Friday 25 January 2013

Muses

In November, I took part in an online course called “Mining your Muse” taught by multi-talented artist Barb Owen. 
In one of the classes, we were doing Painted Muses and Barb gave us templates to use – but being a person who doesn't (like to) follow instructions, I drew my own Muses. Well, I admit, there was some cheating involved. I drew a picture back in 1998 that I shelved and almost forgot about. Barb's templates reminded me of this particular drawing and I decided that it was time to revisit my long-forgotten Muses and make them right this time. 

One of the most valuable lessons I'd learnt from Barb is that eyes are actually in the MIDDLE of the face – it changed my life considerably... LOL Now, I was able to add faces to my Muses (and correct the size of their heads too). I drew them on a sticky-back canvas first, coloured them with watercolour pencils (not a very clever idea on sticky-back canvas). They were originally meant to go on a piece of cardstock and stand alone but then we had this little conversation:

... and I made a page for them in my journal. The background is simple – acrylic paints applied with a brayer. Then, I wanted to spray it a bit with a diluted white paint but the nozzle of my not-so-mini-mister was clogged and all it could do was spray just one narrow jet of paint - an unexpected but happy mistake. 
[quote by Saint Bartholomew]

No comments:

Post a Comment