Assignment #5 Susanne

Here is my final assignment for our Christmas Theme. Originally I was contemplating on drawing a moose but I had this stuffed bear holding a present that captured my attention. I took it upon myself to challenge my skills on drawing from life. I am still grappling with fitting a design on a page as I originally wanted the word "Christmas to be towards our right. Generally speaking I tend to draw larger thus had to squish the word onto our left. I personally find that I should have changed the colour of the box the bear is holding to give more contrast or perhaps his ribbon. It was a good challenge to see the values and colours from life.

assignment #4

Here is my fourth assignment in Laure's Christmas class. The theme was to design a stocking. I contemplated on this one for awhile and decided to keep traditional style but play with the border and colour. I wasn't going to use ink but did not like how the ribbon was going . For my last assignment, I am going to draw one from life.

Assignment #3 Susanne

Our class assignment was to create a wreath. I wanted to keep it simple with ink and slight touch of colour as there was alot of detail to draw. I think I should have added some words to the background or something as it is slightly plain.

Snowman project #2

I decided to do another snowman for my Christmas course with Laure Ferlita. I actually liked my thumbnail sketch of the snowman above and wanted to elaborate more on him. I had the design in my mind but wasn't sure what to put on either side of the snowman. I ended using balls. I have three more assignments to complete and as time is running out of my sketchbook project I believe I may keep the last three simple focusing on ink and a touch of watercolour.

Christmas Assignment #2

Here is my second Christmas assignment for Laure Ferlita's course. I wanted for this one to focus on design first, ink second and last colour. I did grapple with the wording and was not sure which direction to place it. I will be doing another snowman which focuses on design first and then colour.

Christmas Assignment #1

Here is another hat that I did for Laure's Christmas class. As usual, I am falling behind. Tomorrow I am going to work on my snowman project. I do have many ideas for it, just need some time to materialize my thoughts.

Laure Ferlita's Christmas #1

With this assignment, we were to design our own hats and page. I wanted to first try a non traditional hat and play with word art and include a festive border. If I have time, I will be doing a traditional hat as well.

Sketchbook project #2

With this one, I have not yet in my life painted metal from life. I do have a rusty peeler that as of to date has been the best one I have ever had. I have purchased others but they simply do not compare. I love working from life as there are alot of reflected colours that one does not see from a photograph. This is an excellent idea who ever thought of the sketchbook project. I will be giving me great practice -something that I truly need especially when I take trips.

Sketchbook project #1

This is my first project in my sketchbook project 2010. I am highly interest in getting better at drawing from life. I believe it is much harder to decipher colours and values from life than from photos. I thought the orange would be a safe place to start but there were many challenges I faced such as how the heck do I depict the inside of the orange. I am swarming with ideas for this sketchbook and am looking forward each day to draw them.

Assignment #10

This was our last assignment for this class. As we were given pictures of fall rusty tools used for gardening, I choose to apply what I have learned from her beginner class by implementing design techniques. The green background was a spontaneous decision as I was considering using colour theory. As painted complementary colours-blues and oranges -I decided to tie the green colour in because it does relate to each complementary colour. Soon I will be posting my sketches from my "Sketchbook Project 2011. My book will travel to Brooklyn, Portland, Washington, Florida, Texas, California, Seattle, etc. I am quite excited to start this. I have basically in my mind what I am going to be drawing-so I shall be busy over the next month. Moreover, I am excited to have joined Mary Jane Butter's sisterhood. What this means to me is that I will journal/sketch my way as I work for badges. I will be applying what I have learned from Laure's class as well. So I shall be posting those sketches as well.

Assignment #7

This assignment was about autumn reflections. Landscapes are my weakest areas as I tend to paint trees with extremely tight marks. I attempted to block the bigger shapes with colour and tried not to spend too much time on this picture to give it more of a sketchy appearance.

Assignment #8 Susanne

Above are images from Laure Ferlita's Autumn Class. With the Tea cup image I had to change the original composition to fit the bottom orange into the picture. The rose on top was painted fairly fast. I believe I did it within the hour.

Assignment #5

The theme for this lesson with Laure Ferlita's course was painting leaves with full pigment load, scratching out the veins with a sharp object such as credit card, or in my case an edge of a steel ruler. We also used the spritzer to keep the paper moist and allow it to bleed outwards. This was slightly difficult as my cat was laying on my table thus confining me to a small space to work. Some of my pigments did dry out relatively fast. I also used the grating technique of watercolour pencil to capture the speckled look and snuck a tooth brush splattering as well. The one area that I had difficult is capturing the veins on the lower leaf. I should have practiced it first. It was a good lesson and I am always learning much from Laure's classes.

Welcome to my first posting on this blog. Since July of this year, I have been taking several online journaling courses with Laure Ferlita. I have enjoyed them tremendously and learning much from every experience. The above image is my second project in assignment #4 in the Imaginary Trip Through Autumn course. At this point I am slightly behind as I just finished her other course, Imaginary Trip To Paris. I had to laugh as I was painting this one as the pie looks like an alligator/crocodile face. One thing I am craving is making the above apple crisp. I think I shall go to the store and buy some apples. It is snowing outside right now but the warm apple crisp will be just perfect.