Life Adventures!
Tag: create
Missing Pages
The Organic Artist
Last weekend on our anniversary celebration, I picked a book at a store in Berrima, N.S.W. called, ‘Six Impossible Things. Last year, I purchased a double-glass inkwell at the store and was delighted to see that they had moved to bigger premises.
Erica owns the store and is very helpful. I picked up a Postal dip pen nib and the book below.
The book seemed way too interesting to leave on the shelf. A few weeks back I was talking to a gallery director in Camden and he gave me a reed and showed me how to cut it so it could be used as a dip pen. Looking at my attempt I think I have more practice ahead of me. Oh well, something is worth doing badly until one becomes better at it.
In my limited look at the book since it appears to go a lot deeper into the technical details of creating such tools. I’m looking forward to exploring it more and having some more Arty fun!
Written by David Johnson
29 November 2022
Sketching Loosely
Expression
A Space To Learn, Create & Express!
As I’m not a full-time Artist I need to be organised enough to find those capsules of time that enable me to play and create. From 1982 to say 2014, Photography was my ‘vehicle of creative escape’. In 2010, I completed a 6-week Drawing course and over the ensuing 8 years Drawing/Sketching/Painting (Oils) and Photography jockeyed for the position of my No. 1 ‘escape from life’ method.
In late 2018, Watercolour came storming back (along with Line and Wash) and, they became an increasing part of my existence. With the commencement of my Watercolour Sketch a Day/Daily Art Practice on 26 January 2019, both of these forms are the predominant way I like to express myself in terms of Art.
In-between though, Oils have been present although my Oil habit has been in hiatus this year, until last week. I intend to do more in Oils and have several ideas in mind for paintings.
Back to my initial sentence.
Not only do I need to find capsules of time, I needed to have a proper space. No actual studio here however. Over time, I have been re-purposing our 3rd bedroom.
On Thursday I purchased an Art and Craft desk which has an adjustable drawing surface. I used for the first time today and love it.
I now have a desk dedicated to Watercolour/Sketching, a desk dedicated to Oil painting and my computer desk. No more re-purposing desks/clearing space for something else and wasting time in the process.
Whilst I do most of my sketching/painting on weekends (apart from the Watercolour sketches that are done each day), I am now looking to schedule some nights during the week when I can avail myself of my ‘creative space’.
There is also a comfy 2-seater cane chair where I can sit back, pick up my Fountain Pen and write Poetry, read or just contemplate…
A space to learn, create and express.
Written by David Johnson
4 June 2022
PS: After writing this I came across the following great article about Artist’s Studios by Judith on her site, Artistcoveries.
Epiphany!
Outside World, Inside View
Expressing Oneself
My 1st Junk Journal
Over time, I’ve been using and researching different types of Journals and of course (as many have discovered) have found out that there’s no such thing as ‘the perfect bought journal’.
It seems the best way to is to make your own. I’ve been watching plenty of YouTube videos, looking at examples online etc and recently, decided to take the plunge.
I chose a rather simple version to start and purchased Watercolour paper, card stock, different weights of paper plus I already had some Calligraphy paper. I decided to start off with an A5 Journal made up of 20 folded A4 sheets. For the cover I’ve used the promo backing cardboard from a packet of Certificate paper. I intend on pasting images on the cover later.
Instead of glueing the signature in, I chose to attempt to sew it instead. I haven’t had much practice at sewing in my life and I am reasonably happy with the result, though I think I can do better next time.
I am pleased to have finally made one as I had been thinking about doing it for some time.
The next thing was to decide actually what to put in it as I hadn’t really decided what the Journal was for…in terms of a theme. I write Poetry and do Watercolour and Line and Wash, normally so I thought a good place to start was to include some images related to the tools I use for create images.
I’m really enjoying my 1st Junk Journal and I already have plans to make more, including one with two or three signatures. Till next time.
Keep creating!
David Johnson
January 2022
Communicating Creatively 