It’s been another busy period of artistic playfulness. Here’s my next arty update for anyone who may be interested.
Last Sunday, I tapped into the inspirational photos of people on the Sktchy app and found a photo of a fellow artist. She had a beautiful face to draw and I was inspired.
The above photos show how I moved through the stages to get to the final image, which I am pretty happy with.
I started drawing a sketch of her face in graphite, then added a layer of black and brown crosshatching marks and followed up with watercolour pencils, indian ink and white marker pens to capture the light and shadows.
Prior to that I played around crosshatching and adding watercolour pencil to a sketch of my own hand. It was from a photo so that’s how I managed to capture my right hand (which is the one I use to draw).
I also spend a couple of days creating a watercolour portrait of this Mexican Hairless Dog. It’s probably not accurate to the image since I had to shorten the ears to fit him on the page, but I like him. This one painting was created with watercolour paint and watercolour pencils. I had a great time creating a glaze effect on this one. I probably could push it more, but watercolour is a new medium for me so I am in the learning and experimenting phase.
Last Wednesday night I rushed over to life drawing class and here are some of the sketches in various mediums. The drawings are not all accurate or in proportion but I like how my drawing is developing. I especially appreciate that I can now capture the whole person on the page and draw what I am seeing rather than what my brain thinks it’s seeing.
This one (above) is probably my favourite sketch from the night. It took 20 minutes to do and gave me a challenge with foreshortening as well as capturing the form with crosshatching. I used black ink pen to do this one. There’s only one part of it that irks me as I think I didn’t capture it as accurately I would have liked, but that’s the process of drawing – learning to see and draw exactly what I see. I’m still learning and I’m grateful that I can continue to do that too.
And just for fun, I’d seen this horse sitting in a shop window, and I liked him so much that I snapped up a photo so I could draw him in my visual diary later. After a long day at work, I decided to chill out while on the train home and that’s when I drew the horse in water soluble black ink pen. Then I used brush pen to get the shading and I’m totally in love with this sketch.
I’m also still writing… dun dun dun. Yes, one day… eventually I will finish my fiction story and I am still clinging to getting it published, even if I do that myself. It’s a long road from concept to first draft to editing to polishing to publication. I will get there – one word at a time.
Both art and writing are about establishing and maintaining a regular practice. It’s tough to do with a busy life but because I love living a creative life, I continue to return to my passions.
Thanks for visiting and I hope you have creative day whatever you are doing.
In the last month I’ve ramped up my daily art practice. Sketching and using water colour paints in my sketch books most of the time. I’ve also been to another life drawing class, attended my first water colour painting class and today, I have just finished a Sktchy course on cross hatching.
So if you’re interested… here is some of my work.
The cross hatched portrait below is my first one using black pens. It is the image the teacher used in the Sktchy course so you may see it around and depending on who drew it, it might be better rendered than I’ve done here. But having said that, I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out. I just need to practice the art of seeing and capturing shadows with fine cross hatching marks.
Below is my graphite pencil sketch of the guy we did in the Sktchy course. I put him in a frame as I needed to mark out lots of lines to get his features down on the page with accuracy.
A lot of people like this pencil cross hatch and I’m super happy with it.
I went to a beginners water colour class and learned about blooms and glazes and all sorts of other techniques. I’m a bit heavy handed with the delicate medium but it’s fun to learn, make mistakes and see where they lead.
Above is my finished water colour mushroom. I had a lot of fun creating this small art work on the paper we stretched. It was a great class run by Holly from Life Drawing Caloundra.
I’ve been doing a botanical workshop on Skillshare and that’s stretched me a lot. Here’s one of the pieces. It’s a vintage inspired flower with petals and stem.
I think I like the stem and leaves the best. It’s all water colour and took a while for me to layer. I’m not the best realism artist but you got to start somewhere right?
Above is my botanical alphabet project from the skillshare workshop. It turned out pretty good, but I’m not a big fan of fancy fonts. Maybe one day I will embrace them but it irritated me a bit because I kept making mistakes with the pen and had to keep starting over. For me that’s too painful to do and I doubt I’ll become a calligraphy lover… at least not someone who does calligraphy, but I’ll always have respect for anyone who does the art form!
Then it was off to life drawing class on the 29th May to celebrate their first year of regular classes. It was a great night with every spare spot taken up by artists trying to capture the gesture of the model. Above are two of my pieces. I gave drawing on black paper a go and it worked out pretty good. Quite a few people liked that drawing with the soft pastel.
