Monday 17 July 2017

Inspired by Mrs Brimbles' July Patreon


Hiya folks!

I am completely elated to have become a proud member of Anna’s Creative Team and to be posting on the Mrs Brimbles blog for the very first time. The team has been put together to support and promote Anna's Patreon. We will be creating and sharing as a result of immersing ourselves in Mrs Brimbles' world of inspiring arty prompts and resources. I am excited and honoured to have access to this content month after month.


Become a Patron!

I could watch Anna create her sketchy girls all day - which is basically what I did! As soon as it was made available to me, I viewed Anna’s sketchy girls Patreon video over and over again, at every opportunity. But when it came to having a go myself, I more than hesitated. Mostly because I am not naturally drawn to that type of art – making people I mean. I make things out of paper, I doodle objects and folky type landscapes, I colour geometric patterns in with coloured pencils, I stick things down and I splodge paint everywhere in an intuitive abstract way. But I haven’t relaxed by drawing faces since I was a child. I remember in infant school I went through a phase of sketching the same princess with long curly blonde hair and a pyramid of purple grapes on top of her head! But as an adult I have discovered so many amazing portraiture artists that I guess I thought I could not compete – plus I genuinely prefer landscapes these days.

 So I pushed through my comfort zone and determined to try something different. Turning to a clean white page in one of my sketchpads I watched Anna’s video for the umpteenth time and began to put pen to paper. Here are my first few sketchy girls:

I tried to make them all really individual with different hairstyles and I even sketched a couple with bobble hats that remind me of The Flumps – does anyone remember that kids show? It’s funny though because I seem to prefer to sketch my girls with sleepy eyes and pursed lips haha. I had such a giggle doing this and I think they look hilarious but cute. At this stage I refrained from adding colour as I really was embracing the sketching part of the process. So I practiced some more:

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I really love using the ballpoint for sketching because of the smooth and often subtle way that it glides over the paper, allowing me to play and scribble my pen with ease in different directions as the whim takes me. I began to improve after seeking out reference photos online and I decided to add some colour with some watercolour brush pens I had collected but neglected to use as yet. Here are the results:

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Overall I am really happy with these two young ladies. I don’t always make art directly in a journal, as I am a fan of paper pads. I love the feeling of working on a single sheet that I might stick into one of my art journals later, pin on my inspiration wall or make into a gift for someone. If I could change one thing it would be the mouth of my bobble-hatted girl. I made a bit of a hash of that but it could be a lot worse and I have learned for next time. I reckon I will carry on creating sketchy girls particularly following Anna’s instructions for mixing skin colours, as I definitely became side tracked by the brush pens – which I love by the way. There is a motivational quote upon which I have been intending to focus and for this project I seized the opportunity. I am naturally wired to helping others and I can fret over this far too much, therefore, this quote - 'Successful people never worry about what others are doing’ – has been aiding my personal progress lately.

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 I also thought I would have a go at brush lettering for the first time. Gosh, I really am loving all these firsts this month!

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I have enjoyed having a little play with the collage sheets provided by Anna in her July Patreon too. You can download them as files to your computer and print them off as many times as you like. How awesome is that? Here are some of my favourite pieces:
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There are a whole bunch of projects that I have thought about doing with this amazing resource but so far I have done a couple things. One of them is to paste my favourite sketchy girl into my memory keeping creative journal. Here she is:

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The other thing was to feed my obsession with fun and colourful magnetic page markers. I use them all the time to help me find often used pages in my planners and journals. Recently, I found a roll of sticky magnetic tape in a local shop so I thought I would have a go at making my own. I get really frustrated when the folded part isn’t wide enough to keep the structure strong so I kept the shape simple and functional. I have made two of these so far, one depicts Anna’s cat painting from the collage sheets and the other is of one of my original sketchy girls from my first practice sheet. They are both on a background of Anna’s beautiful artwork cut out from the collage sheets and they make me beam from ear to ear. I love them and I will be making more I am sure.

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 I hope you have enjoyed reading about my Brimbles adventures for this month. I’m now off over to the Happy Place to see what you guys are sharing. Until next time... Steph x x x 

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