bodner015

Little by little the details tell the story.

Time has flown since I last posted.  Life just got in the way.  Other than the mural, I have not done a lot of art work and sorrily need to get back working. Nevertheless, the mural project has finished and I am posting the last few pages of the graphic novel depicting it completion.

The 40+ foot mural at a local school will take some time to do.  The base was done in what seemed to have been done quickly.  Now the painting is going along at a rather slow pace.  The composition is constantly changing and so is the technical painting parts. I am there....I'm the one taking the pictures.

I had been out yesterday doing some consignment shop hunting  -found some unique items. But, today, I had to get back to doing something creative -just get'er done. However, I was in the mood to have a laugh.  And so I created a cartoon (marshtoon) that I want to add to the collection for a cottage country calendar. I have seen the pictures of the fisherman in the river or rapids who has caught that prize winning fish and holds it up to display the prize.  I have also seen the pictures of bears fishing at rapids and in rivers.  I thought it might be amusing to meld the two. Step one:  Draw preliminary cartoon characters and then the rough and final drawing Step two:  Use the Tracer light table to draw an ink drawing of the cartoon. Step three:  Scan the inked picture into the computer and use Seashore to colour in the drawing. Step four:  Bring the Seashore cartoon into the Comic 3 program to add dialogue, frame and heading. At sometime I will nee...

The deadline is fast approaching for the next cottage cartoon for the Lake Cecebe Waterways Association newsletter.  https://www.cecebewaterways.ca   And so to work I went.  Ideas are my biggest issue and so I go through the cottage magazines about the house and websites about cottages.  Something often catches my curiosity and the idea is allowed to percolate awhile. Not too long -I have a deadline. In the studio, and once I have an idea, I make some rough sketches of the main character.  I use the reference books I have to determine the shape of the animal and then work to create a cartoon character from the sketches.  I will do a number of these. Then I add another character if necessary to complement the first and reinforce some attitude or look that I want.  Once the drawing is on its way  I use a table light to trace the drawing.  I check the line flow and spacing, keeping in mind the dialogue bubble that comes later.My lines must all c...

Life just seems to get in the way of getting to my art.  I'll show some of the experiences from this past summer in further posts.  But, while at the cottage, Mannie and I went to the cottage association's corn roast and met a number of the cottagers we had never met before.  And, later, when the family was up, we had gone to the regatta day to see swimming races, etc, --including a boat race where the boats were made of cardboard (and a lot of duct tape).  Thus the two marshtoons for the Lake Cecebe Association's newsletter that just came out.  (I'm not so sure why bears show up in a lot of my Marsh Hall Tales -but they do.)

I began adding oil pastel to one of the little bird drawings.  I could not get things to work.  For me it was a mess. So, I opened some tubes of water soluble oil paints and began to paint.  Things worked better.  I gave up oil paints a long time ago.  I got headaches from the solvents and even the oil binder in the oil paint tubes.  So far, these water soluble oil paints did the job.  However, I don't like the continual wet on wet.  With acrylics I can work quickly with no undetermined blending as happens when I apply another oil paint colour over or near another. I don't like the mooshy edges. Anyway, here goes...

While waiting to get some more pastels to finish up some work I found some small canvasses (5" x 7") and thought about doing some of the birds that come to our feeders. So I drew some little fellows and transferred them to the canvases.  These birds sit in the lilac trees just outside our kitchen window. American Gold Finch in winter dress A cheeky Chik-a-dee. A sulky Sparrow. A jaunty Junco. I have joined a birdwatching organization and send in data about birds and their numbers that visit our backyard feeders.  Our property is surrounded by high cedar trees.  When the sun shines on the back deck where all the feeders are the difference in temperature from the deck area compared to outside the property can be 7 degrees celsius.  As well we have 2 nyger seed feeders, 5 regular feeders, an open feeder fro sunflower seeds and 4 suet holders.  Thus, we can get up to 30 sparrow, 20 Juncos etc.  3 pairs of cardinals live in the trees and 6 Blue Jays.  We ev...

