2016 - The year that wasn't

I had big plans for 2016, but my back and several doses of flu etc had other ideas. I would no sooner get through one then the other would hit. So I am putting 2016 down as the year I did lots of self examination, processed ideas in my head and did a lot of research, with occasional bouts of activity!


I am now focusing on 2017 and have put into motion many of the ideas I came up with while unwell.  The first of these is a 'My useful shit book'   This will have all my ideas, research, and information.  Much of which is floating around in my head, on pieces of paper all over the house etc,.

I am also going to focus on drawing etc, so have been pre-painting pages with Gesso, which I make myself.  I have been experimenting with homemade Alcohol Inks. 

 Doing a lot of Gesso pages, I tend to do them in batches so I have them on hand

 Setting up.  These inks I made with Rubbing Alcohol and Texta Inserts. 30mls Alcohol, place insert in and leave for 24 hours, I occasionally tipped the inserts up the other way, so that the Alcohol ran back down the tube, into the bottle.

 Some I did on dry paper, others like these I wet the paper first to help spread and blend colours easier





This is a cake cooling rack that I wired together and use as my paint drying rack

Below are templates I designed and then printed on the prepainted pages.  These I plan to use for drawing practise.  Sometimes a large blank page, no matter how pretty, can be intimidating. So I break them up and just focus on one square at a time, by then the boxes are full and I just decorate with swirls, vines and other bits and pieces around the edges.