'm going to try and keep cool and out of sun today

as we have a bit of a mini heatwave..

hope all well with you wherever you are.

Have a great day

Gill x

Inspired by Nature

It's not hard to be outside in the garden or walking somewhere and see something to be inspired by - who wouldn't be inspired by beautiful tulips?
For today's page for my AJJ 'Inspired By' theme I used both types of gouache paint ( I only recently learnt that there is an acrylic-gouache too)  I used the usual one for the background and the acrylic-gouache (acryl-gouache) for the flowers.

And these were the tulips that I just had to paint

I like to take lots of photos for reference and to just enjoy

and I had to snap the first picking of the radishes

and birds are my favourite so I have lots of bird photos

And today I had a close encounter with a Collared Dove that came very near me to eat.

Yes I know the bird above is a Wood pigeon  :) but I haven't got a photo of him yet... 

but maybe.... just maybe... something magical might happen again ...like this video...

old camcorder footage before things went digital -

 so the video is not perfect quality - but better than the thumbnail looks.

Hope you like it :)

OK thats all for today.... however..

there's still another week left for AJJ 'Inspired By' theme

and we'd love to see you there and see what inspires you.

Huge thanks to everyone who has linked already - such amazing and varied work - and so inspiring!

thanks for stopping by, 

have a wonderful weekend...

Gill x

Inspired by Modigliani

I often find myself drawing little Modigliani style people on scraps of paper because they are fun and it doesn't matter if they don't look totally realistic with their elongated necks etc - the main thing is it gets me practising drawing and also - its just fun to do. 

So my page for AJJ 'Inspired By'  was inspired by the artist Amedeo Modigliani. 
It's mainly watercolour and black pigment pen - drawn first in pencil and I digitally added the quote attributed to him.

 

and for Moo mania 

the theme is 'Arrows'

 

Background colours are gouache, Inktense pencil 

and a little watercolour. Used a couple of mini stamps too.

As its Moo sized it I've enlarged it so you can see it better :)

All from me today.

Thanks for stopping by....

Gill x

Inspired by Orange Esmeralda bowl of prompts

Hello..........
Todays piece for my AJJ theme 'Inspired by' was inspired by the wonderful Sheila aka Orange Esmeralda  
Sheila made a bowl of creative prompts - folded paper with prompts on that can be pulled out anytime to use. I thought this was a great idea, great fun and ideal for occasions where you I don't know what to do or where to begin.
To give it a different twist, I thought about using a dice to help me with the random choosing of things. I wrote a list of prompts, rolled my dice and that resulted in this page.

The idea using the dice was to roll it 6 times and refer to the corresponding number on the list I created - then take that action. And as it was suppose to be fun I allowed myself the use of either Gesso or some colour in between each roll of the dice.

This is the prompt list I made with 6 sections for each roll of the dice.

 When I made this page the numbers the dice gave me were 4-4-6-2-4-6
which meant layer 1 = 4 which was ‘book pages’ so I used dictionary pages and a recipe page from a book Dave didn’t want ( hopefully). I tore the papers up, stuck them down and then used a coat of gesso on that.

 The second roll of the dice also gave me a 4 and looking at my list that meant a 'free choice' so I chose to use Gellatos which I scribbled on top and then using the choice of Gesso between rolls, used that to blend the Gellatos out more.

Next came number 6 which meant add some lines which I did using wax crayons.

 And then once again because I was allowed to either use Gesso or colour between rolls I chose to use some watercolours this time - just a little (a blue and rose madder) but enough to have some 'drippage' on the page.

 The 4th roll of the dice was for the 'Imagery layer' and the '2' meant doing some collage. I found some junk mail that had a nice sofa and cut a word from another advert and stuck that down.

 So before the next dice roll, my paint choice this time was a little Paper Artsy fresco chalk paint in 'mermaid, limelight and bouginvillea' which I added using a damp brush and then dabbed off with a tissue.

 And the 5th roll was a '4' again (this dice seems to like that number) and this time '4' meant adding some faux writing which I scribbled with a white 'Signo uniball broad'.

