anika mari

What is going on here?! Find out on my new blog!

In my last post I shared several recent watercolors, and mentioned that I wanted to enlarge the one titled, “Tapestry”. Well, the idea stuck, and this weekend, I did just that.

I used the same method for enlarging this drawing as I’ve done before. It wasn’t quite as big as my last enlarged drawing, so I only had four letter sized sheets of paper to piece together. The tracing was limited to the basic framework, leaving the detailed line-work to be done freehand, so that part went very quickly. It wasn’t until I’d traced over most of the graphite lines with pen that I thought of taking a photo!

I started this process late on Friday night but managed to finish tracing the graphite lines with ink before heading to bed. Waking up to a relatively cool and breezy morning inspired me to sit in the shade to freehand the details.

While adding the textured detail, I made a few “mistakes” like drawing the right pattern of lines in the wrong triangle or drawing the right pattern of lines in the right triangle, but in the wrong direction. For this drawing those mistakes don’t really matter so much. There is some repetition, but what really makes the drawing more interesting are the variations. They warrant a second look and further investigation of the piece, and that’s never a bad thing.

With the ink lines in place, I moved onto the color. The original was a watercolor painting, but I didn’t have any thick, large paper on hand that could handle the water, so I decided to match the colors using Prismacolor markers.

The orange was pretty similar right out of the marker, but to get the right greens and brown I had to layer several different markers. Although not an exact match, I’m happy with the result considering how close I got to the colors using a totally different medium.

The only thing missing was the depth and variation of the watercolor. The orange in particular was very flat (maybe because I didn’t have to layer other colors to get the right hue?) and was asking for a little something extra. I wasn’t really sure what to add, so instead of forging ahead on the original, I doodled on the tiled printout and tried out several different options.

For the final drawing, I chose to add one single black line along each of the edges of the orange triangles. The simple addition added just the right amount of variance without distracting from the rest of the piece.

I must say I’m very fond of the doodled-on printout. Although the doodled additions to many of the colored triangles don’t really fit with the piece as a whole, it was a lot of fun to be so spontaneous. Art is becoming a balance between planning and spontaneity for me.

The original Tapestry painting was completely spontaneous, without much planning beyond the initial idea. In the process of enlarging the painting, there is a lot of planning, and for the most part my path is set. I just have to go through the steps. Maybe one day I’ll feel confident to be spontaneous on my larger pieces, but for now, I was really glad to have the less precious printout on which to experiment.

Once I’d figured out what I wanted to add to the colored triangles, I quickly finished the drawing. Initially I planned to add the same line detail to all the colored triangles, but once I drew the lines in the orange triangles, the piece felt finished.

In the detail below you can see the lines I added to the orange.

When you look at the original and the enlarged version side by side you can notice some of the differences and “mistakes” I made on the larger version. Click on the image to go to flickr to check out the details a little larger.

After working on the large drawing for so long, I was surprised by how weird it felt to look at the original painting which once seemed to have such a bold presence. Now it feels almost absurdly puny; but I still love it anyway.

I planned to scan in a bunch of art that’s been waiting patiently while I’ve been busy doing lots of other things, but I found out that my scanner bed is only about 8.5×11.75 inches, and I’ve been using 9×12 paper lately. Oh well. Most of what I’ve done can be trimmed down a bit without losing any of the art, so I’ll get to that this weekend. I was able to scan one small piece of art: my drawing for the the next theme in the Creativity Boot Camp, “full bodied”.

I started out with a very different image in mind, but the drawing evolved as I was working on it. I’m not sure how well it fulfills the “full bodied” theme, but it’s what I came up with when working on the theme, so I’m going to say it’s my “full bodied” drawing, even if it is a bit of a stretch.

Aside from not being a perfect fit with the theme, I really like the drawing. A lot of geometric shapes have been showing up in my work lately. I’m pretty sure it’s because my mom decided to start a new quilt this summer, so I’ve been browsing through her quilting library that’s been lying around.

The books on Amish quilting really captured my interest, and it seems some of the shapes and colors have crept into my artwork. More on that when I get the larger drawings scanned, but it would seem that this “full bodied” drawing is an offshoot of the quilting inspired drawings. It also reminds me of Native American art, specifically the geometric design motifs that are used by many Native American cultures. Plus, I can’t help but think of dream catchers every time I look at the swooping lines.

Only three more Creativity Boot Camp themes left to do! Seems like I might finish the whole thing after all.

I’ve finally picked up where I left off with the Creativity Boot Camp. Drizzle was the next theme on the list, and the main thing I thought of was rain, perhaps because we really need some here! Our grass has given up and is now brownish yellow and crunches underfoot.

But I digress. For the “drizzle” theme, I drew rain drops in the soothing colors of light gray, grayish green and grayish blue. So far this was the quickest drawing I’ve done for the boot camp. It’s simple but I quite like it.

Maybe it’ll help bring some real rain!

I was able to finish up the next Creativity Boot Camp theme, ornament, over the weekend.

When I thought about the meaning of ornament, I considered it to be decoration that is added to some surface that might otherwise be plain, purely for aesthetic purposes.

A few possibilities came to mind, but I liked the idea of ornamental tiles. Little ceramic slabs can be quite plain without some decoration. Indeed many times they are, but in some traditions they decorate the heck out of them. Talavera tiles are one style that I admire quite a lot, that I’ve taken inspiration from when creating a previous design.

Although making a tile pattern isn’t something new for me, I wanted to create a more intricate design. I chose a monochromatic blue on white color scheme, inspired by the ubiquitous blue and white porcelain designs. I’m often amazed at the level of detail artisans are able to achieve using only one color, so I took the one color approach as my jumping off point.

I did the outline first, as I often do, and scanned it so I could re-color the tile if the blue didn’t look as good as I hoped. You might notice that in the center medallion, each of the four “leaves” are a slightly different design. I penciled in each one, intending to choose a favorite to repeat, but I liked them all, so decided to leave them as they are. In a way this could serve as a “sampler” tile. With the designs worked out here, I might just have to make 4 different tiles using each of the different leaves.

Once the outlines were in place, I added a few shades of blue prismacolor marker for extra depth and interest.

Although I might have had a moment’s doubt that prompted me to scan in the outlines only, I am very happy with the all-blue tile. Now if only I had some actual tiles to ornament!

By now the Creativity Boot Camp is officially over, but I’m going to finish up on my own anyway. Only five more themes left, and the next one is “drizzle”. I have two ideas at the moment, and I’m not sure which way I’ll take it, but I’ll figure it out soon.