more recent sketches

Most of these were created the same weekend as the ones in the previous post. A lot of these sketches are spontaneous images - suggested by colours or forms that I've pasted on the blank pages. I rarely start with an image in mind, but let whatever wants to unfold happen. All images created using collage, Crayola wax crayons, coloured pencil, pencil and china markers.





The above image started as an exercise with Crayola washable markers.

green stars #2

I think this drawing (from one of my art journals) was actually created before green stars #1. The image is made with Crayola wax crayons and black china marker.

I love working in an art journal, because as I write and draw on future pages, the colours from earlier, adjacent pages become imprinted upon each other, adding to the visual complexity and rhythm to the images.

yellow stars

This collage is from one of my art journals. The Post-it Notes contain lists of people I had to call. The image is coloured with Crayola crayons and black china marker.

starry sky #2

The curious child's eyes began to droop, and the Grandparent gently carried the curious child to bed.

This illustration changed part-way through its creation. I started with a magazine photograph for the grandparent's face, but didn't like it and pasted an inkjet print of one of my drawings over top (you can just see the remains of the first face in the upper right corner). The star is a scrap of envelope. Everything is coloured with Crayola crayons and black china marker.

starry sky

The curious child stared up at the heavens and asked, "Are there more?"

The child's face is a photocopy of a magazine photograph, and the stars are drawn on scraps of paper. Everything is coloured with Crayola crayons, plus black and white china markers.

grandparent

The curious child stared up at the heavens and asked, "What are the names of the other lights we can't see with our bare eyes?"

This collage contains scraps of construction paper, a photocopy, and a magazine page. I was getting tired by the end of the story (I created most of the illustrations in chronological order), and started getting really inventive with my colours (hence the brown sky).

I love the elderly woman's face with her kerchief tied around her head. She has timeless eyes...

grandparent and child

The curious child stared up at the heavens and said, "Grandparent, there are fast lights, bright lights, reddish lights, and large lights... but are there slow lights?"

This image contains a scrap of a photocopy (the face, from a photograph in a book), and an old Post-it Note. The background of the grandparent figure is blue construction paper. The head of the child and the hands are scraps of white paper. Everything is coloured with Crayola crayons and black china marker.

It was important to me that the figures of the grandparent and the child not be gender-specific. Sometimes they seem to be female, and other times male. Curiously, most of the children I taught assumed they were male.

sunset

They watched the sun slip below the horizon, and slowly the lights of the night appeared.

The curious child stared up at the heavens and said, "Grandparent, tell me about the stars in the sky."

This in another illustration from my solar system story. There are many collaged elements: an inkjet print of an old drawing of mine (the sun/face), a scrap of magazine page (the blue advertisement) and some yellow construction paper (the star). Again the image is coloured over with Crayola crayons and black china marker.

starfish

This was one of my early collages made from magazine pages. The entire image is two pages wide: this is the right side. I used Sharpie pens to make the black lines, but quickly tired of this technique, since the solvents in Sharpies give me a headache.

I have an obsession with stars - they're in a lot of my drawings and collages. Fish, too.

green stars

I got addicted to Sudoku puzzles a couple of months ago, and used to do two or three of them per day. The finished puzzles got added to my stack of paper ephemera to use in collages, of course!