Floating Lemons: Bit by Bit Blog

40: Pink Cake for Lani!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LELANI!

This is for Lelani who turns 9 today. Her favourite colours are pink, purple and blue.

A quick one, as I have guests this weekend. Am still trying to figure out how to proceed as far as my art is concerned, but am far more relaxed about it. I'll get there ... and meanwhile thank you for all the messages, advice and encouragement, they are all excellent and truly appreciated. Helps to give me some direction and that's no mean feat at the moment ... :)

39: Closed Gate

I really need to make some changes. Start with something fresh and new ... I love what I've been drawing but am tired of the same old detailed work and my head hurts and my eyes ache. Am a bit stuck in a rut at the moment I think, any ideas folks?

This was another quick one ... it's one of the gates I pass by on my daily walks with the dogs on the way into the village. I do love the textures of the stone and was very much inspired to do this by the absolutely amazing detailed work of a good friend, horrigboy, on Flickr. When I grow up i want to draw and paint just like him ... :)

But right now I think I need a bit of a break to figure out which direction I want to run to ... am procrastinating with starting up on the acrylics too. sigh. Cheers!

38: Dare Me Diva

Another quick fun sketch ... I'm working on a larger one so am doing some rapid ones in between:)

This is for another good friend who is one of two with the extraordinary and humbling ability to make me laugh till (please don't say what you're about to say, Mark, it's not fit for pubic consumption!) my stomach hurts ... :) To be taken lightly of course and with a huge sprinkling of humour ... love you loads Daph!!

Hmmm I may have to do a series of this for other insane mates of mine, they keep me sane ...

37: Clouds In My Coffee

This was quick, simple and a lot of fun to do though the scan has made it a lot 'rosier' than it is in real life. The clouds are WHITE (not pink) in the real drawing, I promise you! I give up with this scanner ... I may end up buying a new one, ack.

I love it when drawing from the imagination, I'm learning to throw all the rules out the window and just play. Enjoyed this one -- I knew immediately what I wanted to draw and it's wonderful when that happens.

On a more personal note: Funnily enough, I also had two friends in mind when I drew it. And yes, I do mean in a very tongue-in-cheek, fun, and excellent old times, way :). They're very special friends and creative individuals, and perhaps the fact that they share a birthday has a lot to do with the fact that they both constantly challenge me mentally ... there's nothing better than intellectual stimulation, say my fleeing gray cells ...! This drawing IS about them, and great memories.

36: Top Snail

Meant to be a simple drawing for the monthly challenge at Botanical Art: any botanical of your choice with a bug or an insect included. Here's my twig with snails attached! Hope it counts.

The scanner has managed to screw this one up some, so it's a bit more blue and overexposed than it should be ... sigh. Ah well, I give up battling, and give in ...

I felt this drawing to be pretty symbolic of my own situation recently: patience and perseverance. Bit by Bit and eventually one reaches one's goal, right? Am not too sure about the top of a dead twig being the best choice but hey, each to his/her own :)

When I returned from my trip to Malaysia, it was to find millions (I am NOT exaggerating) of these teeny white snails all over the terrace and garden. i hate killing just about anything (mosquitoes are fair game I'd say as they're after my blood and they buzz frustratingly all night ...) so it was pretty horrendous walking around hearing crunching sounds from under my shoes eeeeugh. Sigh. They're about as big as half the fingernail on my little finger though they come smaller and slightly larger too ... millions, I promise you. Must go take a photo of it soon as it looks like it's been hailing white snails out there.

P.S.: To those of you who are visiting now, here's a link to a post with some photos of the snails in 'real life': Snails snails snails 

Top Snail Card at Zazzle

35: Guitar

Guitar Card at zazzle

I'm sure that in art, as in life, our minds conveniently create blocks to prevent us from considering the consequences of our actions or decisions ... If we knew how difficult some things would turn out to be, we would never attempt them. As with the above drawing ...

