All the p-Arty People - Thread #1

[PoliteTurtle]

Hello all! As promised, here is the first in hopefully many threads involving all things art & crafts.
I want it to be open to those who don’t necessarily do traditional art as well because I genuinely believe no matter skill set or level, everybody can be an artist if they put their mind to it. 👩‍🎨
If you’re a creative, please do join in on the introductions!

I feel like a proper introduction would be a good way of starting this off, so I’ll start;

ME: I have always been a creative person and have been creating since I was literally 4! I currently have a small business that I run along side being a full time mother of two DC, where I sell pet portraits, colouring pages and other things. I wish I had more arty friends, but I do not 🥲
MEDIUM: My favourite mediums are gouache and pencil but I flit around and also partake in crochet as well.

EXTRA: I am obsessed with tea, Yorkshire tea is the best and I am mildly addicted to anything regarding chocolate.
PHOTO; Some of my recent commissions 😃

@ChatteringStarling
@Cranarc
@HazelSheep
@emilyamc
@AllieDeCorbeau
@SophiaElizabethGrace

I've changed username to join this thread because I'd quite like to post some pictures that people IRL may recognise and I've posted some fairly personal stuff under other user names that I'd rather they not see.

Thank you so much to @PoliteTurtle for starting this thread - and the inspired thread title!

ME: I loved art as a child and got some quite good marks when doing it more formally at school. My pleasure was squashed when my mother declared the teacher must be blind and what was he doing giving good marks to such woeful daubs. Have dabbled on and off since but never realised how much time you (I) need to invest, now how therapeutic investing that time can be. A friend persuaded me to try a class with her and I am hooked.
MEDIUM: pencil, mainly. I've also become very keen on oil pastels and a recent pen and ink class was much more successful than I anticipated. I struggle with paints.
EXTRA: I'm a fitness fanatic and have written several novels which I have completely failed to get published
PHOTO: oil pastel woods and pencil boxers

@Spodge Lovely work! I’m sorry that your mother stopped you from doing art, but I’m glad you have dabbled in it since! I can see you have a knack for it in the photos you posted so definitely keep it up 🤩
Thanks for joining in!💐

Thanks for starting the thread @PoliteTurtle

ME: I gave up on drawing and all that stuff when I was really young, as I don’t have much natural aptitude for it. But years later, I read somewhere that 80% of drawing is skill not talent, so I set myself a challenge to draw something daily for a year. My drawings went from laughable to passable! I’ve kept up some sort of art habit ever since.

MEDIUM: I’m not very good at sticking to a single medium. I’ve tried LOTS! I love the look of ink, the vibrancy of watercolour, the speed of pastels etc. I’m a bit of a medium hopper!

EXTRA: I may not be loyal to any of the mediums, but I’m very loyal to my subject matter - I paint and draw birds, birds and more birds (with the occasional bit of urban sketching)

I do bookbinding as a side hobby, after nearly fainting when I first saw the price of a reasonable quality watercolour sketchbook! I love making my own. It’s so satisfying, but I’ve had to branch out into notebooks and photo albums, as there’s sadly a limit to how many sketchbooks anyone needs 😂

PHOTOS: An ink drawing of a wading bird

I’m sorry you were discouraged from doing something you loved@Spodge. Really glad you found your way back to it 😊

To my mind it doesn’t even matter if someone is “good” or not. What matters is, do they enjoy what they’re doing? Does it add something to their life? Anything else is extra.

@ChatteringStarling Absolutely lovely bird drawing there!🤩
You’re very right, art is definitely skill and I’m pretty sure talent doesn’t actually exist?😂 I’ve had many people say to me over the years “I wish I was so talented!”
And I always feel like that’s a half compliment because I didn’t come into the world with a skill for art, it’s hundreds of hours of time spent learning and practicing 🥲

Wow book binding! I haven’t settled on a paper type preference yet but if and when I do I would love to try making my own sketchbook!

Oh yes, don’t get me started on the perfect paper! It’s a bit of an obsession for me 😂

I think it’s so easy for people to underestimate the amount of effort it takes to hone your creative skills, so totally get your frustration @PoliteTurtle. It’s so odd that art is seen as a “gift” that some people have, which is out of reach for others. It’s such an unhelpful idea!

Oh yes @ChatteringStarling it stops new people from starting too!

Ive been spending my days creating cards as of late, have you got up to much arty stuff this week?

Homework for our art course is oil pastels, so I am very happy. We are having to draw figures in action which is tough, but I have been doing MMA fighters which has been fun.

Your art course sounds fun @Spodge . Is it in person, or online?

Are you making the cards just for fun @PoliteTurtle or also to sell?

I’ve been working hard on honing my urban sketching skills over the last week. I’ve done some before with pen & ink, but for my sketching holiday I want to also use watercolour and that’s a whole different challenge.

This week’s experiments were not helped by my bright idea of using up some rubbish watercolour paper first. It turned everything into a mess. Anyway, I’ve finally seen the error of my way and broken out the good stuff. Paintings are still fairly rubbish, but at least the paint stays roughly where I intended it to be 😊

@ChatteringStarling the course is run by our local Adult Education Centre, in person. It's good, and also good value because the current course was government/local authority subsidised. Funding has now been stopped but they are continuing to offer courses so I am going to carry on. The teacher is encouraging and the group is supportive and lovely.

