Last 1 1/2 pieces in Hennie's Mole: Living Statues

I have finished with Hennie's mole and since I already put tons of stuff in her pocket while waiting for it to arrive, I will be sending it on to Mike.

I have been fascinated with the living statues at the Renaissance Faire. I've taken lots of pictures of them (and slipped one into Hennie's Mole.) I decided to try to paint two of them, but ended up drawing one with Faber-Castell PITT artist brush pens (pigment markers) and then painting over the white parts with white gouache. I could take some lessons from Anders on making good folds!!! I did the other in ball point pen because it is for Mike to finish and he often likes to work in ball point pen. I left the column out on that one because I wanted to give him maximum creative control on subject, materials, space etc. When I was all done, I decided that the living statues are a better subject for photography than art, because the pure whiteness of them doesn't seem as striking in the art pieces as it does in the photos--too late--they're already done. Click images to view larger.

New Piece in Hennie's Mole: Paradise

I did this this morning as a sort of "worship" of beauty, done entirely with Faber Castell PITT artist pens ("Indian Ink" pigment markers) (except two lines with a Micron Pigma brush pen.) I took a picture last weekend at the Belle Isle Conservatory that I based this on--but it is not very much like the original. I think I will post the original on my process blog, "Half-Formed," so anyone who is interested can see it there. If you click the image, you can see it larger.

Collaboration with Steve in Hennie's Mole: Diaphony, Dancers with Scarves

Here's my collaboration with Steve in Hennie's Mole. I am calling it: Diaphony, Dancers with Scarves.

The other is another little pocket treat--I painted it with gouache on orange paper--it's The Grand Canal in Venice. Hennie gets a print because it's too big for the pocket.

Click images to view larger.

Second Piece in Hennie's Mole: Nora's Entry

Nora is a Dermatologist whose office is at the corner of Mack and Moran and I walk by it nearly every day. I love seeing her flowers and I poked my head in and took a picture of them the other day, and made this piece from that picture. It is done with Faber-Castel PITT artist pens, pigment markers and pens, and a few other pigment pens. I was trying to capture the delicate range of hues that showed up in the flower photograph that to the eye in person were primarily white, yellow and pinkish, but unfortunately, the pens simply do not have the rage of hues needed so I had to do the best I could with the selection I had. I think watercolor paints, which can be mixed and diluted, might have worked better, but this coated yellow paper does not work well for me with water color--they tend to bead up and leave lots of little dots and look uneven and ugly. Maybe someone else can do it, but I can't seem to. So, this is my best effort to use the actual paper in the book rather than pasting something in. I probably should attempt to make pieces that don't refer to something real so that I won't be so disappointed by the results. I worked on this every day for 6 days, during and after meals and when I took a break from working on my Fellowship application. The intense concentration of studying each petal and subtle hues on it was a welcome break from studying each word in my application, and I discovered that working on it relieved my headaches that I got from the Fellowship application work, which was good.

Click the image to view it larger.

I have a suggestion: I added the tag Hennie's Mole to this, using the pseudonym she chose to sue rather than her real name. If everyone adds that tag to their pieces from her mole, Hennie can click on that link and see all the pictures people have done in her mole. The same for everyone else. We need to use the same tag for each person, though, for it to work properly.

People can also include their own names in the tags and then someone could chose to click on the artist names and see all the work they have presented on this blog. And if you include a tag for the media, someone could see all work done with pigment markers or all work done in pencil or water colors by all of us.

If we added the type of Moleskine, we could compare the work in the different types. We'd have to agree on a tag for each, eg: watercolor mole or ??? for the other kind with the greasy or waxy yellow paper.

First piece in Hennie's Mole: Goose skull

YAY! I have a mole again, so I can stop making pocket material and start making mole sketches. Woohoo!

I have a whole collection of skulls, including a number of goose skulls, all of which I found in the wild. This one was on my mantle over the fireplace. I took it out in the backyard next to the house where the snow had melted enough to expose some leaves and set it down there and photographed it and returned it to the mantle and then copied the photo using four Faber-Castell PITT big brush pigment markers and nothing (except the pencil to sketch just a little and the pen to sign). I wanted to make something in Hennie's mole with the markers I'd gotten for Christmas, just them and nothing else--and the skull in leaves seemed like a topic that would use those colors to advantage. Click image to view larger.
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I am certain of nothing but the Heart's affections and the truth of the Imagination- John Keats
Mary