Busy busy busy with kids still. Juno has just turned two and maybe it’s me or maybe it’s the two year old curse, she has been a bit difficult, to put it mildly, and I am more overwhelmed than anytime last 2 years. Still easier than the days when I went solo with Bertie and Carl was away.
These 3 drawings are some of my latest. A bit of visual diary. There are so much restriction and limitation for me to draw, time is scarce, attention is fragmented, if not impossible, most of the time I can’t sit at my desk for a long stretch of time before someone looking for me.
I will have to redo the top one. This picture is how I wriggle through some of my days, to knit, to read, to do some drawing, and before you know it, she is up again demanding to nurse. I am trying to wean her off in the night, but it isn’t easy at all. She always cries and gets up at 4, which isn’t a great alternative either. I like this picture but the details aren’t well-planned enough and I struggle to finish it.
Lower right is my Bertie. It’s my first watercolour sketch for a while. I need more work getting the scale and colours and everything right.
Lower left is Juno again. I still do pencil sketch of her when she naps whenever possible, for I know very well soon it will all be over.
By the end of last month I have received an email from Artful revealing the new artful box’s content: soft pastel. I am still quite happy to pay £35 for this edition although soft pastel wasn’t on the list of things I am going to buy. Bring it on, consumerism!
I received my 3rd Artful box last weekendIt contains a box of 24 colours soft pastel, 6 pastel pencil, some blending sticks, a brush, a pencil, 4 cards, 1 multimedia pad (300gsm) and a magazine.
About 6 years ago I went to London and visited an art show with a friend. I saw someone demonstrating using soft pastels there. So I was intrigued and purchased some Conte a Paris pastels and a pack of warm colour and a pack of cold colour Daler Rowney pastel paper, A4, some Winsor and Newton fixative. I bought a book too, landscape pastel drawing. I found pastel very difficult to master and I wasn’t keen (or had any chances) to learn landscape/ plain air drawing, and the platte of my first purchase wasn’t wide enough for me to do much either, so they were mostly put away and forgotten.
I never believe things happen for a reason. But the pastels and paper I bought years ago do compensate what the Artful box is missing.
First, why do they insist giving white paper? Because it’s hard for soft pastel to cover textured paper evenly, most artists prefer paper with some sort of colours, beige and grey are popular choices, and the warm coloured paper I have, ranging from red to pink and orange, or the cool coloured paper, ranging from blue to green. Reason why is that the white on a perfectly white paper always shines through the darkest shadows when using pastels, its very difficult to look professional. You also do need some kind of fixative to keep the colour in place otherwise it will all go messy. Some people use hairspray.
Second is, among their 24 pastels, none of them is good for a flesh tone. So it is difficult to do portraits. But luckily I do have a couple in my Conte a Paris set. I do think the Conte a Paris soft pastels are a touch softer than the Artful box. One thing I don’t like about Artful is they don’t have much product information of the paints apart from the RRP, which can be anything they suggest really. They only says they are of premium artist quality which can be very subjective. I guess they are made in China. I am not saying they are bad, but some more information (like lightfastness) will be useful. Now I am eagerly looking out on eBay for the Swiss brand Caran D’ache soft pastels. And perhaps a wooden soft pastel storage box.
One thing I am really impressed with is there’s no single piece of useless plastic packaging or even paper wrapping in this box. It is tightly fitted with all the goodies.
If you haven’t used soft pastels before, unlike watercolour or pencil drawings, do bear in mind it can be very dusty, messy and hard to control. You will need plenty of space and perhaps some kind of protection for the surface around. But I am a very messy person so I don’t mind too much.
And the magazine is as good as always, this time it features interesting artists like the hyperrealistic pastel artist Ruben Belloso, abstract artist Janine Baldwin, animal drawing artist whose work will be featured on the upgrade box Rachel Bee. Getting the magazine is part of the reason why I want this box.
My daughter particularly loves the cat drawing tutorial and keeps saying ‘mao-mao’ at that page.
So, cut the long story short. This is my first 2 attempts with pastels:
Juno in bonnet and a pink dress, soft pastel on Daler Rowney 160gsm warm colour paper 305x228mmJuno Sitting on Penny soft pastel on Daler Rowney 160gsm warm colour paper 305x228mm
What I have learnt is, I need bigger paper for portraits because it is very hard to work on the skin tones and facial expression. I wanted to do one with my son and my daughter on a see-saw but it is impossible. It is my first attempt painting my dog and I do like the loose effect with soft pastels. I think the paper is the most important element when using soft pastels, the size, the colour, the texture, they all matter so much.
Apart from paper, I am blown away by the difference that a few pastel pencils can make, they help making the finer details possible and I am convinced that I need a few more. I am glad Artful box chose soft pastel as the theme for this season and I am curious when they will be able to ship their upgrade box. I just feel the urgent need to get more colours in order to create better work. With pastels if you don’t have the right colour you have to blend. And that will get messy, sometimes unintentional consequences. But I didn’t know I like soft pastels. Now I love it. These are my first 2 attempts and I am looking forward to trying more this kind of drawing.