Then, totally inspired by Sketchbook Skool, it was time to sketch book my way through my life and capture everyday moments. This image as you can see is of my M&M slippers which I picked up in London in late August 2018. I love them and taking time to draw my feet on the coffee table was excellent fun. No need to feel precious about my lines and marks. It was just an impression of my life and an opportunity to practice drawing what I am seeing rather than what my brain thinks it can see.
I intend to keep practicing and learning new techniques. I hope that as I grow as an artist, I will also be able to create better skillshare courses of my own. I’d like to pass on things I’ve learned but only after I’ve practiced enough and made the techniques my own. I’m not very comfortable in front of the camera yet and it has taken me a long time to learn how to video my art as well as to think about the classes I could teach and how to teach creative writing from my own perspective. I face a lot of internal fears every time I come to create a skillshare course, but I’m moving through my fears and into creativity. I even made a course to help other deal with their fears around creativity based on the tools I use to manage anxiety.
They say one of the best ways to learn is to teach and I’m on that road now too.
On the creative writing front.. I’ve been chipping away at my edited manuscript and had to change a few characters which has lead to a chain reaction of changing what they do and don’t do. I’m about a third of the way through my manuscript and I’m so grateful I’m doing lots of art because it stops me from having anxiety brain.
When I write, I feel a lot of angst to get things right. But when I do art, most of the time the angst just vanishes. I can spend hours and hours doing drawings and not even realise time has sped past. I love writing, but it is a different experience for me. It’s a complex and sometimes analytical experience which somehow triggers off the inner critic in me more than art ever has.
I guess this is all part of a learning curve for me. I’d like to publish my story and I’ll keep at it, and I’ll keep drawing every day because the practice is so good for my mental and emotional well-being.
This week I have been playing around and creating botanical art in my new Windsor and Newton Watercolour visual diary. I also bought a pack of 18 Gouache paints and combined them with watercolour, watercolour pencils and a black pen to bring my back garden and front garden to life.
Below are two of my botanical compositions. The first one is a representation of the plants in my back yard. I think the part I love most about this artwork is how I’ve captured the aloe vera leaves in the terra cotta pot. I thoroughly enjoyed creating this artwork.
Below is a short timelapse video of how I created the botanical composition above.
This image below is a selection of the plants in my front yard. I enjoyed putting the deep red on the page. It’s a lovely contrast to the green hews of the other plants. And I love how lively the other plants are too.
Below is a short video of photos I took from the concept drawing of the plants through to the finished art piece.
I’ve also been learning more about crosshatching lately. The three images below are a potato, a nose and a sphinx cat. They are all in my visual diary. I had a great time learning to cross hatch with my retractable pencil and focusing on the light and shadow in these images.
Art is all about observation and enjoying the process of playing with marks on the page.
I’m so pleased that my art mojo has come to life again. It’s wonderful to be back in the flow.
I’m off to do my second life drawing class since 2005 this coming week. I hope I’ll have some images to share. We’ll see.
In the meantime, I’ll keep drawing and editing my novel. Writing a novel and editing it is a long term game for me, so I am very grateful to have art flourishing in my life again.
I hope you have a great day and do something creative that nourishes you too.
I’ve spent my day drawing naked women. It’s an artist thing and it’s all about learning to create gesture drawings of the human figure.
Each sketch below was completed in less than two minutes and are from models who provide images for artists to develop their skills.
Here are the five gesture drawings I created this afternoon.
Taking time out of my long weekend to draw and listen to David Bowie was fabulous fun. I have really missed just putting pencil to paper and making sketches that are quick reflections of what I see in front of me. I really should do more of this on a regular basis.
And since I was having so much fun, I took one of the gesture drawings of a half naked woman sitting on a stool with fine fabric draped across her legs and did a free hand drawing of her on watercolour paper.
Once I had a good sketch put down on the paper, I used black ink pen to outline her figure. Then it was time for some watercolour to make her pop off the page.
Below is a close up my watercolour drawing. I think it moved past being a gesture sketch but I’m happy with how she has turned out. I can still see areas that could be ‘fixed’ but art isn’t about perfection. It’s more about creative expression and rendering what I actually see on the page. So I am not going to allow my inner critical voice have any say in this one.
I realised I haven’t done a gesture drawing or any life drawing since the start of 2005 when I was in the first year and a half of a Diploma of Visual Arts (which I never finished because I moved from Melbourne to Brisbane).