My ex-husband is visiting me at the moment. He's a great guy and we're still good friends, so that isn't as strange as it might sound :) He's also a musician, so of course I saw his guitar and thought, hey, that would make a great drawing .... ack. Conveniently forgot about the strings and bits and pieces, didn't I? Oh yes, and the STRINGS, have I mentioned those? It ended up taking me AGES. And a lot of frustration and cursing, but I persevered, as you can tell.

If any of you out there would like to see me bash my head against the wall (especially any guitar afficionados who are examining my drawing and saying, "Hey, that's not quite right!"), then please, just go ahead and point out the numerous mistakes--all of which I am well aware-- and sit back and enjoy the show :D

Peter (Pete Ross and the Paesanos) has a great voice so take a peek and have a listen, at his sites at MySpace and on Facebook's iLike. Enjoy!

34: Floating Koi

EDM Challenge 166: Draw a Fish

Floating Koi White Card at zazzle

I've been a bit stumped as to what to draw recently ... so went through my photographs and came across some I'd taken of the monstrous carp or koi at my father's place ... they are huge and beautiful, and so I decided to finally put them down on paper. First time I've used only one brand of pencils for a drawing: Caran D'Ache's Luminance 6901. They're gorgeous, though they're soft and need lots of sharpening to retain the fine points I like to work with. Love them!

Once again I had a problem with the background. After my experience with the artichoke I decided not to colour in a background as yet, but have superimposed the fish onto one of my older coloured pencil textured backgrounds just to see how it looks:

Floating Koi Blue Card at zazzle

I kinda like it ... also have to point out the fact that in the photograph there were absolutely no shadows and the water in the pond was so clear that you could see the pebbly ground (which I was NOT about to draw!), so they really DID look as though they were floating on air ...

33: Purple Artichoke

It wasn't until I was almost finished with this drawing that I realised it could be made to fit into the latest challenge at Inspire me Thursday ... so I added the orange background to make it truly "Purple & Orange".

But to be honest am not that happy with the orange, it seems to heat things up and I prefer cool background colours. So I've taken the background off digitally and here it is against plain white. Which do you prefer?

I like it against the white ... though that's just personal preference. Fortunately we don't all like the same things else the world would be a boring place ...

I used to grow purple artichokes when I had my wee courtyard garden in Melbourne. I'd let some "flower" as they were amazingly beautiful. And delicious. This one was yummy.

32: If Elephants Can Fly ... Anything is Possible!

Elephants Can Fly! Card at Zazzle

Am dedicating this one to an old, close and very special friend of mine. He requested a drawing ... and this is not it (I'll get to it eventually!) but I think this will do very well for the meantime. It's to wish him all happiness for his future, as he really does deserve it :)

Wanted to do something simple (and, as it turns out, rather sweet) as I'm still exhausted from running around having to catch up on everything that needs to be done now that I'm back in France. One of these days life will get back to 'normal' I hope. Meanwhile, I'm so enjoying being back here.

I love Malaysia but it's intensity and vividness is sometimes overpowering and I tend to lose myself in the wild tangle of powerful emotions, constant activity and chaotic colour that threaten to separate me from my love of being in control [surely you know that about me by now! :)]

The one thing that I did rediscover on this unexpectedly extra long trip however, was the irreplaceable and precious value of friendship, especially that of friends I have known for literally decades. There is nothing like it -- these are individuals who know me inside out, and, quite remarkably, have stood by  me despite it :) I am honoured by their constant criticism, extremely rare bouts of flattery (!), and twisted senses of humour ... and can quite confidently say, with much pleasure that if we've gone this far together, it's pretty much indestructible. However fragile I may feel the next day ... Thanks guys!

31: Feeling Rather Fragile ...

