Postcard 5 Grapevine Tendrils to German Winelover

Grapevine Tendrils

I thought that this postcard was going to be easy.  Some of these postcards have been completed in under an hour, from image searching to finished article.  The Coon Cat, which has been the favourite so far with readers and the one I feared the most was easy in the end.  This one took me ages.

• Topic The recipient Klaus in Germany was a food and wine lover, someone after my own heart.  I immediately had an idea for a postcard, I wanted to do a grapevine on a trellis.  When I went searching for an image, I couldn’t find one that would work for me, getting very frustrated as I  had seen the subject matter on plenty of wine bottle labels before, ( I admit to being familiar with plenty of wine bottles in my time), it wasn’t that unique.  In my surfing I did find a number of pictures of tendrils so I decided to do tendrils on the wire instead. I have often admired the tenacious tendrils they have a mind of their own and are amazingly strong.
• Technique  I wanted to show the difference in the materials I was drawing.  It was clear in my mind.  Black ink, cross hatched for the wire line.  Pale cream of the tendril and muted greens for the background, showing hints of the vine leaves.  The wire went well, the tendril took more time, but that background really tried to defeat me.  You would not believe how many layers of colour are in that background.  The first attempt had it too green and nothing stood out, so another four layers of colour and I had something close of my minds image.

Tendrils take 1

• Outcome Three hours of work, one hour of image hunting and it is still not as good as I had imagined it.  Sometimes I just have to let go.  I am happy with it, but would really like another go at it to see if I could get it better.  I think it needs to be a bit closer so I can get the detail in that i need.  As you can properly tell by now, I like cropped, closeup images.  I really enjoy getting close to everyday items and showing them to people as they might not have looked at them before.  That is what I see as one of the roles of art, to show people a different way of looking at the world, maybe they will then get more out of the world then they did before.

Well Klaus, I hope you like for postcard, it was made for you as an old world  , from me a new world wine lover.  Plenty of effort went into it and a couple of glasses of a very good Pinot Noir from the Mornington Peninsular.  Great wine region near Melbourne.

Salute!!

Post Card 4 – Kangaroo Paw to Finland

Kangaroo Paw

Helsinki, Finland is my next destination.  This made me happy as I have a soft spot for the design ethics of Scandinavia.  I love the soft colours, the clean designs and the less is more approach.  This of course made me think that I should do a postcard in this style.  But wait.  Is this appropriate? I want to make postcards specific to the person I am sending it to, but that does not mean that I should copy their style.  I am sure I don’t want a postcard on what someone else feels is the Australian style.

But then again what is the Australian style?  I like to think it is about clean, saturated colour of the sky, the red outback earth and blue sea.  I think it is the feeling of space, of wide horizons.  In an artistic sense, I see Europe as oils, USA as acrylic and Australia as watercolours.  Not just the faded watercolours that show our ancient landscapes, but also the bright, full coloured watercolours that are transparent enough to let the white of the paper sparkle through.

• Topic  So I went back to my earlier theme of wildflowers, Lelia mentioned she loved nature and I love Kangaroo Paws.  They are an outlandish flower, really stiff, but soft, covered in a plush velvet.  They are architectural and have a great colour.  These I am familiar with as I have been drawing them for years.
• Technique (yes, changed this to technique as I am not changing the medium at the moment, too much in love with my new colour pencils.  Did I tell you I have 120 different colours!!!! a girl could not dream of anything finer)  I wanted to stylise the flower, while still giving it plenty of movement.  I wanted really saturated colour for this, there are at least 6 layers of colour.  I was going to colour the background, but decided on less was more and kept it simple and clean.  My nod to Finish aesthetics.
• Outcome.  Very happy with this, and so I should be, no pushing of the boundaries with this topic.   You may be asking yourselves if I am not happy with a postcard will I send it.  The answer is no.  I have only done one bad one so far and that is not going anywhere.  These postcards are going out for the world to see, I have my pride.

Post Card 3 – Coon Cat to California

Maine Coon Cat to California

My next card is off to California, it is going to the Jensen Family.  They love their cats and they have a Main Coon and a Persian Cat.  I have heard about Main Coons they are big, fluffy cats with amazing eyes and huge ears.  Now I must admit at this point I am a dog lover, but cats eyes are amazing. 

