Amanda's Birthday Art Project

 Every April (well... MOST Aprils) the kids and I usually do a little art project and make some sort of drawing or paintings for Amanda's birthday. 

Last year it was birds. 

Another year it was Horses from Greek Myth. 

(apparently I didn't post what we got up to here very often...) 

This year, kids suggested fantastical/mythical beasties... 

Keiran and I worked on ours in the afternoon, together at the kitchen table. 

We took up a lot of space. 

Finnegan was preparing for a D&D game in the afternoon, so he did his later in the evening (luckily Amanda had to stay at work until quite late...) 

Keiran Brown, Gem Collector - 30cm x 30 cm - ink and watercolour on paper 

The story here is that Amanda, in a moment of self-awareness, came home from a Yoga Workshop and told us she realized she was a crap detector and not a gem collector - but she really wanted to be a GEM COLLECTOR. For, REASONS, she had always been a very critical person... and... that's who she is... but she's tried really, REALLY hard to learn to NOT just open her mouth and point out EVERYTHING WRONG with... whatever is before her. It's been a struggle. 

I thought maybe there was a subtle little double entendre going on here - perhaps Keiran was suggesting that Amanda was was still, in fact, a DRAGON, and going about "collecting gems" in totally the wrong way... But Keiran assured me the thought never entered their mind and they just thought DRAGONS ARE COOL AND COLLECT SHINY THINGS! 

Tim Brown - Great Horned Owlbear - 30cm x 30 cm - ink and watercolour on paper 

Finnegan Brown - Merlin-Lynx-Griffon - 30cm x 30 cm - ink and watercolour on paper 

Finnegan wanted to do a different take on a standard classic fantasy griffon and instead of an eagle head and lion body, he wanted to do more local animals and so made his griffon referencing a Merlin's head and wings and a Lynx's body - both critters found around Saskatchewan - we've even had Merlins nesting in our neighbours tree for a few years. 

I'll be sneaking these out after Amanda goes to sleep... not sure if I should replace some existing art work or just leave them on the dining room table for her to discover in the morning. The problem with the former, is Amanda might not even notice them!? Probably just leave them on the table... She can decide where to hang them later. 

(She totally doesn't read this blog, so I feel pretty safe posting stuff here before she's even seen them!) 

Bird-Day

It has been quiet around here. I got a little distracted and haven't been drawing and painting as much the last few months. I have been doing a lot of painting of miniatures and playing games... 

This week it is Amanda's 50th birthday. Usually I try and paint something for her - and try and get the kids to join in. It's a little harder to orchestrate a Super-Secret-Birthday-Art-Project when she NEVER LEAVES THE HOUSE, though!!! I had to do all of this work in a rush on the two times she left the house for short appointments. The kids had it a little easier, they could work in their rooms with their doors closed. the only space I had to work was in plain view of Amana's at-home work station where she spends, like, 90% of her waking hours... 

We went with a bit of a bird theme this year. 

We went with very tiny pictures - these are all in 4"x6" frames. I figures small would be quicker and easier for me - and easier to get buy in from the kids (who are now teens and less inclined just to do anything I suggest!) 

Detail of the Black-Capped Chickadee that I painted. 

Detail of the Snowy Owl I painted. It didn't turn out quite like I imagined it in my head... I might have liked to try again... but I was VERY limited in the time I had... so... This is it... 

Both of mine were painted with Holbien Acrylic inks. I was kind of experimenting with them for the very first time. So another excuse for them not turning out awesome. Mistakes made. Lessons learned. If I'd had another day or two, I probably could have redone them better... Next time. 

Detail of the Crow Keira painted.  (see more of her work @keirfuffle on instagram) 

Detail of the Toucan that Finnegan drew (you can see more of his work @finnbrownart on Instagram)

We also got her a bird-themed game. 

More Art Lab

Wow... I went to make a new post and realized there was this draft sitting here that I started... well... a LONG TIME AGO... like, Maybe January or February of this year...? I guess I better finish THIS up and post it before starting another!

Back in JUNE of last year, Keira and I started working on the projects in Paint Lab by Deborah Forman... and then promptly got busy with other things... She has been HOUNDING me ever since to get back at it... and so we have!

A couple weeks ago, we tried Project #2 - "Let It Pour" - Inspired by Helen Frankenthaler.

