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By Heather, on July 20th, 2010
I’m a doodler. Always have been since I could hold a pen. I love holding a pen in my hands, and I love writing and scribbling. It doesn’t matter what I’m writing or drawing, I just have to hold a pen in my hand. I also have the largest collection of pens, and I was obsessed with them for many years. I will also draw/scribble/write on anything – nailed down or not. This includes my own shoes. I have drawn all over the soles and sides of them. My teachers used to give me into trouble when I was in primary school (age 4-10) because I would write and draw all over textbooks. My mum used to smack me because I’d write and draw over the books in the house. I’m a compulsive scribbler/writer.
I decided to show some of my scribbles/sketches. They are a nothing. Not artistic, not inspiration, not anything, but I thought you’d like to see what I will draw on and what’s in my head.
Ok, in this first one, at least the writings are art related:
The next one as you can see has some mathematical formulae on it. This is Euclid’s Golden Ratio, phi, or the Divine Proportion. I was reading on the Golden Ratio, the Golden Rectangle, and the Fibonacci Sequence and wanted to understand exactly how they worked. Mathematicians and artists have been fascinated with these mathematical theorems for thousands of years. Given my love of maths they amused me for hours.
It is said that Leonardo Da Vinci used the Golden Ratio in the Mona Lisa, and the proportions of Michaelangelo’s David fit the Golden Ratio. Salvador Dali also used the Golden Ratio in his Sacrament of the Last Supper.
As you can see here, I have further scribblings on the Golden Ratio, and drew the sequence. I also scribbled my hand in oil pastels.
I started scribbling on this sheet but I was also playing Assassin’s Creed 2 on the Xbox 360, and being the person I am I wanted to collect absolutely everything in the game, so I could 100% it. What I have scribbled is the treasures, feathers, glyphs, statues collected, and number of viewpoints climbed.
The jotter that these scribbles are taken from is nearly full, and has everthing from colour studies to Gaelic, programming languages like Javascript, HTML and CSS to Contextual Studies, shopping list to memory training notes, Teeline shorthand to Adobe Illustrator. I scribble pieces of text from the tv to conversations I’m holding on the phone.
This page alone contains stuff relating to my WordPress theme, some web pages that were shown on BBC Click, text relating to my mobile phone plan and some drawing basics.
It’s a pretty varied and random jotter. As I said, it’s a nothing but it kind of gives you an idea of what my mind is like!
By Heather, on July 18th, 2010
Well, I’m feeling much better now. It has only taken two weeks to adjust my new medication; I’ve got past the horrible side effects and I’m starting to feel like a human being again. I ventured out for a short time yesterday and felt ok, but today I was out all day and everything was good.
I was looking online a couple of days ago and found that there are life drawing classes in the city every Wednesday evening. They also hold day-long classes every six weeks on a Sunday. They just happened to be holding the day-long session today, and luckily for me, they had a few spaces available so I booked myself in.
The session ran for six hours with single pose. It was a fair old challenge for me, since the maximum time I’ve spent on life drawing is two and a half hours. It was a decent enough sized room but the heat was blistering. With the dizziness I’ve been experiencing I wasn’t sure I was going to make it through, but somehow I did. I did some warm up exercises since I’ve not drawn a live model in months. They were woeful. I used a graphite stick, then changed to charcoal and chalk. I’m not a huge fan of drawing with pencil, that’s why I changed to charcoal. I won’t show my results as they are pretty woeful as I said.
I changed to paint after lunch break since I’m more comfortable with that, but today it wasn’t really my friend. Obviously, I’m very rusty, and it shows. I spent hours working on this painting and every time I got to the face it just wasn’t working for me.
I kept scrubbing over it with a fresh layer of paint, and so I couldn’t finish it in the allotted time. It was very frustrating. I know I’m rusty, so I just have to be patient. I will return to the painting, but I’m not sure where I’m going to go with it.
It was good to get out of the house and back into a classroom environment. I’ve really missed it, and I’ve found it difficult to function artistically outside of it. Weird, since I found it really difficult to work in a classroom at the start. Funny how things are.
By Heather, on July 12th, 2010
Hey guys. I just wanted to update my blog since I’ve been rather absent. Unfortunately, I’ve been seriously under the weather. Still am. I took an adverse reaction to medication I was given, and well, I can’t do anything. All I can do is sit or lie down on the couch. I was on my way to my friend’s last week for a few days holiday and I only got halfway there and couldn’t drive any further. The worst thing was that my daughter and hubby were away until yesterday, so I had to stay at home on my own. It was horrible at first, but I got used to it. I haven’t been eat, let alone cook. I thought today was going to be better but I tried to stand up for a bit and I’m back to square one. I’m not sure how long I’ll be away but hopefully not too long. Talk soon.
By Heather, on June 30th, 2010
I started working on the Old Man Deceiving The Artist tonight. This time it’s acrylic on canvas. I’m not quite sure where it’s going, actually. For something so simple and so primitive looking, it has taken me hours to get where I am.
There are bits I like and bits I don’t.
For instance, I like the top left side of the painting where the white blends into the pink and blue. I like the arm and how it changes colour. I like the right side of the painting, where the window and house are. I like the vibrancy of the colours – not ones I’d normally put together.
I dislike the faces – both of them. I don’t like the hair on the male figure, and I don’t like the black under the arm at the bottom of the painting.
So, I’ve left the painting for tonight. I’m too close to it and need a bit of breathing space. Hopefully inspiration will come tomorrow!
By Heather, on June 29th, 2010
Finally! I managed to work! God, it has been awful…to desperately want to paint, but not be able to. Ok, technically, I haven’t painted. I have drawn using oil pastels, but still…it’s work. These are my warm-up exercises. I dug deep into my mind, went to a dark place, and came up with these neo-expressionist imaginings. I have called them, ‘Old Man Deceiving The Artist’, and they are kind of self-portraits.
I intend on making a painting from these but wanted to do a few colour studies first, so these are my first attempts. They’re also my first attempts at Neo-Expressionism. I was a huge fan of Neo-Expressionism long before I even knew what the term meant, or before I knew that what I was looking at was Neo-Expressionist.
Neo-Expressionism uses vivid and banal colour harmonies and is painted in a primitivist style. It portrays raw emotion and tension, and is used to create a sense of disturbance to alienate the viewer in some manner.
I hope I have managed to capture that style here. All I know is that it feels good to create again.
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About Heather 
I'm a student artist, and have just finished my first year at college. I work in all areas of art, specialising in abstract fine art, but I love experimentation and am willing to try new techniques and style. Follow me on my journey, as I progress through my studies.
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