Then finally my last roll of the dice was another '6' - random? or a weird dice? it only gave even numbers. This '6' was a 'free choice' so I decided to finish the page with a little stencilling using some more of the bougainvillea paint.

I really had fun doing this and will be trying this again and perhaps make some different prompts as well. If you've got a dice maybe you might like to try this sometime too.

 

And if you'd like to join with us at AJJ for the 'Inspired By' theme 

theres still the rest of June to join in :)

Thanks for stopping by today,

have a great day.

Gill x

Inspired by 'Dad'

It is Fathers Day here in the UK today (and also in the U.S)  so to honour and celebrate this, my journal spread today for the 'Inspired by'  theme at AJJ was inspired by my late father.
My dad was one of those lovely gentleman types and I probably was a bit of a daddies girl :) 
When I was a child he took me fishing and swimming and showed me the night sky where I learnt the names of the stars.. he started my interest in birds, nature  and art and all sorts of things.  
He was one of those men that could turn their hand to anything and in later life he dabbled with watercolour painting.

This spread is a mix of stamping, painting and doodling using various watercolour mediums and mostly on paper first before gluing down with a glue stick.

below are just a few examples of my fathers work

Remembering Fathers wherever they may be....Happy Fathers Day xxx

Thanks for stopping by today
Gill x

Inspired by a mug

Little things make me happy and trigger ideas, so today for my AJJ 'Inspired by' theme I was simply inspired by a mug... of the china variety and not a face :)

I drew and then painted my mug in watercolours adding some shadow with a Stabilo all pencil and finished with digitally added the words.

We have a few of these cheerful mugs in different colours with different cakes on and a dotty background and I just love them. Usually they have tea or coffee in and accompanied by a homemade biscuit or occasionally by a piece of homemade cake - made by dear 'hubby' of course not me :)

And if I lack ideas, I always find something
 to be inspired by when walking around my garden

What inspires you when creating?

Was it something you saw or heard, a song maybe,

  or a book or your favourite place,

 a favourite colour, a memory, a dream, another artist,

  or an art product  or something else ?

 

Huge thanks to all the lovely people and their wonderful pages
 that have linked so far this month at AJJ with the 'Inspired by' theme 

We're half way through June but there's still another couple of

 weeks left for the challenge if you'd like to join us  

Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Friday and have a great weekend.

Gill x

Inspired by Rike's Chinese brush painting

Well this was fun but I was really out of my comfort zone with today's  'Inspired by'... page for  AJJ    
My page was inspired by the lovely Rike after I saw  Rike - Chinese brush painting of frogs  
I've have had a set of Chinese brushes for at least 20 years and maybe tried them once or twice but didn't know what to do with them - but now I was really inspired to get those brushes out and find out more about this style of painting. 
First I bought a book 'Chinese brush painting: Flowers' by Joan Lok
and then had to practise the brush strokes...yes I really need more of that too :)
I used watercolours for this....

I cheated on this piece for the writing as it has been added digitally. I used a translator for that of course too - the top says 'who inspires you?' and the bottom just says Art by... and my name.

I am still learning how to hold the brush to do certain strokes and I think if I continue it could take me a fair time to improve with this style of painting 'if' I wanted to do it properly. So its just as well my theme is 'Inspired by' which doesn't mean it has to look like the thing that inspired me exactly - because I did struggle with this a bit as I couldn't get my wrist to move the brush exactly as I wanted - but maybe that's because I have a bit of carpel tunnel in my right hand.

Ye Olde Brush set!

Below is my painting of a Grass Orchid and the reason why I digitally added the Chinese characters on my main piece.
I used inks and water colours and started with a 'Brusho' spritzed background. I got a bit carried away with the Chinese (hopefully) writing and it's probably a lot bigger than it should have been. I used a translator and it says my name  (I hope) :)

OK that's all for today

Hope to see you at AJJ 'Inspired by'

 Thanks for stopping by.
Have a great day.
Gill x