Christmas gifts

A quick sketch of my Christmas gifts:

I am now the proud owner of a sewing machine! Second hand, but it works fine. That black thing in the middle is a heat dish - in case anybody wonders. I know, it looks like a panda bear ...

Winter watercolors

When I put up the Christmas tree, some branches were left over. I sketched them last week - with my right hand.

Garlic and onion

Another left-hand sketch of the humble garlic and onion from the fridge. I tried a different experiment - using the first sketch as an inspiration for an abstract-ish sketch. Ink, dip pen, watercolor.

Ink Bottles

Another leftist experiment...and to think that I run away from a communist country only to have a change oa heart late in life!

 

I sketched the first two bottles with my left hand and the one at the bottom with both hands simultaneously. This one was weird - trying to coordinate both hands. At the same time, it lets me off the hook in a way. I cannot expect my sketches to be too realistic after all, right?

Gingerbread cookies

Quick left-handed sketch. The cookies were a door prize at the running club's Christmas party. The forth one did not make it to the sketch stage ... and these three survived only 10 sec after I finished the sketch. They were too yummie ...

Illustration hijacked ...

I wanted to try something different - illustrate a story. Not really a story, but a weekend trip I took to lake Atitlan in Guatemala. I remember the lake, the mountains, the boat rides, the heavy rain, a small fishing boat in the middle of the lake, a dog, purple flowers ... but I had no idea how to bring all this on canvass. I decided to go with the flow, as usual. Everything went sort of ok until I started having "visions" again - the vision of the bird in the upper left corner. Maybe it is a quetzal on a tree branch, I thought. Then, I saw the eye, which in turn turned the branch into an alligator...and even an one-eyed one-legged monster ...

Illustration Friday - mail

Collage with coffee-stained papers and found papers for this week's topic - mail.

Christmas decorations

This year I decided to go low-tech for my Christmas decorations. I remembered I used to make paper guirlands every year when I was a child, so I did a few of those. I then glued and stapled bits of paper, then hang them with raffia. When I was at Home Depot to choose paint for the office, I could not refrain myself from picking up some extra paint chips. They made their way in the tree, too. I covered toiled papaer rolls in decorative papers, then cut them. I found some left over felt and turned and made few "raviolis" - stuffed with shredded papers.

I am pleased with the results. I spent some money on three circle punches and in retrospect, they were not necessary. Otherwise, the cost was 0 as I used papers from the recycling bin.

Remember prayer

For this spread, I did not want to paint the background first. I wanted to avoid having "visions" again. Instead, I started by gluing down images and did some automatic writing, then I added found poetry on the right page. Interesting experiment, but I think I would have prefered the "visions"...

Experiment

I decided to try an experiment altering papers. I wanted to use nature to alter papers. This is usually done by burrying papers for a while, but I cannot do it this way because I do not have a backyard. I decided to put the papers in a plastic bag and keep it on the balcony for the winter. I poked few wholes in the bag to let the water drain and I added few leaves. These are the papers as they were:

 

We'll see what happens in spring ...

Illustration Friday - prehistoric

Of course, the first thing that crossed my mind were dinosaurs. Predictable, I know. I decided to go with the flow and I completed the illustration with my left hand. This way, I can say it is not my fault the drawing is so-so, it is my left hand's fault :)

Flower girl

Last time I cleaned around the office, I found an old Vogue magazine. It must have been a spring issue because almost each page had flower pictures. It came to mind that I could use the flowers to collage a face. It took me for ever to do it, and it is only 6 x 6. I put a coat of gloss varnish, I think next time I will skip it.

Now I also see a black bird in the lower left corner. I will detail it a bit with pen and ink.
I have a lot of respect for collage artists, all artists really. I saw great portraits made of the teeniest bits of papers...