On the other hand, it’s always said among illustrators that it’s important to find your own unique style and stick to it. I haven’t worked out how I can merge my new experience into my other work, but I am sure with time it will get better and I will find a style I can work consistently with.
For the box itself, I think it is great fun and good value for £35. If you are interested, do send me a message and let me know and I can send you a promo link hence both of us can get £5 off. 😉
That day I took my children and Penny to see the Flying Scotsman. We waited on the bridge for it to pass for a quarter of an hour. It’s a long 15 min when I had to carry the younger one and keep her emotionally stable, keep the dog under control, and answer Bertie’s endless questions about random things in the universe. My head always feels it’s about to explode. We saw the train. I wouldn’t say it’s some kind of ‘unforgettable family experience’. I guess the kids had forgotten about it soon after. We kept walking. Another day. This is how it feels like everyday. So I painted it and at least we have something more than a photo on my google drive. This is how summer holiday feels like when you were 7, when you were 1.
I have started updating my Facebook page. Hoping to let my friends see my work (rather than any kind of self-promotion) but to my disappointment the reach is so low, I don’t think even my friends see my posts on their newsfeed. I think that’s the way Facebook lure you to pay for ads but I am not intending to because I do not have time for freelance or to run this as a business for the time being. I like writing Chinese/Cantonese but Facebook is such an unreliable platform to get my friends read my stuff. Maybe I still update it regularly (but I really don’t have time/energy/content) to update daily.
The days with children are always long. Especially in the summer holidays. My son has gone back to school for 1.5 weeks already.
Every morning feels like this. Knackered before the day started. One coffee after another.
Recently I have finished one commission work and working on another one. I am not quite sure if it’s the right thing to do. I feel very uneasy with this kind of commission. My client seems to be happy.
My daughter loves drawing on top of my sketches. She likes to draw circles around the eyes.
I did a quick pencil drawing as a present for a friend.
still drawing, still knitting, still studying, still struggling with life, kids, they just take up so much time but give you so much joy.
All join in! After dinner the kids were playing on the floor. I naively thought I could finally sit down and draw them quietly. But Juno stood up immediately and insisted drawing on my sketch book, then Bertie joins in to draw his sci-fi fantasy. So we sat together until bedtime.
For the paint, I am very satisfied with Derwent’s pastel paint pan, a handy gouache collection 12 pastel colours. I did worry it would be too girly but the colours are so beautiful, I can’t do without them now. For the darker colours I use the Van Gogh watercolours by the Dutch brand Royal Talens. Both Derwent and Van Gogh are very budget friendly with high lightfast rating. They work very well together and I am using both everyday.
I have taken advantage of the Scrawlrbox and got some new Posca and Derwent Pencils. With the limited palette I started some super quick and simple drawings and I am quite happy with it. Recently I have rediscovered pencil colours, as they are clean and very versatile, and I can use them when I am nap-trapped by Juno. I have hardly touched my only set of Daler-Rowney watercolour pencils since HKCEE, which was gifted by one of my classmates. Perhaps I had always looked down on colour pencils, thinking they belong to kindergarten. But there’s always a sense of silliness and childishness when I draw these days, especially I really don’t have the time to achieve anything delicate and professional looking.
It’s Bertie’s last week of summer holidays. I feel like we have done nothing but there was no time to sit down and relax at all. I still draw nearly everyday but both my time and attention are so fragmented, I need to look after my dangerous and emotional toddler whatever I am doing (even at this very minute). I only hope I can record these days when I still feel and remember them. On the other hand, I haven’t found a comfortable voice of mine to update this page or a website regularly, so compared to drawing, updating on social media is more difficult.
I painted this one on an A3 watercolour paper. I hadn’t bought any new ones at that time. And this piece of paper suffered from water damage. Cockled, that’s the new term I have just learnt. I have no idea when it happened.
I hope I will do this one again. Because I don’t know how to draw trees. And I want to develop a palette making this drawing more atmospheric and less realistic.
As a mother of two, I don’t spend half as much time as I would like to with my son anymore. He used to be my night and day, my left and right. Now it’s always about the wee one. And ya, she is cute, and he can get a bit boring with his War of the Worlds obsession, and right, I am slightly annoyed by how much time he likes to spend on the computer.
I signed up a summer forest school day with him with Forth Pilgrim and we spent a whole day together a couple of week ago. He still enjoys my company, he still enjoys spending time together doing outdoor things. When it was lunch time, I helped him to climb on a tree, and I did myself too, so we sat side by side on a tree for half an hour. I didn’t really pack much lunch for him. But he was very happy, giggling away. He didn’t want to go anywhere. He just wanted to spend half an hour sitting on the tree with me. Hence this painting.
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Every year it seems I have gone through this cycle, possibly a few times: Really want to paint and write. Paint and write for a month. Obsessively look for information. Telling everybody I am trying again. Don’t really see the point of trying know I don’t have that much time and resources. Losing faith. Give up. Wanting to try again a few months later. And now I am a bit worried about this will soon happen again.
