A Mixed Media Face with the Unexpected Gypsy

As one of the Patreons of the British artist Wendy Robinson, The Unexpected Gypsy, we get monthly videos showing us how Wendy creates her art step-by-step.

They're instructive and inspiring, and feel like a cozy visit with The Unexpected Gypsy herself.  You can find out more about The Unexpected Gypsy's Patreon, follow this link:

patreon.com/theunexpectedgypsy

I created this face by following along with Wendy's latest video.  She started the process with a loose watercolor sketch.

We added in skin tones and shadows.

Deepened some of the shadows,

and layered on more skin tones.

We let our faces dry, and began adding Prismacolor colored pencils to define the features.

Having the control of a sharpened colored pencil allowed me to fix problems I had with the tip of this imaginary woman's nose.

The Prismacolors were easy to blend.

Creating rich, layered colors, like the complexities of the lips.

Taking your time with a project like this allows you to relax into the process.

And when you're done, you've expressed a part of yourself.  You can give your person a name, and ask them if they have any messages to share with you.

I hope you give this process a try!

Happy creating!

Copyright 2024 Betsy Bangley.  All rights reserved.

Valentines Wrap-Up

I created a block print in January to use as my Valentine's Day card artwork, and printed up a stack. You can find that post here:https://betsyblissart.blogspot.com/2024/01/a-valentine-print.html

The only step remaining was to glue each artwork to a blank card, inscribe it and pop it in the mail.

I set up a work station on the floor, cranked up my favorite music, and got to work.

A basket of hand-painted papers, that I created earlier, caught my eye, so I started incorporating them into the cards.  You can find photos of the papers here:

https://betsyblissart.blogspot.com/2023/12/painted-collage-papers-for-care-december.html

My original plan was simply to glue the prints directly to cards, but the painted papers added so much more life to the final card.

A recent visit to the Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse turned up four bottles of Higgins permanent ink in shades of pink, magenta, green and purple, perfect for Valentine's cards!

Dropping the cards into the mail lifted my spirits, thinking of my friends and family who would receive them.

Handmade greeting cards are a great way to share your art and show your love for someone.  I hope you give card-making a try!

Copyright Betsy Bangley 2024. All right reserved.

Drawing in the Museum

I'm teaching a course for Osher at CMU called Drawing in the Museum.  We meet in the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History each week and tour one of the exhibit halls, making sketches of the artworks and items on display.

We began in the Museum of Natural History's Halls of North American Wildlife, African Wildlife and Botany.

The following week, we moved on to the Hall of Architecture, where we found statuary, columns and facades to illustrate in our sketchbooks.

The museums allow visitors to draw, but only with graphite pencils and sketchbooks small enough to fit on your lap.

Those requirements make copying oil paintings particularly challenging.  

We invite our intuition to lead us in figuring out how to create the textures and values we see in the paintings with our pencils.

My sketch of the painting "Head of a Woman" by Eugene Carriere.

You can see the original here:

https://collection.carnegieart.org/objects/247c15b1-2c83-4972-a02e-8310762d5464

Drawing in the museum is an age-old technique for learning from the masters.  When you draw something, you see it more deeply than when you simply glance by it.

When was the last time you went to a museum?  Why not take a pencil and a sketch book along with you and sketch your favorite artwork?

Travel Journal: Florida

I escaped to Florida this winter, and took my travel journal and a small art kit along with me.

A vacation is a great time to play with your art supplies!

You can record the little details of your trip, and later you'll have a memory book to look back on.

I used a sketchbook I had taken on a previous trip to Florida.  You can see that entry here.

I began with rough sketches of the waterbirds

Each sketch you make helps you to see your subject -- here a shorebird -- better and to draw it more accurately.

We encountered Magnificent Frigatebirds on our trip.  Amazing masters of riding air currents, they remain aloft for days and months at a time.  You can see how taken I was by these massive birds -- I made a lot of sketches of them!

The dune grasses bent by the ocean breezes created lovely shapes and graceful curves.

