A little bit of Trompe L'oeil

The Scribe
8x10 inches
ballpoint pen, Faber Castell Pitt Pens and Promarkers
on Ampersand Claybord. 

I have always had a fascination for Trompe L'Oeil artworks and thought I would revisit this genre, by redoing an older piece of mine. I am loving working on the Claybord, but unfortunately the coloured pencils do not come out with level of vibrancy that I'm after when working on this surface and so it feels a bit strange for me to be completing artworks without even reaching for a coloured pencil. The background was underpainted using the Black Promarker and I then went over this with the black ballpoint pen for a nice consistent black. The rest of the squirrel was done combining the ballpoint pen with the Faber Castell Pitt pens and also using a blade and fibre glass brush and blade to scratch into the Claybord surface for more realistic fur. 

Reference photo for the squirrel provided with kind permission by http://www.flickr.com/photos/mandj98/1924302163/in/set-72157594327779035/. The format for this artworks was inspired by the beautiful artworks of Marina Dieul:)

Full of Mirth

Full of Mirth

8x10 inch

Gouache, coloured pencil and scratch art on Claybord

I must apologise, as I have been quite neglectful with my blogging and internet sharing of late. I have been doing a bit of experimenting, much of which has not been successful and ended up in the rubbish bin. My husband Steve and I went into town (Sydney) last week to see Mary Poppins at the theatre, and whilst in town I took the opportunity to explore one of our largest art stores and the only Australian supplier of Ampersand products and so purchased some Claybord to play with. I have only tried this board once or twice before, without a great deal of success, but it has such a wonderful smooth surface, allowing for very fine details that I wanted to explore this product again to see if I could master it. The only drawback is the slickness of the surface, which makes it a little more challenging. In the past, I tried acrylics on the claybord, and can't say I was thrilled with the results, however, I know many artists produce amazing paintings, using this combination. I like the gouche better on this surface, as it adheres quite well, although will lift off if subsequent layers are too wet, and gives a more opaque colour laydown. The coloured pencils also seemed to work well over the gouache.

I See You

I See You

8cm x 10cm

Coloured pencils and Pan Pastels on Claybord primed with gesso

I am running out of time to get miniatures done for the upcoming National Awards Exhbition, so thought I should buckle down and get a few done, and this first one features one of my nieces, Bailey. Since I am enjoying working on the gesso with the coloured pencils, I thought I'd try it in miniature. I had some Claybord which is a bit too slick for the coloured pencils but primed it with the Gesso and this worked well. I would love to try Ampersands Gesso board as I'm sure it is probably slightly smoother than the surface I achieved by priming myself, but the Ampersand boards are quite hard to come by in Australia and are not cheap either. However, after trying this experiment, I might try and invest in some for future use. The other thing I tried here was to use the Zest-it pencil solvent to smooth the pencil grain down a bit. This seemed to work well and is also something I would like to explore further in future artworks.