I have bought quite a bit of art supply last month and I still haven’t tested them all. I am very grateful we are now in a financial situation spending a few extra quid isn’t a problem. I was thinking about writing reviews and comparison. And I know I haven’t learnt enough to judge. I haven’t even got much technique. I have stopped reading much about art for a long time apart from the free stuff online. There’s no special insight I can provide.
In the middle of each drawing I am worried I won’t find motivation and inspiration again. And what for? who is paying for them? What am I shouting into a void for? What is the purpose? This morning when I got up I felt like I had hit hard on that wall again, And worse, my mum called today. Tough one.
I am doing another drawing that I quite like. And I do have another one in mind. I’d better finish them before I run out of enthusiasm.
Now my daughter is nearly 2. I have been here before 5 years ago. The crying, the tantrum, the breastfeeding in the night. And hell! Another year until I send her to nursery. Things have been hard. But unlike last time, I know they do pass and more aspects of my life are in a better position.
Honestly, these days my sleep is so fragmented and I am dead tired.
Yesterday morning I got up before my son and husband with her. And she wanted to watch Shh! We Have A Plan on Vimeo. The opera is based on one of her (my) favourite books, Shh! We Have A Plan by Chris Haughton. And she wanted to play with the puppet shown on the English Touring Opera’s YouTube channel we learnt to make together, it’s not a toy for a toddler so it had been torn and broken multiple times. So I fixed the broken parts for her and she was happy for 10 minutes. Hence the picture.
Still she had thrown another 20 tantrums before 10am. But when days are difficult, I want to put those little happy moments in my sketch, because I want to remember them.
After 5 years I am living with another soon-to-be 2 year old toddler and a 7-year-old growing little boy.
After 5 years I am still living in Inverkeithing, but this time we have bought our own house with a sizeable garden.
After 5 years I have learnt how to knit and crochet, and I have a dog and a garden to look after.
After 5 years I still haven’t had half the time I wish I had, I am still overwhelmed by housework, nap-trapped by my toddler everyday. But they give me so much joy and meaning to my days. I can’t stop drawing them. And I still want somewhere to show them
After 5 years I have started drawing and painting again, but I still don’t have a manageable schedule so I still am not able to finish my study or look for jobs or commissions.
Recently I have watched a lot of Vlogs in the evening, I really enjoy them but I am too camera shy and YouTube doesn’t fit my personality at all. I have deleted Facebook and reduced my activities on instagram. Totally don’t feel I need to respond to another hashtag trend or call for art nonsense. I started only sending a few friends some work privately I do so I can get the satisfaction of being liked and seen. But in long run, I have no idea how self-promotion works. I decide to wait another month before I commit to buy a domain. Just play around and see how to layout of my portfolio looks like, try to find a voice I like.
I know not many people blog anymore. All the better, less self-conscious about my terrible grammar.
So, let’s see where we can get from here. 🙂
update: I did think blog is dead since I been on instagram and Facebook far too much but I have just spent an hour on Bloglovin’, omg haven’t checked on it for a good 10 years! what have I missed! Definitely going to make this silly blogging think work, really like this much much much more than Instagram.
Like everybody, I want to make a list of New Year Resolutions on the first of January. The vibrate 2015 is over, and miraculously Bertie sleeps by 8pm tonight, giving me the rare chance to enjoy a glass of wine and a box of chocolate from my beloved ones at Christmas.
For the new year, I carried the 30-lbs Bertie and walked over the hill, which is tremendous fun and joy in a winter morning. Catching my breathe, battling with the cold, I feel alive. This winter had been terribly wet and we feel trapped indoor most of the days. Whenever the chances come, whenever the sun shines, I feel like a poor indoor dog excited for exercise and adventure.
2015 had been a tough year. Bertie is still growing out of his babyhood and adjusting himself to the limitation of this brand new world. My husband has gone through many changes in his career. We are still waiting to see where are we going to live in 2016. We have said goodbye to a few friends and attempted to make some new ones who we are getting ready to say goodbye again. I have completely no luck in doing paintings but I managed to create a few watercolour work that I am proud of. We still travelled a bit, but travelling is hell lot more stressful with a sensitive toddler. But all these makes life rather exciting. I have successfully quitted Facebook in order to maintain my sanity. I started wearing specs again. I have read quite a few good books. I am grateful that we had a brilliant summer and we went for walks and to the beaches regularly. I am glad that I am strong enough to carry Bertie. I am proud that I still breastfeeding Bertie against all the odds, matitis, social stress, etc. My faith in science and nature keeps me going.
For the new year, there won’t be anything special. I hope I will be able to update this blog at least bi-weekly. I hope I will be able to type in French later this year. I do hope Bertie will start talking instead of crying in a few months, and recently seeing him trying to entertain himself without my help brings me great relief. I want to be able to find joy and love in every day life. Therefore, I am going to keep a journal consistently and diligently. I know part of me feel fulfilled for being Bertie’s mum, but the sleep deprivation is a constant battle. And the crying. And the whining. It will pass. Bottom of my heart I know he will walk out of the door one day and never look back, like an image of the wild documentaries, except Christmas, hopefully. But as a carefree adult for a good few years, the transition to parenthood is one of the hardest thing I ever experience.
May there be more love, less hatred and anger in the new year.
Daphne Bennett 