It is interesting what people lead off with in their profile.  The previous postcard went to the Russian couple whose first words were about how much they loved each other, while the Jenson’s led with their cats.  I started with my name and where I live, how prosaic.  I need to go back and revisit my profile as the most important things in my life are not my name and address.  Yep, just went back and had another look at my profile and it is not showing what is really important to me in a dynamic way… now I just have to figure how to do just that.

• Topic  Did not have to go far to get the topic, but what was I to do with it.  I have rarely drawn a cat before and I it scares me.  I looked up Main Coon cats, and they are great.  So did I want to do a caricature, a full length portrait or what.  No ideas came.  I had to go back to what I loved about cats and it is their eyes, so vivid in colour, unlike dog’s usual brown.  So finally settled on this picture of a close up of a main coon’s eye.  I can tell you, the eye was fine to draw but how was I going to get all that fur to work.
• Medium  Decided to go with a more natural style, still with coloured pencils but this time no outlines, no ink.  This is a different style for me, I really like a good outline,  crisp definition between objects.  A good discipline to forgo this and let the shading delineate the differences in the cats face.
• Outcome  Wasn’t so happy when I initially finished it.  Had to walk away from it, as I was frightened I would over work it.  Apart from the nose it came together fairly quickly.  I was good and worked the drawing up gradually from light to dark, working over the whole picture rather than finishing one area before going on.  Except for the eye of course, but that was the fun bit.  But when I came back to it I was pleased , it has worked surprisingly well.  Happy after all, some times drawings just need space apart and fresh eyes.

Pleased to let this little cat out into the world.  It can leave this house of dogs and wing its way over to California. Hope they like it.

This is the reply I received from the Jensen Family

“wow – when your card arrived we were all amazed that someone would go to the effort to create such a work of art for us. Thank you, thank you, thank you. We all love the project you have created and are happy that we were lucky enough to be included. We looked at your web page and checked out the other 4 cards you have created and think they are awesome. Thank you again for doing such a great drawing and good luck with your future drawings, I know the recipients will be most happy when they receive them.

happy post crossings,
the Jensen Family”

Postcard No. 2 – 60s Love Heart to Russian Lovers

Second card done.  The concept is working well, for it is certainly taking me to areas I have never ventured into before in topics for my postcards.

It was February 14th when I received my next destination.  Valentines Day is not something that I embrace, though it is gaining ground in Australia.  There was plenty of talk around the office staff on how they were going to mark the day.  Most were making some gesture either large or small.  So it was fitting that my next card was going to couple in Moscow, who first line in the profile proclaimed that they were very much in love.  The topic had to be love related.

• Topic   I bowed down to the universe and went with the love theme, but what to do.  They had also said that they liked The Beetles so a quick google of hearts and Beetles, took me straight to The Lonely Heart Club Band.  Of course!  Not that we had lonely hearts here, but scanning through the pictures, I found the logo for the album and decided to use this very 60s style in the postcard.  A bit of a challenge to get the feel right for this period, but I am fairly happy with the outcome.
• Medium  Again I have used coloured pencil and ink.  This will be my standard choice for the moment as I need something that is easy to pick up and put down again quickly.  I am drawing in snatched pieces of time and pencils are so easy to get out and use.  I love the depth of colour that you get when you layer colour and even on these flat areas of colour I have used a couple of different colours to bring a vibrancy to the work.
• While certainly not my usual choice of topic, it has been a great deal of fun.  I love drawing patterns and the colours used are from the logo and not my usual palette.  It has done what the project is about and pushed me into different topics and colours.

Postcard No. 1 Flannel Flower to Netherlands

Postcard 1 Flannel Flower

I am so excited.  I have finished my first post card.  I received my first address on Saturday and I have already done the card and it is ready to be posted.  It has been a good weekend.

Carla in Delft Netherlands will get my first drawing on a post card, I hope she likes it.  It is fitting it should go to Holland as we have a strong link there as my sister married a man of Dutch decent and she lived there with her two children for 6 years.  They all speak Dutch and they have many friends in Holland.

