Astridfox-illustrator blog

Just to let everyone know that I have started a new blog that is dedicated to my illustrations. Please visit me there

www. astridfox-illustrator.blogspot.com

Thanks for your interest.

Pencil, roller and ink

Picked up a 5B pencil today. Been awhile. Looked for heart references to sketch. Found more about the band who sang "barracuda" than the organ I wanted to draw. Want a bleeding heart in the center and floating roses in the background. Found my roller, printing ink, carving tools and a piece of glass. Trying to jump start the creative part of the brain. Drained out by caring for the baby. Missed the second trimester creative juice. Clearing out a work area where my 6 years old won't discover will be tricky too. Baby steps! Maybe I can start Saturday when the older one goes to grandma and the baby is sleeping.

Petit Roses

Cataloging Petit Roses series for Saatchionline.com
Interesting that I have to weigh them for shipping purpose too. This is the part that most artist drag to do; photographing, getting imaging ready for web. Not the fun part but unless you have an assistant, suck it up and do it. Think I might train my 7 years old to do it for a few bucks or cookies. Child labour you say? No I call it " labour of love". I love them, I work for them for free.
I go through Labour for them. They can do a bit of measuring for me.

Sunday Morning

The first thing that popped into my head this morning was to clear gesso the two 18"x24" raw stretched canvas before the rain comes. The forecast calls for rain. I am finding prepping the raw canvas is great process to get back into. When I was doing really large size work. I got sick of it trying to cover 5'x7' area with white gesso. Since I don't have a lot of time to dedicate to painting in one sitting nowadays. I am finding the smaller size work area and the prepping of the work area helpful in getting my mind ready for creating.

I found the gel medium not enough to size the raw canvas. So I went back to diluting the clear gesso and doing two layers on the raw, instead a thicker, streaky layer as I tried before on the cradle panel. The diluted layers are working well. I also printed out some smaller ratio rectangular frames of my work surface for thumbnails.

My next project will be on zucchini blooms. I have them in the garden and they are quite beautiful.

raw canvas

Ordered frames for some older pieces done on canvas boards. They were on Japanese sizes so it was in cm, which means they do not fit in the pre-made frames. I did them as exercise, thinking that would keep the pressure down to create " perfect" work. Of course they worked out well and I ended up having to get custom frames made. I don't mind. I really like them... still, which is a good sign.

While I was at the framing shop, I picked up some raw stretched canvas and I have sized one with only gel medium instead of gesso. I really like the exposed raw canvas look so here is another play and learn.

Missing old painting style

Saw some of my older, more painterly style and I miss it. Even though I have started to feel quite comfortable about my current style of washes and glazed over line drawings, I seem to never feel satisfied.

This was the beginning of getting back to the painterly style, was so frustrated with how quickly the paint dried in the earlier heat of the day, left it and will go back to it.

I also realise that I want to share a bit more about my process on the blog as motivation. I will post more of my in progress work instead of just the finish product. A bit scary but I think I will be ok.

Below are the progression of the three little rose from the last post. I have added a stain like wash to the ones on the sides and glaze with metallic on the middle one. Planning to finish off with a high gloss gel to give it that glassy finish.

roses

It's been awhile. Back at it again. I have been painting my roses outline and seem to have found what background to support them with. I have been playing with washes and glazes, and learning how they react on canvas and wood panels.

This is my current working area, I have stolen my son's ikea table and had been working on it. I have also been working out in the yard since the weather has gotten warm.

These are the roses I have been working on. The obsession came when I saw a rose bush on the Sunshine Coast, BC in 2005. Since then, I had been doodling them obsessively. I didn't know where it would take me, but knew that I just had to draw them. It became therapeutic at times. It wasn't until this year that I finally freed myself from some artistic block and took the pencil outlines to the different level.