Have dragonflies on my mind this week. While I finish up my latest fibre art dragonfly (will post when completed) thought I’d post a photo of a drawing/watercolour from two years ago that I had in my art journal.
Category Archives: drawings
Colourful Dragonfly
Pop Art Pet Portraits – in pastels
This Friday, September 19, is a ‘Day of the Arts’ for kindergarten to grade 5 @ Place des Arts in Coquitlam, BC. The day is now being presented as a ‘strike camp’ for parents looking for activities for their out of school kids to do. The theme is “Pop Culture Craze” and my segment is Pop Art Pet Portraits in pastels. Started preparing last night for the upcoming class. Here’s a picture of Meeka Cat and her new look in bright colours!
For more information or to register, check out – http://www.placedesarts.ca.
Visual Storytelling for Seniors: Art Class
A brand new class that I’ll be teaching this fall for those 50+ is ‘Stories to Tell: Visual Storytelling for Seniors’ @ Port Moody Arts Centre, Port Moody BC. It will be held on Tuesdays, September 30th to November 4th from 10 AM to 12 PM and then again on Saturdays, November 8th to December 13th from 10 AM to 12 PM. The idea is to bring bring a treasured object to the class (photo, letter, trinket) and then bring out the story behind the object through an art technique (drawing, watercolour, assemblage, collage …) The participants and their treasures will determine which techniques we will cover in the class. My example shown here is a triptych collage that opens up and also has pictures on the back as well. To register contact pomoarts.ca or 604.931.2008.
Summer Fun!
This year I taught Summer Fun for 6 weeks at Place des Arts in Coquitlam BC, and a highlight was this very engaging cartoon one of my student volunteers, Lily, drew on the white board. It shows me teaching art with a wee student and the hapless volunteer in the middle of all the creative chaos. Pretty well sums up my summer!
In September I’ll be back at PdA to teach fall classes (children and adults)
Back to Watercolours
Was away for the weekend (Sorrento, BC) and took time to visit the beach and to paint. Summer is a great time to get back into working in watercolours. It’s easy to carry around and pulls you outside to work. Light is so necessary for this medium and there’s lots of that in the summer! Feeling rusty (it’s been awhile) but that’s another thing I like about watercolours, it teaches you to simplify and clarify and I look forward to seeing how my work changes the more time I spend with the medium.
Background: As a student at Mount Allison University I was taught watercolour/drawing by Ted Pulford. Looking at his work online brings back memories of a lot of field trips we did in pursuit of good places to paint. (www.fogforestgallery.ca/art_html/pulford_greyskyandlowtide.html)
Flower Study
The weekend was spent taking a trip to the Southern Interior of BC. The cabin we stayed at was at the Shuswap Lake Motel and Resort in Sorrento BC on the south shore of Shuswap Lake. It was a lovely location (adjacent to the Sorrento Retreat Centre) and a place I hope to go back to soon. This drawing is part of my ‘draw every day’ intentions and was a study from the basket of flowers by our door. Drawing, painting outside in the early morning air was and is a wonderful way to begin a day.
Poppy Drawing
Yesterday’s example of an ink brush painting of a tree from one of my art journals was rustic in comparison to today’s more fine tuned and detailed image. This picture is a pencil crayon study of a poppy from a series of plants I did for a botany journal some 10 years back. (MacLeod in brackets is the name the image was published under)
These two images back to back show the diversity of style that a lot of training can bring to one’s artistic abilities.
Art Journaling with Joy Kirkwood, Ages 11-14, August 11-15, 2014 @ Place des Arts,Coquitlam, BC (www.placedesarts.ca)
Description: “Discover fun ways to animate words and transform your journal into a work of art. You’ll learn innovative ways to use basic art materials and techniques that include; ink, pencil crayon, watercolour and collage as you become adept at expressing and putting your words and images together on a page.”