• Topic.  Carla said in her profile that she likes folklore.  It made me think, in such a new country as Australia we don’t have much of the traditional folklore as they would know in Europe.  We have wonderful indigenous stories from the Koori people, but they are not mine to tell.  We have great stories from our pioneering days of bush rangers and early settlers struggling to carve out a living from our rough bush, but not something I want to draw about yet.   So I decided on using our native flowers as a base and choose the Flannel Flower as my topic.  Folkart is full of flowers so I had made my link.  I wanted the colours to reflect our country and wanted the deep blue of our summer sky and the great ochre colour of the outback sands.  My first attempt was with a blue background, but it didn’t work so my second attempt was for the orange ochre and as it was going to Holland what better colour could I use.
• Medium. I have chosen colour pencil and ink.  I have these great new colour pencils Prismacolor and have spoiled myself and bought the big set with 120 colors.  This is all my childhood dreams come true, you cannot believe how much joy it gives me to look into this treasure trove of colour and the pleasure of using such lovely, quality pencils.  They are silky, smooth, dense with colour and they layer a treat. I will often use them on top of acrylic and the depth of colour is amazing.
• Outcome Happy with this one, I did one before that really didn’t work.  I get too tight with my drawing and don;t loosen up.  Part of this project is too stop making each work a master piece and just enjoy the process and make quick, small drawings.  I need to move my style along.  Being such an occasional artist I do a drawing about every 2-4 months and that is not enough.  My object is to do at least one a week.  I love the depth of colour I have in the background and the flower is alive and dynamic. Happy to let this one go out into the world.

What a weekend I have had, started out as nothing special and I have discovered Postcrossing, linked it to an art project and made my first blog.  I am the social media nerd.  I have a Facebook page that I don’t know how to drive and I have a grand total of five friends on it, who know not to communicate to me through it.  Now I have a blog and the most exciting thing is that someone has looked at it and even wanted to follow it.  I cannot tell you how shocked and pleased I am.  I had expected this blog to be alone out there in internet land, but not so.  OMG I have obligations now, people will read this.  Thank you Lenz Scherer you are the first person to follow my blog, I hope it is worthy and thank you Carla you are the first person to get a post card.

Farewell post card enjoy you life out there in the wide world.

PS.  Please feel free to comment on any of my drawings, I put it up on line to here from others

Postcrossing

Yesterday I found out about Postcrossing, and the whole idea of it touched a cord in me, I had to join.

Postcrossing is where you are given the random name of someone else in the world, who has registered and you send them a postcard.  Once the Postcard is received and logged on the website you name is sent to someone else and they will send you a postcard.

Not sure why it sparked such a response, but I think it is part of the whole random acts of kindness idea, linked with the old fashioned thrill of getting mail (little presents in the post box) and with the brief touching with another life.  Of course then I had to match it with the idea of drawing pictures for the postcards myself.  I liked the idea of doing small, simple drawings that I could send out randomly into the world.  Postcrossing is related to Bookcrossing .  Bookcrossing has become many things but the part I have always liked is leaving books in public spaces for someone else to find and enjoy, then pass on in a similar way.

The thought of sending my pictures out into world is appealing, the practice of doing many small pictures would be good discipline as I normally do larger works that often become tight and laboured.  To match the pictures to the reciever will also give me impetus for new and different ideas and broaden my usual subject manner.

So I have registered and got my first name, and am about to do my first drawing today.  My intent is to scan each card as I go and hopefully build a body of work around this theme.  Including this into my new blog I hope will give me the discipline to keep going.  I don’t want to do more than one at a time, as I hold the trust of sending the postcard quite seriously and don’t want to break that trust.

I know my weaknesses, I am the occasional artist and I am doing this with a very fragile part of my life.  I have chronic fatigue (or variant of), not very seriously as I hold down a very busy full time job, but this makes my spare time precious, or the part of it that I can use, if I am not careful all my personal time is spent resting with no energy for anything else.  So the little bit I can garner for non-essential me time is very, very limited and precious and I intend to use it as wisely as possible.

So wish me luck and away we go!