That’s a fourteen year gap where I haven’t practiced. So it was great fun to focus on the human figure again.
In time, when I have a better work/life balance, I hope to get along to some life drawing classes and create drawings and paintings that are from a live model rather than from photos. One day I’d like to be able to draw without having to focus so closely on a model or use them for inspiration and jump off into fantasy art.
I’ll get there. One arty mark at a time.
Hope you’re having a fantastic and happy Easter.
Whatever you’re up to, I hope it’s a creative day.
Butterfly – in progress art work by Selina Shapland
Two circles, watercolour pencils, green leaves and pink flowers
Adding four butterflies to the image – using a stamp
Traced butterflies with black ink pen
Here I started colouring each butterfly – I started with blue
I painted the second butterfly orange and warm yellow
I’ve been learning how to capture my artwork in progress using a new app which has been so much fun.
I plan to create more how-to skillshare courses (with much better audio now that I know how to do that) so I can share more of what I do as an artist and to help me to grow as an artist. I’ve taken a bit of time off over the last couple of years so I could focus on learning the basics of writing a fiction novel, and now it’s time to incorporate more art into my life.
This artwork is a work in progress. I had an urge to use water colour pencils and play with them. So last night, this image started to come together.
Below is a super short image capture video showing how I used water colour pencils and a paint brush with a dab of water to colour the butterflies. I’m pretty happy with the video as I am learning and this is my first attempt at making a time lapse of my artwork.
I am calling this artwork ‘Butterfly transition’ as it is a symbolic representation of the internal changes I am going through in my life. I am seeing the brightness in life again. Seeing colour and vibrancy in the world is important, especially as I have, at times in the last couple of years been through darker emotional times. To me, this work in progress is a representation of hope.
And that is what I absolutely love about art. It’s a way to show where I am at in relation to the world around me. When my artwork is finished, I will put up a new blog post and share it with you too.
In the meantime, happy creating and thanks for stopping by.
I’m circling back around to my arty side this year.
In recent years, I have taken a big break from painting and drawing. I needed a breather but now I have realised just how much I have missed my art practice.
So, I got myself a moleskine art journal (my first one) and have started sketching and water colour painting in it. I am totally inspired by author and illustrator Kate Knappe with her cute little birds, so you will see an image that I drew to honour her artistic expression in the photos below. If you see her work around – there are a lot of greeting cards with her artwork in Australia – do support her if you can and if you like the art of course.
I’m all for supporting living artists who can do with the dollars in their bank account so they can live life and continue to do what they love.
This is a page from my new moleskin art journal with another little bird inspired by Kate Knappe. It also has an orb, inspired by a walk along the beach today.
Here is one of the pages out of my moleskine art journal.
I’m going through a reflective stage and wondering what I should do next?
Do I keep focusing on writing my novel and slogging away attempting to get it published?
Or do I study something? Something else? Should I study art? Should I study something that will help me in my day-job?
So many questions.
So much inner confusion.
I love art.
I love writing.
I love coaching.
I do enjoy learning but I am not sure what to do. What is next for me?
So this piece of artwork is a true reflection of the questions and confusion whirling around inside of me.
This page of my art journal is a reflection of how intricately interconnected we all are.
At least, that’s how I see the world.
I have recently decided to sponsor two young girls through World Vision and, hopefully, make a difference for them and their community. I didn’t do this lightly. I feel very strong about young girls having the opportunity for a good education and waiting until a decent age to be married. It is my hope that my sponsor children and their community will embrace this opportunity to have more choices and be lifted up and out of poverty.
As I was drawing this image, I was thinking about my sponsor children and how we are worlds apart, both geographically and with regard to quality of life style and education and choices. But I believe that all beings are interconnected and there are threads that connect us. I believe that one act can have a multitude of effects. A lot of the time, I do not know the effect I have on people, but it is my hope that my effect is a positive one for all concerned.
So, I’m getting back into my art. I’m thinking about things outside of my fiction stories but I am still drawn to my writing. I love it.
I’m just not keen on editing.
Editing is hard work.
I’m not averse to hard work.
I just think I’m a bit creatively burned out at the moment.
But despite my burn out, I am still returning to The Living Death of Toddy James and day by day I am making editing progress. I’m up to chapter six so far. It’s a matter of small daily habits that add up to big changes.
I won’t give up. I’ll rest and I’ll refocus, and I will edit my novel. It takes grit and determination to get these things done.