Feeling Fragile t-shirt at Zazzle

I'm finally back in France! And back with my dogs :) I drew the above text design whilst still in Malaysia, and decided to post it as it perfectly describes my time back home ... the chaos of paperwork, appointments, dashing around and catching up with friends just about every night for six weeks (yes, it has been that long!) had me moaning and groaning the above words pretty much on a daily basis. A close friend who was singing the same mantra suggested that I draw it and post it as a t-shirt to wear, so here it is -- thanks Daphne! :D

30: Obligatory Heliconia drawing!

Obligatory heliconia drawing ... Unfinished.

I really should keep at it and put a lot more work into this drawing. But I’ve spent far too long on it as it is, and find myself with absolutely no energy left, so I’m afraid it will have to remain unfinished. I may return to it some day, but then again perhaps it’s just meant to remain the way it is. I’m constantly agonizing over the right time to put the pencils down and just Stop. I doubt if I’ll ever learn, despite the knowledge that it can be dangerous to overwork a piece -- and end up destroying it. Sometimes it’s best just to leave things the way they are :)

I think this is heliconia rostrata, which grows rampantly within the neat beds of my mother's garden.

Heliconia Card at Zazzle

29: My dog Bella, step-by-step

Well, Having drawn Bertha I had to do Bella as well. So here she is, And I've included the step-by-step progress as I did in the previous drawing. Still a lot to learn but I'm pretty pleased with these first attempts at watercolour pencil :) Here's the final drawing with water added and some touching up with the pencils after ...

Here it is with just coloured pencil before the addition of water:

And here's the first pencil sketch:

And finally, the photograph I used as reference. I miss my dogs!

28: My dog Bertha, step-by-step!

I'm back in Malaysia trying to settle paperwork and visa documentation! This is just after spending a whole 5 days lugging all my stuff (how on earth did I manage to accumulate so much ALREADY?!) to the car and back and then a 40 minute drive to the village and 40 minutes back, as I was moving into a new rental home in the village I'm hoping to live in! So it's been hectic to say the least. Have barely had time to think!

But today I finally was able (in between a million zillion phone calls in search of documents, translators, lawyers oh dear) to a bit of drawing. And as I'm missing my dogs, I pulled a photo of one of them out and sat down to play with the watercolour pencils I bought when I got here. And I've managed to scan a few steps of the progress too!

Going backwards, here's the final  drawing:

With water added to the pencils and then a final touch-up with the colours minus water (to darken the shadows mainly) and with a B pencil. I am actually quite pleased with the end result despite the fact that it's not exactly quite the way I thought it would look :)

This was the almost-final pencil stage, before adding water. I found it quite difficult to work with such soft pencils (I'm used to hard, fine sharp ones!) on textured paper even though it was quite finely textured. But I didn't go into too much detail as I wasn't sure if the water would just wash it all away! I also had to alter her paw, as I first drew it a bit too short.

And here's the pencil sketch. I'd already added a bit of colour when I thought of scanning in the progress, but you can still see the beginning rough sketch.

And finally, this is the photo I used as reference! Ok, so I made a few mistakes, but I think I managed to capture her personality and that's what has made me happy with it. Next I'm going to have to do her sister or there's going to be a huge upset in the family :D

Brown Bertha Card at Zazzle! :D

27: Tea in Green

Tea in Green Card at Zazzle

I saw the EDM Challenge 162: Draw Your Breakfast. I had it in front of me ... a giant green cup of soothing hot tea. I also had a pre-cut ATC sized card next to me. Add them altogether and the result is the drawing above!

I've obviously been in a bit of a wonky mood lately and seem intent on ignoring the laws of perspective. That's fine, I had fun :)

26: A Bit Tied Up!

A Bit Tied Up Card at Zazzle

So far, all the 'girl' characters drawn from my imagination have had their eyes closed ... I'm not quite sure why, but am glad that finally this one decided to open hers :)

Had fun with this little dabbling attempt -- I had no idea of where I was going with it when I started, and it's all wonky and forget anything approaching realistic perspective etc, but it was extremely therapeutic!