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

con·cat·e·nate – a New Year Project

Two days ago (i.e. 2 days before the start of a New Year, and seemingly a good time to start a new “thing”), I was reading Myrna Wacknov’s blog about her project called Drawn To The Mirror in which she sketched herself every day for 365 days.  The sketches were done on a page-per-day calendar  with quilt pattern images as a background.  It got me thinking.  Yesterday I was walking past the local stationery shop and there, on sale, was a simple, lined, page-per-day desk calendar that screamed “buy me”, so I did.  I have decided to give this sketch-a-day for 365 days a go.  I have two cats and they will be the only subjects involved during this time.  I have always been impressed by Roz Stendahl who sketched her beloved dog Dottie for 5 years in a series called “Daily Dots”  and she has also inspired me to try this for 1 year with 2 cats.  Sammy (a girl) is now about 17 years old and she is a reliable model because she doesn’t stray and sleeps most of the day.  Bella is 10 years old, still full of beans and not easy to locate during the day so the sketches will be of whichever is available.  My main points of focus will be:   1) keep it very simple    2)  try different media as desired    3)  keep it to less than 10 minutes and preferably less than 5 minutes   4)  a sketch a day    5)  enjoy the process
It will either be a Daily Wonder that I will love, or over and done in 7 days – A One Week Wonder!
Many years ago when I learned to use Excel, I also learned a new word: Concatenate.  It’s a formula in Excel that is extremely useful and I have used it many times and it has since been a favourite word.  I like the sound of it as well as it’s purpose.  It seemed appropriate for this project because this will be about uniting in a series, and also because each sketch will be a cat.
and so,  con.cat.e.nate is the name of this project -   [kon-kat-n-eyt] to link together; unite in a series or chain.
Here goes …..

EDM 87 Lunch

EDM 86 A Road Sign

This is on the Thames Coast Road , Coromandel Peninsula

EDM 85 A Store In My Neighbourhood

EDM 84 Bread

Vogel’s is New Zealand’s famous bread, yearned for by many Kiwis living round the world …..

EDM 83 A Nearby Body of Water – lake, ocean, pond or river

I live in the North Island of New Zealand and as such, this is not “nearby”.  It’s in the South Island and I visited it in February 2011.  I guess I consider that anywhere in New Zealand is “nearby”.  This is Lake Dunstan, Cromwell, near the Clyde Dam, a spectacular spot.

A Weekend At Waipu Cove

with good weather, good wine, good food and good friends …..

EDM 82 Draw Your Art Space

Here’s a slice of my art space.  It would take too long to draw all the stuff in my space.  I think it would be a good project for Andrea Joseph, but not for me.

EDM 81 A Street Lamp

Mission Bay, Auckland

A Palette for Palette’s sake

Now that I’m back home and probably won’t be going on any big overseas trips in the near future, I have reunited my travel palette half pans back into my large palette of Schmincke watercolours.  I know most "artists" limit themselves to 12 colours, but life's too short, why not enjoy those fabulous colours that you just can't mix.

EDM 80 Something That Makes You Happy