Optical illusions in pencil

I was being drawn to do some geometric art. Back when I was young, I loved geometry...not so much the theorems and postulates, but how lines worked together to create forms of all sorts. While researching ideas, I came across a page of optical illusions, so I have recreated them here.
The first one is a blivet (who knew there was an actual name for it?) or "the devil's fork". The other drawing is a Penrose triangle or "impossible triangle". Both are very reminiscent of M. C. Escher, one of my favorite artists. I may continue with some more...maybe some tesellations?

Playing with mixed media

Mixed media has never been a strong point for me, but my Artist Way group loves it:  the more different kinds of media, the better! I'm more of a purist I guess. This particular meeting, we didn't really have a planned project so we got out some gel medium and "played". I'm still not quite sure what gel medium is but it sure is versatile. Along with it, I used ink, magazine clippings, and pastel crayons on watercolor paper. Here are my creations.

Sonoma Valley Vineyard, watercolor

Sonoma Valley Vineyard, 11 x 17

This piece had been sitting as a pencil outline sketch for almost a year, and it called to me this weekend to be painted. There was an original reference photo that I had copied the outlined sketch from, but after a year, I had no idea where it was. I did my best to remember some of the details, but I also pulled up some other photos to help with color and more specific shapes. I feel that my grapevines turned out to look more like trees but other than that, I really like the way this turned out.

Painting mist with watercolor

After watching a free video tutorial by Jean Lurssen on how to paint mist with watercolors, here is my attempt. It is very moody and definitly not like my usual landscapes, but I like its simplicity. In fact, it is quite the opposite of my last piece, fantasy landscape watercolor, which is very colorful and playful. I used a half sized page so it is only 7" x 11" and a limited palette of mostly payne's grey and a little ultramarine blue and burnt sienna.

Just turn the page and leave me alone!

This is a quick pencil sketch of an idea that came to me a while back. I used a reference photo of my cat sitting on my lap.  The foreshortening of the leg is really exaggerated to create the illusion of her reaching out to turn the page. I think I needed to do a little more shadowing but overall I think I accomplished portraying my idea.

Portrait of a Dog

Portraits have never been my forte so I keep practicing, this time with a dog. I worked from a photo of this Labrador German shepard, which is my daughter's boyfriend's dog. I don't know the dog personally, so I wish I had a better picture, or at least a couple of different reference photos to better determine his coloring. Being a mostly black dog makes it challenging. The highlights in the photo come off as white and every shade in between, similar to my experience with my drawing of Darth Vader. This time, though, I was working with watercolor and fur.  I think I did a good representation of the dog that is in my reference photo, but I'm not sure if the reference photo accurately represented who the dog is.

Blackout poetry

This blog is called  "A Creative Journey", and so every once I while, to keep my creativity fresh, I throw in something completely different: poetry!  It has been a while since I posted an activity from my Artist's Way group. This activity was so simple but very thought provoking at the same time. I always try to stretch myself creatively, and this group always challenges me with something new, and this was no exception. I am not one to actually write poetry but this was a fun way to create it without having to write.
My first piece was out of an Agatha Christie book. There was a lot of dialogue so I tried to find a page without too many gaps but other than that, it was a random page. Then I went through and circled the words that stood out to me. Sharpie was my tool of choice for the blacking out.

The Secret of Romance

My next selection was a page out of Ernest Holmes, a new thought writer who focuses on one's spirituality...quite the opposite kind of text compared to Agatha Christie! I decided to take this one a step further with both color (still Sharpie though) as well as creating a face within the text.

Spiritual Awareness