What's new

In terms of finished work-not much, but I've sure been busy.
The last two days have been filled with trying to clear up unfinished business from Module 2 of my Sketchbook workshop.  My stumbling block was in my lack of understanding regarding making a sketchbook collage, but finding a critical video helped me sort out what was expected of me. So having painted more pages yesterday, today I set out to make a collage.  It had been suggested that  we find some item within our household area that was both colourful and meaningful.  Well  my white kitchen and white dishes didn't work, but I found a small plate that was a souvenir from a visit to Cuba, and decided to use that.

First I wanted to use a wash of colour over the background, and while that was drying, I created a pattern for a fish using the plate for inspiration--much more than inspiration if the truth be known.
Here is the plate and the remnants of the paper pattern I created from it.

The pieces are ready to paste down, but that will be for tomorrow.  then I'll have to add the details, by hand. I'm wanting to add a couple of long skinny seaweeds as well, and have to figure that out before getting the glue out.

Here are a couple of other sketchbook pages. the first one was using a photo, and then integrating it into the book by adding colour.  It was also a experiment in exploring the effect when oil pastel is used  on paper before adding water colour, as is shown in the table top the mugs are sitting on.

One of the first exercises was sketching with a pencil and using the sketch as the basis for a simple water colour.  Probably to help the students become comfortable with the water colour paints that were provided as part of the workshop.

This third piece is again using a photo, and integrating it into the page.  I first used a water colour wash over the page.  Then I added the orange bits.  The black was my experiment with using a water colour crayon that I received in a mail order instead of the Acrylic paint pen I thought I had ordered.  Won't make that mistake again. I cut the photo in half and put half on each side, then again, tried to integrate the photo into the page by extending various parts of it into the background. Not a great result but better than I expected. 

 In the end, I think I've finished with Module 2 and look forward to starting module 3.  I've been holding off, telling myself that the experience will be my reward for conquering the darn collage.