Using black and white 2

I decided to give it another attempt, keeping it simple and graphic. This was an amazing experience as when I took my line drawing out for photocopy, for some reason the black image was bigger than the white making it impossible to paste blocks of one into the other. It seemed a simple solution to cut out all the black sections and paste them into a pattern onto a plain white sheet of paper.  It was like being back in primary school, bits of paper, glue, scissors and a mess of paper bits everywhere. I had a great time and at the exercise was well worth doing.

cut outs from black photocopy on plain white paper. This achieves
a graphic look and feel and through its lack of line has a good
solid feel about it.

Graphic images and illustrators
Some of the artists/illustrators from history who've achieved great black and white graphics. Beardsley did some incredible graphic illustrations in his time, while Picasso was a master of line and simplicity. I particularly enjoy and appreciate the simplicity of the graphics of Milton Glaser.

Aubry Beardsly

Picasso

Milton Glaser

Exercise: Using black and white

The purpose of the exercise is to create a black and white graphic image from one of the themes suggested. I decided to choose the sea, which seemed like a good idea at the time, but when I actually started cutting and pasting found it may have been a bit too ambitious as it was quite time consuming. The end result was very interesting and I'm quite please with the effect, but not sure that I succeeded with the objective which was to create an image without lines.
Perhaps if I had also used a gray tone as an additional 'colour', I might have been able to eliminate all lines, but I should have been more realistic with my original drawing and kept it simple.

Initial line drawing

inversed

Cut outs from black and pasted onto the white drawing. 

New graphics for Canadian Olympics

I really love this new design for the Canadian Olympics. I have watched the evolution of the maple leaf since I was a child and remember the big change back in the 60's when the flag was overhauled to be the new single graphic leaf. This design is really cool. It's so bold and dramatic and I'm sure the teams will be delighted to support the new brand. I've added some of the text from the web site I visited to download the graphics. 
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1664066/canadas-bold-leafy-rebranding-of-its-olympic-team

Canada began competing in the Olympics in the early 1900s, and, in overhauling the team’s branding, Ben Hulse drew from more than a century of stories and iconography. The maple leaf stood out as the unifying element, both for its meaningful history (it appeared on Olympic athletes 60 years before becoming the symbol of the nation’s flag) and for its versatility (it appears clean and classic on marks and intense and vibrant on mosaic graphics).

Hulse gave as much consideration to typography, delving into the team’s history for pointers -- like the blocky letterforms on athlete uniforms in the 1930s -- and scouring the Internet for just the right typefaces. “The aesthetic needed to be sporty but not futuristic, historic but fashion forward, bold but humble,” the designer tells Co.Design. That may sound like a string of buzzwords, but in point of fact, the mix of imagery speaks to that difficult balance.

The most exciting part of the process, according to Hulse, is devising a strategy that can evolve over the next year as the committee gears up for 2012: “We've explored how the mosaic graphic might be used from a system perspective -- overlaying on photos, cropping, keeping the intention and energy of the lines -- but playing with the notion of hiding and revealing the maple leaf depending on the application.” Phew, sounds like good training for the branding Olympics -- an event in which, we’re sad to say, the USA wouldn’t take home any medals.

computer feather

I had to give it one last shot with photoshop. I loved the jewelled feel of the feather.

Feathers, some paintings I did recently

Done with acrylic on board, I was intrigued by the feathers of this headdress

watercolour of peregrine falcon

Exercise: A subjective drawing

I had so much fun with this. I found a beautiful feather recently which I have been looking at and wondering what it would look like if I tried to paint it. Would I be able to capture the beauty of the simple feather? 

I guess it's all subjective and I found I wanted to do more and more as I explored this simple beautiful object of nature.

My first feeling on feather was light, but I tended to lean towards peacock 

My mood board or story board of feathers. The small one on the left is real.
The picture of Matt, top right is the Egyptian goddess of truth and justice.
Her ostrich feather that she always wore represents truth.

starting with sketchbook pencil drawings

to adding charcoal with pencil

watercolour flower plants

ink and chalk on textured paper

watercolour with gold sparkle glue

birds of a feather -acrylic

Creative Thinking and Problem Solving

Objective drawing

The purpose of this exercise is to take one of the subjects and draw it objectively - not based on personal feeling or opinion.
Glasses seemed the easiest as they were there in front of me and it was a good exercise to draw with pencil

Exploring drawing and painting 2

These shoes begged for me to do something with them. I felt that even though they were different they could be used in a pattern. It evolved into what I call my little shoe mandala.

Exercise: Exploring drawing and painting

Sanguine and pastel on matt printer paper 

 The objective of this exercise is to create a new sketchbook with lots of different papers ( colours and textures). Then using different drawing and painting materials, experiment and create a range of drawings. I chose the shoe from the range of the choices and found it a very worthwhile exercise as well as being a lot of fun.

Felt tip artist pen on photocopy paper

oil pastel on yellow card

ochre watercolour on salt wash on 300 gsm rough watercolour paper

pencil on sketch paper

Dr Martin ink on glossy photographic paper

watercolour and spatters on textured acrylic paper

tracing paper template for the watercolour painting