No Fear of Flying – Collaboration Piece

 

No Fear of Flying Dragonfly Water colour and ink

I am currently involved in two different collaborations, which can get confusing for all of us.  This post is about the first,  is using lovely little A5 booklets that Anna Warren found.  There are three of us involved Anna Warren, Kylie Fogarty and myself.  I have already worked in one book with a seaside theme (see here) and this is my second which has the theme ‘No fear of flying’.  Anna’s post on her drawings in this book are here.

Anna’s double page spread

I loved the theme, but was really stumped with what to do with it.  I went through all the thoughts about flying and then I thought who are the best flyers in the natural world.  (Not being much of a people drawer I usually go to the natural world for my artistic inspiration).  For me, dragonflies are the best flyers, having the two sets of wings that can move independently they can hover, twist and do the most amazing aerial feats.  They certainly have no fear of flying and I reckon the look in their eyes shows little fear of anything.

For the front and back covers I choose images of unconventional flying.  The front cover is of a ladybird hitching a ride on some dandelion fluff and I just loved this little image, it has a real sense of adventure to it.

Flying frogs. Water colour and ink

On the last page I drew a flying frog, it is a representative for all those creatures who really have no business in flying (not having wings as such), but have managed to do it anyway.  These flying frogs are the weirdest in that strange and intrepid group.

These collaborations are really a great deal of fun and tremendously rewarding, but oh my are they intimidating. All of us have experience at doing art and at being artist, but having to draw in someone else’s book brings all my early fears back again.  What if I do this wrong, is my work good enough, their work is so much better than mine and what the hell am I going to draw!  But again the rewards of doing these collaborations and the joy of watching the amazing work the others do and to see how they respond to our themes outweighs the trepidation of setting pen to the their books.  Also the response from our readers has been fabulous and everyone is so supportive and interested in what we are doing.

I hope I have done this little book justice and have not sent the theme in a wrong direction.

Karen

 

 

Bali Journal

 

Barking Gecko Bali Journal, Gouache and inks

I have been working hard this weekend to finish up a lot of the pictures that I started in my Bali Journal.  I know that once I move onto other things I will never go back and complete them.  So here you are, be ready for lots in this post.

Just to get you back into the mood here are a few pictures of where I was working.

My villa at Hurry Slowly Bingin

My studio at Bingin

View from my villa Bingin

Working with the girls

The Barking Gecko and the Frog, where both visitors to my little villa, the gecko I only heard and he was extremely loud.  I thought geckos were small but these were a medium sized lizards and did in fact bark a bit like a dog.  The frog was a visitor to my open bathroom, but he didn’t like sharing and would quickly move on, which suited both of us.

Frog Bali Journal Gouache and Ink

The Manatee picture is a favourite, it combined a number of memorable images.  Manatees would swim out with the surfers and Angus, the husband of Jane who ran the course, would go out surfing and tell us of the manatees he would meet.  Also every evening the local fishing boats would stream out of the port and go past our cliff top perch, then at dusk they would light their lights and fish just off shore.  It was like another city of twinkling lights out in the ocean.

Manatee sleeping, Gouache, water soluble crayons and inks,

The dragon flys would zoom past as we were working in the garden, or would come and visit me in the villa.  This one is resting just by the hut by the pool looking over the cliff to the sea.

Dragon fly Bali Journal Acrylic and ink

The next two are a double page spread and they are the offerings that would appear each day in my villa.  The Dupa is the Balinese offerings to the gods which are seen everywhere in Bali and help to bring good luck to the occupant and ward against evil.  The other was the little flower arrangements that the staff would do each day for me.  Such a lovely tradition.

Bali Offering, Water soluble crayons, ink etc

Offering 2 Bali Journal

I still have a few more pages to finish and I will be adding some of the photos to the spare pages and I hope to have another lovely keepsake of my trip.

Karen