Peering over the crest of the dune, I found a wild sunflower blooming -- in January!

The ocean carries a variety of interesting flotsam and jetsam, to the beach.  This coconut and seaweed sprig washed up on the shore.  

The first few days of our trip were overcast and windy, and you can see the gray sky in this watercolor sketch.

Sometimes, the tiniest things tell the story of the beauty of the beach.

This beach was decked with a variety of intricate seashells and driftwood. 

Are you planning any travel?  I hope you take along a journal and a few art supplies!

Happy creating! 

Copyright Betsy Bangley 2024. All rights reserved.

More Burnishing with Colored Pencils

Artists often work in a series, coming up with an idea, then tinkering with different versions of the idea.  This allows them to experiment freely without concern for making any one iteration "perfect" or even "pretty."

My burnishing practice led me to experiment a bit more.  I wanted to reduce the heaviness of the heart outline and explore breaking the boundary of the inner heart and the outer space with squiggly lines.

I used a larger, sturdier piece of paper this time -- tan, 184 pound, mixed media paper.

Here's the progression of the project from start to finish.

After laying in a variety of pinks, magenta, crimson, scarlet and a dash of lavender within the heart, I began burnishing, pressing down hard on the colored pencil and creating a rich area of color. 

Above is burnishing with a magenta pencil.  Each step mixes the colors and tips the balance in the favor of the last color layered on.

I wanted to connect the interior of the heart with the outer space with these energy lines.  Eventually, I added active lines to the interior of the heart, too.

White colored pencil added over the layers of magenta, crimson, scarlet and pink brightened these areas to create a highlight, and made the heart more round and plump.

Burnishing with a white pencil blends the colors below as it lightens them.

If I continue with this series, I would like to experiment with making the interior swirls and swoops more pronounced.

I hope you take time to experiment with burnishing.  Just playing around can lead to more ideas for projects, and pretty soon you're on your way to creating 

Mark Making for Pencil Drawing Class

Today is the start of Beginner's Pencil Drawing Class at the Community College of Beaver County.  On the first day of class, we practice mark making.  It's a wonderful way to get familiar with your art supplies and to give yourself permission to play.

I began with an ink brush, creating on old book pages.  

Each different medium - ink brush, pen, pencil, etc. has its own magic for creating marks, and it's relaxing to discover what sorts of things each medium excels at.

Mark making is a great way to see your own style develop if you are new to art.  Even if you were to copy another artist's marks as closely as you could, you would be creating in your own hand. 

It's a good practice in fact to visit a museum and copy the marks or even the whole composition of a master artist.  You learn so much through the process.

So long as you don't claim the work as your own original idea, it's perfectly ethical.

I find mark making a relaxing project, good for when you don't have much time, or for when you've seen another artist's work and been inspired.  It can be a form of notetaking on the marks you saw that you liked.

Next time you are stuck waiting in your car, or have 10 minutes to fill, try grabbing a sketchbook (or even the back of an envelope!) and a pencil and making marks. It's a great way to keep your creative gears turning.

Burnishing Practice

I've been exploring taking my time and simply playing with my art supplies.  I recently decluttered my studio workdesk, and though it might not appear uncluttered from the photo below, it's way tidier than it was!

I can now see my colored pencils in their jars right in front of me as I work, and I find I'm more likely to reach out and grab a few colors and put a sketch in my journal.

The colored pencil drawing of the heart above was the result of telling myself to take my time and practice burnishing with the colored pencils -- layering one color over another, then coming back and shifting the color balance as you go.

The burnishing process is relaxing, especially if you start with a simple shape or symbol.  Hearts are a favorite symbol of mine, but perhaps you'd rather start with a circle, a triangle or a leaf shape.  

Choose what's appealing to you.

Then pick colors -- using colors that are next to each other on the color wheel will create a harmonious scene with all of the colors getting along well.

Feel free to experiment as your intuition suggests.

I hope you have fun creating, allowing yourself time to burnish, explore and simply play!