recent sketchbook spreads

I haven't created much art lately, being too busy with my new job. But last weekend I took a much-needed break from working, and spent hours with my sketchbooks, just playing around. All images are collage, with Crayola wax crayons and occasionally pencil, coloured pencil, or china markers.

apple #3

This is one of my all-time favorite drawings of mine. I don't normally like to make overly realistic drawings, but sometimes everything just works. That apple on the left looks like it wants to pop right off the page. I can almost feel its texture against my teeth. I can taste it...

The drawing started out with some colour laid down with Crayola washable markers. I sprayed the ink with water to make it run, and after it was dry I went in with coloured pencils and added all the details.

apple #2

This apple was actually created before apple #1; if you look closely, you'll see that the apple image in the latter is actually a computer-generated print of this drawing. I frequently use a print of this original image on the front of my handmade art cards.

The drawing was one in a series of coloured pencil works I did of fruit. I stopped half-way through, unhappy with the way I'd rendered the reflection in the lower half of the apple, and made notes to myself about what I would have done differently.

apple #1

I started this blog fully intending to post daily or near-daily, and now it's been six days since my last post. Life has intervened, I guess. That, plus I felt too tired to post whenever I thought of it recently.

I just completed an ongoing art journal and started a new one. This collage is from my new journal. The apple image is a colour inkjet print of an old drawing that I often use on my handmade note cards. My printer's yellow ink was running out, so the image ended up magenta. I hate to waste anything, and added the misprint to this collage.

I'm toying with the idea of creating a bunch of fabric patchwork pieces right now, and I find that every time I draw, I start creating large blocks of colour - hence the patchwork-y nature of the colours in this collage. The pencil text is part of a journal entry.

The journal was originally an art project for a first-year studio course I took at university, and I've ripped out some of the pages to make room for the collages (if you don't rip out pages, the finished book gets too thick). I've left some of the pages behind, and the phrase "a Book of Shadows" comes from the original art project. I created a book of children's rhymes and "spells" for a performance piece, and read from the book during the performance.