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While Yoko was producing the beautiful pages in the ‘[amsterdam]’ notebook of our long-distance MUJI notebook collab (featured in this post a couple of weeks ago) I was enjoying working in the other / ‘[tokyo]’ notebook. Yoko had previously provided this trigger for my next entry…
… and I leapt at the opportunity to raid my stash of postage stamps amassed over the decades – soaked off correspondence received from distant friends and family, flea-market finds etc. While sifting through this trove I restricted my selection to stamps with animal or vegetable themes and collaged them onto the notebook’s left page.
notebook [tokyo] – work in progress
Then I chose eight of my favourites (chosen for their excellent animal subjects and not, in the case of some, for the pernicious colonial legacies they represent) to use as the basis for a series of black and white ink drawing exercises exploring pattern, texture, positive/negative space… and fun!
bull-headed shrike (japan, 1998)
7th century celtic dog (ireland, 1971)
sloane’s viper fish (congo, 1961)
chameleon (ghana, 1967)
gologolo / sun squirrel (malawi, 1984)
To give my failing eyesight a fighting chance I made the drawings at a larger scale than they would finally (re)appear in the notebook… then scanned, scaled down, printed and ‘stitched’ them back into the notebook using bright embroidery thread.
notebook [tokyo] – work in progress
notebook [tokyo] – work in progress
notebook [tokyo] – work in progress
notebook [tokyo] – double page spread | back side of stitching
notebook [amsterdam] denotes the notebook that started its life in Amsterdam, and notebook [tokyo] denotes the notebook that started its life in Tokyo.
The preceding Amsterdam/Tokyo project posts can be found here:
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6 – part I)
houseplants enjoying the winter sunshine | yellow lichen, green moss in the zuid-kennemerland dunes | hanging globe lights @ tolhuistuin, amsterdam noord | art deco fabric lampshade @ tuschinski theatre, amsterdam | drawing work-in-progress | warm ‘n cosy @ home | handpainted owl kite (detail), made by leendert masselink | two sunrise views from my studio windows | king midas sound performing @ paradiso noord, tolhuistuin | murex pecten (venus comb shell) | blue nail polish (a gift from yoko :) | blue cat | january sky | nitnit and inky, by the great charles burns | a favourite folded-paper lampshade (designed by studio snowpuppe) | brittle, bone-white twigs in the zuid-kennemerland dunes | drawing work-in-progress (bull headed shrike – he’s a stern little fella) | drawing work-in-progress (sloane’s viper fish – apparently aghast?) | gira doing a laudable viper fish impression (‘though he needs to work on the ‘wide-eyed expression of astonishment’)
It was a colourful month…
ink & watercolour ‘floral mandalas’
This time last year I was a bit snowed under by the many ‘to dos’ associated with moving to a new city so I took a break from my annual handmade festive greeting card manufactory… and I thought I’d be doing the same again this year (it’s December already??! where did 2015 go!?!) but then I got caught up in the colourful fun of painting a series of small ‘floral mandalas’, first as doodles in my sketchbook and then in a somewhat more ‘considered’ way on watercolour paper off-cuts that I’d been hoping to find a good use for…
work-in-progress
I soon realised that I seemed to be making cards, and almost as quickly realised that hand-painting cards for all the friends and family I’d like to send festive new year greetings to would be completely insane quite unachievable in the time available. So I decided to try out the greeting card printing services of MOO (I’ve had business cards & stickers printed by them in the past and the quality is great… btw, this is not a sponsored post, just my personal opinion ;-). A unique (as far as I’m aware) and very appealing feature of MOO’s service is that you can have a different design printed on every card in a pack at no additional cost… so the possibilities are almost endless!
I scanned some of my ink & watercolour ‘floral mandalas’ and played around with them in Photoshop to arrive at five festive designs to have printed by MOO. These are they…
‘floral mandala’ cards
Unable to resist the ‘multiple designs’ feature of MOO’s service I also had some creature cards printed (with designs based on these limited edition ‘animal diorama’ silkscreen prints made a few years ago).
‘animal diorama’ cards – octopus & owl
Not traditionally ‘Christmassy’, for sure… but I say good riddance to the jolly, fat man in the red suit and all hail the red-eyed kraken! ;-)
Some of these cards are now available in my Etsy store – they can be found here >
Or you might like to give MOO’s greeting card printing service a whirl yourself, here >
jellyfish drawing, work-in-progress
Here are some more jellyfish work-in-progress pics. I’m gradually working towards making a new silkscreen print in this ongoing ‘animal diorama’ series and, with this future print in mind, have been experimenting with tentacle layering, stippled shading and possible patterning for my jellies…
tentacles… some of my favourite things to draw!
stippling… also a favourite pastime (it’s very relaxing)
don’t touch the wet ink!
oops… too late
… more stippling (very relaxed now :-)
jellyfish drawing, work-in-progress
I’ve been drawing jellyfish lately… and I realised pretty early on in my attempts that, despite the plethora of photographic reference material to be found in books and online, without access to a real live model I had no idea how to articulate the twisting, undulating, entwining, knurly oral arms of these compelling creatures.
What’s the next best thing to observing a live model (without leaving your desk)? A highly scientifically-inaccurate dummy hastily constructed from scrap paper, pipe cleaners, tape and bits of yarn, of course!
jellyfish stand-in
Fun to make… and it really did help me to figure out how I might draw those tricky, twisty oral arms!
Taped to a window, the overlapping paper ‘arms’ coupled with the play of light and shadow create some interesting abstract shapes too…
My trusty assistant has been on hand to offer advice on the best brush for inking…
… and to engage in a bit of virtual interspecies arm-wrestling.
More jellyfish WIP to come…