Now, as promised, here are some more photos of my awesome UK holiday from last year.
In the above collage, Dave and I went to Edinburgh and saw the city, Edinburgh Castle. We also visited a fabulous historic place called Torphichen Inn for dinner and a show.
Wow, what an amazing place. I was in love with the atmosphere, the friendly welcome and the life size cardboard cut out of Jamie Fraser from the Outlander series, written by Diana Gabaldon. The ladies at our table were a little shocked at how excited I was to see the cardboard cut out, but I had only just finished listening to the audio book and watching the series, so in my mind, Jamie Fraser had come to life!
I still love David, but it was Jamie Fraser!
I think David was in love with Torphichen. I think he wanted to immigrate and live there for the rest of his life. It was green and homey. The Torphichen Inn was filled with friendly people and the services was excellent. We had haggis. I actually ate some and David had a bowl-full.
The photo above is the Torphichen Inn.
The show had bag pipes, singing and excellent hospitality. I truly loved Torphichen and felt very warmly welcomed.
We saw the Kelpies sculptures several times as the bus took us from the hotel to Edinburgh and back on our visit. They were spectacular and it was the first time I’d heard that Kelpies were shape-shifting water spirits that take people and drown them. As an Australian, when I hear the word ‘kelpie’ I think of a type of dog, so this revelation was endlessly entertaining to all of the Aussies on the bus.
Dave and I also visited the cafe where J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book – OMG, I almost wet myself with excitement. It’s called The Elephant House. We had coffee and cake and then we entered the toilets which were completely covered in Harry Potter fan scribblings. It was surreal. I didn’t like the way people wrote all over the toilets. It was oppressive. I think being a fan is great, but defacing property falls outside of my boundaries for appropriate ways to show adoration.
Anyway, of course, I had to buy a mug to remind me of this special opportunity to dine in cafe where one of the most famous writers of today did her plotting, characterisation and writing. I was hoping some of her inspiration and determination to finish writing would rub off on me. I’m still hopeful.
In the photos above, you can see us at The Elephant House.
We also visited Greyfriars Bobby where this little loyal dog is honoured and remembered. This church was fabulous, but for those who enjoy a bit of ghost hunting and paranormal thrills, I have to say there was a crypt there that gave me the shivers.
It’s the circular one with the dome roof. It had two doors with square windows made of wrought iron. I was too scared to get too close to this one. I kept getting the shivery sense that something was inside watching me. My writer’s imagination went wild, wild, wild with exciting ideas for creating paranormal wonder in my stories from this experience!
Okay, for my last Scottish highlight, here’s a super short video where Dave and I went hunting for the Loch Ness Monster and caught a glimpse!
Happy creativity whether you write, dance, make art or create music. Whatever you do, I hope it brings you joy and happiness.
I’ve had a big break from drawing, painting and pretty much anything that equates to visual art. But recently, I’ve needed to feel my pen and pencil glide across the page and see immediate results of my creativity in action.
Writing novels is great fun but it is a long (and sometimes lonely) process. I can’t show it to you, you would have to read every word and immerse yourself in the story to see it, feel it, sense it, experience it. But with art, you can view an image and have an immediate reaction.
My artwork is very much a personal expression tool. I’m not the best of the best at it, but it’s who I am at any given moment in time.
So here’s me through images at this point in my life.
I’m obviously animal obsessed. Maybe that’s because animals accept me for who I am and don’t require much from me? Maybe it’s because (for me) animals are safe for me on an emotional level. I don’t know exactly, but I feel drawn to them in my artistic expression.
Last weekend, all I did was draw and play with watercolour paints and some new alcohol based ink markers. I watched a few art classes on Skillshare.com and picked up some tips but mostly, I felt inspired to create visually again.
There’s nothing worse than looking at a blank page and wondering… “What am I going to draw, paint, sketch?”
Some of the above images have been put through Gimp and cut out and put on t-shirts at RedBubble under ShaplandArt. I’m not the best with digital image manipulation and always have to go to Google to figure out the next step. It takes ages but I eventually end up with something on a t-shirt that I’m pretty happy with.
Created: 23/5/2015 Watercolour and acrylic on pastel paper. Artist: Selina Shapland
It’s been a while since I have updated Selina’s World. I’ve doing a lot of creative writing and articles too. My days have been about creating images in my mind that I can translate through the written word into my reader’s mind.