The idea was to pour liquid acrylic - mixed with a liquid medium and water. I wasn't sure about the state of my acrylic paints. And I certainly didn't have a liquid medium. And didn't have any prepared boards or canvases. So I got this idea that we could try this with watercolour or gouache suspended water and pour it on Watercolour paper...

results were... varied...



One of Keira's - I think this was the best of the bunch. She saw me adding glitter glue to one of mine and decided this needed some as well. I think it worked out rather well.



Another one of Keira's




Instructions for Building my Funeral Pyre in the Rain,

January 2020,

37cmx27cm,

Watercolour (paint, pencil and marker) and Gouache on Watercolour Paper

Tim Brown

The poured mess was boring.... so I added to it with Watercolour pencils and markers.



Sparkles Light Up My Night

January 2020

37cmx27cm

Watercolour and Gouache on Watercolour Paper

Tim Brown

Again... boring mess... so I added glitter glue!

The following week, we tried again with Acrylics and some cheap canvases I picked up from Dollarama. We tried mixing acrylics I had with water, which... didn't work great. I think tried mixing it with some old Stevenson acrylic "matte varnish" that was nothing close to "matte" and, thus, I had never used. It worked... a bit better...



We were doing this in the dining room, though, as the craft/art room in the basement is filled with stuff from the Game Room which is undergoing renovation. Despite cardboard and plastic covering the table and rags everywhere - it was totally paranoid about getting very runny liquid acrylic all over everything and incurring the WRATH OF AMANDA... which may have kept us from getting REALLY crazy with this. Also, I discovered, number of my acrylic paints had dried completely solid, and others smelled as if they were rancid!? So we were somewhat limited in our palettes. Thirdly, we were using relatively small canvases - I feel like this might have worked better if we'd had bigger ones - but the day I went to pick them up I had a number of stops to make and so only picked up ones that would easily fit in my courier bag...

Despite these setbacks, I think it turned out better than the pouring watercolour experiment!



35cmx28cm

acrylic paint on prepared canvas

Keira Brown

Again, I think it was Keira's that turned out best - not that it's a competition - just looking at what the lab suggested, I feel like her's really captured the idea best out of the four.



35cmx28cm 

acrylic paint on prepared canvas

Keira Brown



Symphony in Brown,

January 2020

28cmx35cm

acrylic paint on prepared canvas

Tim Brown

Jason Screamed "FIRE" in Physics Lab 

January 2020

28cmx35cm  

acrylic paint on prepared canvas

Tim Brown



Back to doing more projects from Carla Sonheim's Drawing Lab... 

And now we got to the part that I hadnt' finished and I have to kind of guess what was going on... Looks like we were doing drawings of Cats and then maybe some blind contour drawings of giraffes and other  animals... 

Looks like mine are first here... 

These look like they might be Keira's...? 

Stay tuned... got more coming up for you... if, indeed, there ARE any of you actually still reading this...? 

Inktober 2016 - Day 5

"Sad"was the official Inktober prompt for today. 

Mine:

The Boy's:

The Girl's:

Anyone care to guess what story The Girl's is from...? 

Inktober 2016 - Day 4

All of ours together today. 

The prompt for today was "HUNGRY"

mine

The Girl's



The Boy's



Inktober

Kids Inktober 2016 - Days 1-3

The kids decided to get in on the Inktober Action. They wanted to post their stuff with mine... but I kind of forgot the first few days. So here are their efforts for the first three days and I will try to remember to post theirs along with mine for the rest of the month...

The Girl

Day One - Fast





 Day Two - Noisy



Day Three - Collect




The Boy

Day One - Fast



Day Two - Noisy



Day Three - Collect

Halloween Costumes

I thought I'd try making halloween costumes with the kids this year...



it was a bit of a group effort. The kids came up with the original ideas; "Cthulhu' and "Medusa", respectively. I helped plan and design the bits we were going to make. The kids did a lot of the marking out and cutting of materials. They also did sewing, where they could. I did a a fair bit of the tricky stuff and... well... other bits just to speed things up...



We didn't start until the week before Halloween, so were a bit rushed, but the kids really tried to help out when they could - getting up and working on them before even getting dressed?!



An evening and an afternoon at my folks using Grandmas sewing machine helped a lot.



Hats finished. Still had to find The Boy some green clothes and make The Girl's greek dress.



There were a lot of snakes in that "wig"!



The final costumes.

Not bad for a first stab at costume making. Next time we'll start earlier and maybe seek out better materials (instead of just using what we could find around the house...).