Tonight tonight tonight I...

Just back from an exhibition opening. I entered 3 works into the selected (juried) exhibition and was happy with all three getting in. You've seen them here before, but as they are going out into the big wide world I thought I show you again. I put in 'The White Glove'...
...and 'Helping Hand'.
I didn't put the third one in this group because I wanted to put this one in 'Vessels'.

I sold all three!!! And then when I was talking to the couple who bought the first two I mentioned that there was a third painting. They bought it too!!!
I sold 4 paintings and I only exhibited 3! Now that is a new experience for me and one I will happily repeat!

Distortion towards abstraction

I like this photo of Larry Poons.
I chose it for my 'warping the grid' portrait. He got grid lines drawn on him. Then I used the painting in the background as inspiration for how to warp the lines for my pencil drawing below.
Yes, not only pencil. I forgot which exercise was which and began with charcoal. I rubbed most of it off and continued with pencil. Size 500mm x 700mm. I will crop the height to 600mm at some point I think. Well that was the intention. The grid began and ended 5omm from the top and bottom. But I quite like the voids and how the drawing encroaches into them. Now I've got to warp-the-grid again by drawing a straight grid on this drawing and warping it on the new one. Can you tell the next exercise will be abstraction?

Todoodlist

Recently I found a link on someone's blog and had my interest sparked enough to click on it. It led me to my first ever ebook purchase. I've always had an ambivalence about ebooks. I mean if they were any good they'd be published as a proper book, wouldn't they? Well this book has led me to rethinking that little piece of logic! It is a true gem.

Written by Nick Cernis, Todoodlist is what it claims - a way to make life simple again. In fact, so simple you will slap your own forehead and say 'duh!' when you read it. Well, at least that is what I did. Nick has created the perfect way to write and use a 'to do' list.

Easy to create and most importantly I believe, easy to refer back to. My problem was always that I had to get my to do list out, read through it to find what it was I'd done so I could cross it off, read through it again to choose what to do next and then repeat this process once that was done. Too much time retracing steps there for me to embrace the idea longer than a day or two. With Todoodlist I can just look at my list and see what's done and the next action in a split second.

And I don't have to rewrite it every day. I found with traditional 'to do' lists that once I'd crossed a few things off the list the power of the list was diluted purely because I had to look even harder to discern that there was still that one little thing to do squashed in a long list of checked off items. I often missed it and thought I was done. Or I had to find the time to rewrite my list every day. Let me just say I am not that type of girl!

I'm not the only one who thinks this is the best way to get things done either. I showed the technique to my daughter, who is a 'to do' list junky already, and she was blown away with the simplicity of it and has used it every day since with glee. She even reminds me to todoodlist if she thinks I've forgotten!

It is changing my disorganised and frequently chaotic life into something I have a handle of. Dare I say it? It is giving me more spare time! And that's just the first part of the book. I'm now going on to the Sudoku calendar!!! I think I'm going to get a little zealous about all this.

Click here to view more details of Todoodlist. I really think we are going to need a Flickr group for this!

Reflected Self Portrait

Three posts in one day is a bit much, I know, but I've been really busy lately!

One thing about studying online as I am is that there are no breaks. You finish a unit on Friday and begin your next one on Monday. If you want a break you have to take the whole study period off. Well, as I've had so many off in the last year I'm keen to catch up a bit, so here I am at the beginning of a drawing unit having just finished a painting one.

The first exercise was to do a self portrait reflected in something round and mirror-like. I chose our slightly egg-shaped stainless steel wine cooler. We could use black and white paint or textas. As the image had to be A1 I opted for paint. My drawing is actually bigger than A1 as I had some really strong paper 100cm x 70cm.
Ha! It makes me laugh every time I look at it! I really enjoyed doing this. I find the distortions in the final image fascinating. I love the way it slims me down and stretches me at the bottom so for a moment I could forget about how much weight I need to lose. The exceptionally long pinky finger is a bit of a give away though. The rest of the distortions I find deeply disturbing, so be careful what you say in the comments please!
This is how I worked, with the cooler propped up so I could see myself without moving or having to hold it. The exercise did call for me to hold it, but I thought this worked just as well.
And this is me trying to look like I did while I was painting, while I am taking the photo. Not overly successful, but you get the idea.

Christmas 2007

Today I've probably been doing much the same as you - writing out Christmas cards. I keep all the cards I received last year and get them out to see who to send cards to this year. It saves keeping a list. Then I recycle them and await the fun of receiving this years cards.
But today, inspired by a photo in Alisa Golden's Unique Handmade Books, I bound them all together into a little book.
There are some gorgeous handmade cards by some little people I used to work with at school in there as well as a couple from dear friends and relatives who are no longer here this Christmas. I think that was what really made me want to make the book.
I haven't actually done any binding using this method before. There are lots of mistakes and it's a bit dodgy in places, but I love it!

Moleskine Exchanges Update

Well, I must say being in three different Moleskine Exchanges does keep me busy. Recently the stack of molys on my desk was disturbingly high so I got stuck into them.
I did these in Pamela's moly for the Exquisite Corpse exchange.


Then I did my entry in Alison's book for moly_x_25. This is the middle entry in the book so it takes up 5 pages of the Japanese fold Moleskine. I couldn't get it all in the first shot but you can see it all in the 2nd one.

Then came the very daunting task of drawing Emma in her small Japanese fold moly for moly_x_portrait1. I drew her eyes too close together!!! So as punishment I drew mine too close as well.

New favourite!

Shawna over at Community Sketchbook just posted about Book By Its Cover. Now firmly implanted in my links down the side, I am looking forward to browsing this site thoroughly. I remember finding it before, but obviously didn't link to it and so forgot about it. And on the subject of links, I keep my links on my sidebar up to date constantly, so you will always find something new to look at there.