This last weekend I finally had the creative bug to paint and so that is how “An impression of Spock” came into the world. I sat on the couch and allowed myself to fall into colour, light and shadow. I allowed the right side of my brain an opportunity to speak to me in symbolic language. I needed that more than I can say.
You can see my artwork above. It is completely hand drawn from eye and there are still some things to work on in this artwork, but I am pretty happy with it. It is watercolour and acrylic on pastel paper. I had a ball doing this piece of artwork.
I also wrote and published an article on how art has helped my heart to heal. It is about art therapy, for those who might want to jump across to Self Avenue and check it out.
I hope your days and nights are filled to the brim with creativity.
Today was a little tough for me at work. Not a bad day, just one that wasn’t the best of the best of the best, as they say…
I think I am very much looking forward to the Christmas / New Year break to allow myself to chill out and regroup for 2014.
So, as I do when I have to process things inside me, I have turned to my art as a way of expressing things that I cannot verbally say. This image above shows a sketchy kind of painting of an Eagle the my partner works with here in Australia. I loved the photo of this bird and felt inspired to use his side profile as my muse to let out some of the ‘stuff’ inside me.
I couldn’t tell you what I was thinking about as I do not know. I was just being while I played with pen, graphite paint and watercolours in one of my visual diaries.
It turned out pretty okay so I thought I’d share it. Oh and the grey thing at the bottom of the photo with the owls all over them are my legs in my PJ’s. Yes… I paint in my PJ’s.
I haven’t been doing much art lately, but I can feel the urge and the inspiration kicking back in. I am grateful when this happens and I feel inspired in my arty life again. So who knows what the holidays will inspire me to create. I am going through a jewellery phase, a creative writing phase and now it seems my drawing and painting phase is coming back online – woot!
I was having a look through some of my recent and much older visual diaries tonight and felt inspired to share some of my works with you. A number of them are still works in progress and these are only progress shots. They are also an indication of the type of themes that interest me as an artist.
So, let’s take a little tour…
This was created in my visual diary, 22/8/2004. Inspired by Man Ray’s Photograph entitled ‘Tomorrow’
When I was in art school back in 2004, I fell in love with Man Ray’s photographic works. I loved the multiple exposures and creative effects he brought to the world through his photography and I wanted to honour that inspiration in my visual diary. The image above was created with black indian ink, lace, ribbon and glue.
Ideas for paintings in my visual diary Created: 22/2/2004
This image shows some cropped painting ideas that I put together for an art assignment way back in February 2004. We were asked to take an image and hone in on a part of it and explore painting it. I created the two paintings in my visual diary as a test to figure out if I liked the image enough to go from watercolour, to acrylics and into oils. The truth is, I actually ended up choosing a very different image to crop for this assignment, however, I have always loved these two sketched up paintings. They feature an unconscious African Elephant from a National Geographic magazine that I was drawn to at the time. Inspiration for art can be found in all sorts of places.
Eyes sketched in my visual diary as I formed ideas for further artworks. Created: July 2004
This image shows a page from my 2004 visual diary where I spent many hours observing eyes, human and animal. I was and still am fascinated by the depth of expression and emotion that eyes can convey through art. This sketch formed the bases for some other creative artworks that came along. I always meant to fill up each square but never quite got around to finishing it…
Mixed media exploration of culture and beliefs in my visual diary. Created: 4/6/2004
This has to be one of my absolute favourite piece of art play from my 2004 visual diary. The reason I love it so much is that it explores the concepts of Heaven, Hell and Purgatory in life through images that I cut from magazines that came in the male.
I have many notes written in my visual diary next to this mixed media art play as we were challenged by our art teacher to explore our concepts of the culture we lived in and the context it has in our lives. As I was cutting this out and gluing it into my visual diary, I was contemplating how people think and wondering things such as: does the level of your bank balance and physically acquired items determine your personal happiness? Or is there more to life than the physical items we surround ourselves with?
I considered a concept that some people can find themselves feeling numb and unable to relate to life unless they are actively shopping and acquiring items… I considered the animals we take for granted and was particularly drawn to the cow hide in the original image. I thought a lot about the concepts… Do our earthly actions affect us in the afterlife? Is there really an afterlife?
To me, I am open to that concept, but not all people are.
Fascinating stuff.
Anyways, that’s my trip down my 2004 visual diary memory lane.
More creative art is still yet to appear on this blog. Thanks for taking the time to read my blog and feel free to share the arty creativity.
