Left Hand Journal pgs 41 & 42

After a look around the Naval Museum at Devonport, Hillary and I found ourselves at the Stone Oven Cafe & Bakery for a scrummy lunch and some cussing while we tried to work in our Left Hand Journals – always a challenge.  Hillary says we are “future-proofing” ourselves i.e. if anything were to happen to our right hand, we should be ready to use our left hand.  Got a way to go I think.

EDM 89 Buttons

It’s been a long time since my last post but it feels good to be back into it.

Yeah Baby

 

Gosh it’s been hectic lately – packing and moving house in Winter is not much fun.  Hillary and I took time out today to get back on the sketching track.  Neither of us are confident sketching people and in particular faces, so we set ourselves a challenge list of 10 different types of faces to find in magazines and try to sketch.  We both found it difficult, but the good food, gossip and antics of Asher cat kept us going.

Shadows in Tin Tacks Park

After Hillary and I finished our morning’s gossip & sketching, we ventured out into the sunshine in the small park next to Brick By Brick Cafe in Onehunga.  We challenged each other to take six “postable” photos.  I thought they were to be of six different things.  Hillary thought they were to be six of the same thing.  It doesn’t matter, both posts are interesting and a good start back into our photography practise.  p.s. Did you see the heart shape formed by my arms holding the camera?  I couldn’t do that if I tried!

A Morning At Brick By Brick Cafe, Onehunga, Auckland, New Zealand

Hillary and I decided to while away a few hours at this cafe in Onehunga.  This is a collection of collections inside the cafe…

May – the month of one of my very favourite fruits - figs

con.cat.e.nate conclusion

I started this 2012 year with great gusto and I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge I set myself for this project.  It made me stop what I was doing at some point during the day, pick up my sketching gear, and take time out to look at my cats in a new light, and in a multitude of interesting poses.  After settling in to the discipline of drawing one or other of the cats six out of seven days a week, I really began to enjoy it.
It is with sadness that I have to let this project go.   In the time since the last main post for my con.cat.e.nate project on 27 January , there have been three big events in my life:

• My Mum passed away unexpectedly on 28th January
• I had some unplanned major surgery in early March and have still not recovered from it, and sadly  …
• One of my two cats, Sammy, was run over while I was in hospital, broke her leg badly, and had to be euthanized.  I didn’t get to say goodbye to her and it hurts. 

I love my animals to pieces and cannot continue this project with just Bella because it will make me think of Sammy constantly.  It was a good idea at the time, and maybe in the future I will resume cat drawings.
In the meantime, all is not lost.   Today I have spent too much time scanning/reading blogs and websites of those artists that I really admire and have to say that my drive to make my own books, sketch, attempt to use watercolours, and revive my journalling has been spiked.

025 - 030

A week of negative images, in a week where my life was turned inside out with the sudden passing of my Mother

025 Sammy	026 Sammy	027 Sammy
028 Bella	029 Bella	030 Sammy

A Time To Reflect …..

A small tribute to my Mother, blowing out her candles at 90 years young 

Emma Caroline Johnson  18/8/1921 – 28/1/2012

Go in peace Mum, we love you

con.cat.e.nate 019 - 024

019 Sammy **NB Sammy doesn’t have a tail, due to another kittenhood accident ** 10 mins, Pocket water brush & Art Graf (w/colour graphite)	020 Bella 10 mins, Pocket water brush & Art Graf (w/colour graphite)	021 Sammy She has a blue nose; maybe it was  tattooed as a kitten. Harder than I thought and took too long Dry Watercolour pencils
022 Sammy 4 minutes, Lamy Vista and blue ink	023 Sammy Hard to tell what’s what in this position 8 minutes, Staedtler Lumograph 2B pencil	024 Bella 9.05 minutes Grey Staedtler Triplus Fineliner running out of ink

con.cat.e.nate 013 - 018

013 Bella Still sleeping on my car 15 Minutes, pocket water brush & Schmincke watercolours	014 Bella If only I were that flexible! 20 mins, Staedtler Lumograph 2B pencil	015 Bella  15 minutes, Staedtler Lumograph 2B & 7B pencils
016 Sammy 6 minutes, Staedtler Lumograph 2B pencil	017 Sammy 8 minutes, Staedtler Lumograph 2B pencil	018 Bella She surely is pear shaped 9 minutes, Staedtler Lumograph 2B pencil

con.cat.e.nate 007 - 012

007 Bella  12 minutes, Staedtler Lumograph 2B pencil.  Can’t believe it took that long to only get this far.	008 Sammy Sammy lounging in the morning sun.  10 minutes, Staedtler Lumograph 2B pencil	009 Bella I love Bella in this pose.  Alas, she only held it for a few seconds after I turned up.   Procolor II 0.2 pen, pastel ground.
010 Bella A bit longer than 10 minutes & with coloured pencils	011 Bella 8 minutes,  Bic propelling pencil	012 Sammy She has a split tongue from a kittenhood accident.  Probably 15 – 20 minutes, but I was enjoying it.  Staedtler Lumograph 2B pencil

EDM 88 Something breezy, that blows in the wind

What could be better than our good old New Zealand flag for this sketch…

con.cat.e.nate update #2

So far I am enjoying this project for various reasons i.e.

• it's a daily discipline of sketching, even if it only last seconds
• it is creating an intimate knowledge of my animals
• it will hopefully help to improve drawing skills (debatable)

However, it's also taking over the blog, so I have decided to post once a week, my 6 little sketches all in one go.  It will cut down on posting time as well as look better visually, and concurs with the theme more - concatenation.

con.cat.e.nate update #1

hmmmmm ……   '’ A BIT OF A FAUX PAS”  as they say ….
It wasn’t until I turned the page to do my sketch for 7th January, that I realised that Saturdays and Sundays have been lumped together on one page on this “page-per-day” calendar I am using.   Oops.  I thought about it for a while.  Could I do two little sketches on the one page and still  post one for each day?  No, that wasn’t going to work because my page only measures 125mm x 113mm as it is, so it’s too small to fit 2 sketches.  Even though this has definitely put a spanner in the works and messes up the Sketch A Day goal, I decided to go with the flow and only do one sketch on the weekend and maybe spend more time on it.

con.cat.e.nate 001 - 006

001 Sammy In her favourite position.  5 minutes, Lamy Vista, blue ink on a pastel ground.	002 Sammy 9 minutes, pocket water brush and Schmincke Neutral Grey watercolour	003 Sammy 9 or 10 minutes, Staedtler Lumograph 2B pencil
004 Bella A lesson learned – I need to get a lot faster at this, or take a photo first – she moved after just a few seconds!   Noodler’s pen & Lexington Gray ink.	005 Bella Asleep on top of my car, a favoured sunny spot.  8 minutes, dry watercolour pencils	006 Bella 8 minutes, Staedtler Lumograph 2B pencil