I, too, have used rubbish watercolour paper. Urgh. Actually, I have used all manner of really poor quality equipment. Some I have found to be OK and some (oil pastel set costing a fiver, I'm looking at you) has been an unmitigated disaster. It is a wonder I actually bothered to buy some decent pastels to try, but I'm really glad I did.

Are you using watercolour pencils for your urban sketching, or actual pans/tubes?

To sell but also for fun 😁 I am doing made-to-order on my shop but just made my auntie a birthday card 🙂
I do love ur and sketching, it’s got such a certain character about it, really captures the energy of a place!
I also have some shoddy watercolour paper… I have found I actually prefer to use very flat or low-tooth paper as I’m quite a heavy handed artist!
I’d love to see some of your urban sketching!

I understand what you mean about the poor equipment, (however I’m not sure if this is encouraging or not so don’t take this wrong because I mean this to be encouraging!!) but there is an artist on Reddit who predominantly uses crayola crayons and creates some really amazing work(shown below), I think it’s not usually about what you have, but instead what you do with it
and you have already created some wonderful work that you showed before!
you have the skill!
in fact, sorry this is abit of a waffle… I watched a video about being free with your work, and that artists are like a caged canary… sounds random I know… but if I find it again I will post it🩷

Here it is;

@PoliteTurtle Thank you for that, and the video. Yes, I totally get what you are saying about the equipment. And of course knowing the qualities and limitations of it. We spent one week at art class using only coffee to paint with, making different strengths as necessary. It was quite fun and people got some lovely results. My problem with the cheap-o pastels was that I had been told you can layer oil pastels pretty well on the correct paper (which I had). But mine did not layer at all, I discovered. Just slipped off each other, so the picture I had planned went to pot quite fast!

I like your card - that's really nicely done.

@Spodge Oh I see! Oh damn, I hate when it doesn’t work out the way you envisioned! 😭 Sometimes there’s no saving rubbish equipment to be fair! I did a drawing on a paper I’d never tried before, I got about 3 hours in and my pencil when straight through it… I had to take a two day break because I was so cross 😂

I’m a little bit jealous of your in-person art course @Spodge. Wish I had something like that nearby, but alas, it’s just books & YouTube tutorials for me.

Interesting video @PoliteTurtle. I used to find that making things was a bit of a psychological battle for me, as my perfectionist tendencies would take so much of the enjoyment away. It’s taken me a while to realise (and accept!) that not only is it ok to make mistakes, it’s a key part of the learning process. I definitely recognise that feeling of my own mind holding me back.

In other news, I rediscovered the joy of sketching with a fountain pen over the weekend. I like fine liners too, but there’s something very satisfying about drawing with that kind of pen. None of that scratchiness 😣

What's everyone been up to? This is my latest stuff.

Hello arty people. Mum of one here, I was made redundant last summer but pay off gave me some much needed breathing space to focus on my art. I’ve sold a few pet portrait commissions since but probably need to look for a job soon 😞I’m a (or was a) graphic designer

I dropped out of art school as I was too much of an introvert and struggled to make friends…. I was a very unhappy teenager. 30 years later I’m restarting my art career and learning by YouTube! I’ve always lacked confidence but I’d like to pass on what I’ve learned and start my own YouTube channel 😬I ‘ve just turned 55 and I lost both my parents to cancer in their early 60s. Life is too short, and sometimes you just need to paint 🤗

I really needed to watch that video. Thanks for sharing @PoliteTurtle . xx

Some lovely work there @Missingashoe. Such a shame that it’s so hard to make a living out of that.

I’ve been a bit quiet as I’ve recently started doing an urban sketching course and frankly the result are not suitable for sharing 😄 I did have a lot of fun last week painting fruit & vegetables (one of the exercises in the course). I got a bit carried away and ended up buying “novelty” fruit & veg, just for painting purposes.

I can feel my favourite art subject (birds) calling me. Now that spring is here, there’s just so much inspiration all around me. It’s been a while since I last painted a bird and I think subconsciously the fear of creating something crap is holding me back 😂

Took the plunge and painted a duck. It came out so much better than I thought it would. May be I’ve not quite forgotten everything!

It’s an Eider duck btw, in case anyone thinks it’s a weird looking thing!

@ChatteringStarling that's lovely. Well done, you.

Thanks @Spodge ☺️ Have you been up to anything art-related lately?

I’ve properly caught the bird painting bug again after painting my duckie. The urban sketching course is on hold for now, but it did teach me one very important lesson that I plan to apply to any future creations - never think “I don’t like what I’ve created here”, but think “what can I learn from this painting?”, “what worked well?”, “how would I do things differently next time?”

It’s such a simple obvious thing really. I’ve never been very good at shutting up my inner critic, but going through those questions is helping me to steer it in a more constructive direction.

The teacher actually annotates all her sketches with her observations/ ideas for improvements. I’m planning to start doing something similar, if I can think of a way of doing it that doesn’t mean scribbling all over my paintings 😂