Week 3 - Workshop with Bonnie Rose Bryan

This Life Book on-line course is turning out, at the moment, to be rather 'deep thinking'!  Bonnie Rose (this week's tutor) writes in her introduction:  "This project is all about using symbolism to depict the very differet parts of yourself, coexisting in balance and harmony.  It is a deeply personal and intensely introspective project .... to look inward into oneself, and represent, using archetypes or other imagery, both the light and dark aspects of your inner being .  This is no small task!"

Bonnie illustrated the Workshop by drawing two Goddesses with various attributes written down, but she  illustrated her drawings using ink, (a ballpoint pen) and hatching and cross hatching to create the shading and depth.

This I got very excited about, so ............

Here is the beginning of my two 'goddesses' (one public on the left and one private on the right).  You can see I've been working on the left hand side with more hatching.  I started by pencil drawing the portraits (not very much shading) and going over the drawing with the ball point pen, then rubbing out the pencil.   Point of no return is when you start hatching with the pen 'cos you can't rub out!

Anyway, this is my finished page, with a little colour added representing day and night or light and dark or sun and moon. and a few words.  The idea is to realise everyone has 'two faces' but they work in harmony. 
This is the first time I have tried drawing in ball point pen - I loved it and will certainly try again!!
The next workshop is around the 6th Feb. so till then .........

New Beginnings

Happy New Year to my blogging friends (and anyone else who pops by of course!)  To encourage myself to learn how to draw freely, I have joined an on-line workshop called Life Book 20l2, run by Tamara Laporte who is based in Brighton, Sussex.  She is a very caring, sharing person, who incidentally has only just had her second baby, just before Christmas, and has organised this YEAR LONG Workshop, which includes at least fifteen other Tutors from around the world.  It started on the lst Jan. and Tam did the first workshop for the first page of the Life Book, explaining that we are all goddesses (over 700 people have signed up!) and to include all our best qualities onto this first page, after painting the inner goddess we all have!  Well, this is my first page ........

 It is the first time I have tried to draw/paint a face, using an oval shape as a base, let alone a three-quarter face.  It was familiar though, as I have made and painted faces on fabric dolls, so I did understand the instructions, although you wouldn't think so.  It is amazing how drawing is one thng, then adding paint can completely change the expression etc.  I am hoping to learn a lot from all these brilliant tutors over the coming year, and will post each page as I go along.  I should then be able to see if there is any improvement!!

We are going to bind all the pages together, into a book, at the end of the year, and the 'flap' shown here was part of Tam's instructions.  She did say to stick collage paper on the back to form the 'hinge' but I don't have any suitable, so I used some fabric paper I made ages ago - worked a treat!

This is the back of the page, which will show as the book is opened.  I can always draw/write something on it to link to the next page, when I know what the next page is ....!
If you would like to know more about Life Book 20l2, or even join in, click on the button on the left.  Life Book 20l2 is also on Facebook and Flkr.
Till next time .......