I applied some of my oil pastels to the picture of the rabbit under the forsythia bush. A New Picture from the Old -a Fierce Lapin I laid down the base colours with a harder oil pastel that blends well.  I will add the softer oil pastels later. But I have run out of white oil pastel and will need to go out and buy some more before I add the final layers of oil paste finish it.  As well, I like to see the picture up on the website in order to note how work is progressing.  I can see the need for some further shading in some places and greater highlights in others.   I can also see that the lines for my work are becoming simpler and yet portraying that image I want to achieve. Until I get more pastels, I will be doing some more drawings in preparation for painting with the oil pastels.

Sometimes you get those moments of lucidity that defy reason.  I awoke with the need to change one of the awakening picture's picture.  The bird had been giving me fits although the Gold Finch in the forsythia bush was an actual happening  -interestingly so was the new idea. In our yard we have had fights between the Ridge Rabbits and the Gazebo Bunnies (there's a story in there somewhere).  They meet in our yard and often end up jumping into the air and flicking their hind feet at each other -even on the deck where they come to eat the seeds that the birds throw everywhere.  Last spring as the ice began to melt I had gone to add dye onto the ice that would eventually go into the pond when melted.  Across the pond, under the forsythia bush rested one of the Ridge Rabbits.  I noticed him and he noticed me.  He (an assumption) scrunched up a little more and dropped down his head -giving me that fierce rabbit (rabid) look. I did not disturb him. Now ...

Purple crocuses awaken under the lilac trees when the Spring sun shines and warms the backyard.  (I am doing a work from last year's garden.)  I am amazed that they can push up through such covering and add colour to the snow.   In the original piece the background is softer, paler; the tree trunks less black (especially when I used no black anywhere). The starkness of the terrain was a challenge to portray.  I put some colour into the white snow -but the white snow appears so white that it becomes hard to depict with the pastels.  The Sennelier oil pastels are so thick and rich that they impart an actual thickness to the strokes and the picture which I hope will be picked up in the final picture and especially when viewing behind the glass. Speaking of glass -the photograph of the image behind glass is quite different from the image without the glass.  I am not sure how to resolve this.  As the images of the actual painting and the photograph can...

My second process for transferring my image to a surface involves carbon paper.  Finding the carbon paper took me some doing but I found some. 1. As before I do a full scale drawing related to the final image. 2.  I place the carbon paper onto the illustration board surface and place the drawing over the carbon paper. 3.   Trace over the drawing . 4.  Add fixative to cover the carbon tracing to stop it from bleeding into the oil pastel. And now I am ready to paint with my oil pastels. Certainly the carbon process cuts out a step over the other charcoal method.

You know -preparing my drawings and then transferring the images to illustration board or wooden panels is often the most arduous.  And just the time taken...omg!!! Now I have tried transferring my images using two methods. The first involves conte (charcoal) rubbing. 1.  I do a drawing the actual size of the finished piece .   (Often I do a number of thumbnail sketches be fore doing the actual drawing). Here I work out rhythms and the composition in a size actual to the final work. 2.  Rubbing conte over the back of the drawing . 3.   Redrawing onto the illustration board. Going over the lines is a tedious chore but I can make some adjustments to the image. 4.   Now I had to go over the transfer lines   on the illustration board (or wood panel or canvass) as this transfer method creates faded lines.  Again I can make adjustments with the drawing. 5.  I use a fixative to set the lines so the lines are not blurred when I apply the oil paste...

the lines in my Oil Pastel work of late have strong burnt lines in the illustration board.  Those lines have their beginnings in my drawings. Spring will come to us and so I got out some works from my garden and the woods and began drawing. I put them up on the website because when I view the site I often see the drawing -and my finished pictures in a different light.  And, sometimes, I make further changes, if I can. The swirls are my directional lines that will not appear in the final painting. I am not pleased with the dark back ground for this beginning  Spring painting.