Visual Storytelling

I am following drawing lessons once a week. I'm following these lessons at Studio Kolectiv: http://cargocollective.com/studiokolectiv. The past few weeks I've been working on what has to become a three-piece. We had to think of a way to tell a visual story in three pieces. Old, sepia coloured photographs and stories taking place a few centuries ago, always speak to me. The kind of victorian stories, Charles Dickens style...I feel attracted to this kind of darker, melancholic period in history. Old, dampy, foggy streets in London.....

For this assignment for my drawing lessons, I came up with a story (really happened) I found on the internet about an orphan girl and her brother who were left by their mother at an orphanage after their father died. All this taking place around about the year 1800.

In these first two drawings I tried to visualize the loneliness surrounding this story about two children left by their mother. I did some research on the internet, looking for an image of an old chair and looked for old childrens-pictures to use as a reference.

The third piece of this what is now still is a two-piece ;-), I'm still thinking about. This will follow hopefully. It's done in ink and faber-castell fineliners.

" Light Up " : Instant Happiness

Just Stand Tall

A drawing I made yesterday. I felt like drawing a tree. I often like to add some symbolic words to a drawing. 'Just stand tall' in this case. Stay strong, and keep standing straight up, no matter what happens. Just like an old tree does, for decades. And in case you were wondering what that colourful paper on the bottom right side is....writing my name in ink went wrong so I covered the mess up with a colourful piece of paper....creative right? ;-).

Red Wine Label in action

Here's my wine label in action on the red wine container in Portugal! I blogged about this before, you can read more about it here:

http://estherlankhaar.blogspot.nl/2012/10/red-and-white-wine.html

Still Playing Around

I'm still playing around with my blog's layout! This is how it looks now. :-). Decided to use my Coco Chanel drawing as a picture for my header. But things can change again......You can read about this drawing here: 

http://estherlankhaar.blogspot.nl/2012/06/result-of-last-few-drawing-lessons-for.html

Winter Time Fun

I've been having some fun with a photo-app on my Iphone. Look at the the result, with my own 'Winter Time' illustration. I like it! The app I did this with is called DecoSama.

Be Who You Are

A New Header

I've been working on and experimenting with my blog's header. I had to find out how I could get the image to fit the width of the blog, taking pictures of it and scanning it. Just to figure out which one will give the best result. I find it kind of hard to get the colours right, both by photographing and scanning. The way it looks now it reflects the 'handmade'. I hope this is charming.....:-).

Glued to the spot

It all started with black ink spots. Then the green followed, the little figure, the "glued to the spot" and last but not least; the trees. The 'glued to the spot' is literally glued to the black inkspot and the little figure is standing there, glued to the spot.

Are you still following me? ;-). Hope you don't think I'm crazy now :-).....but.... I don't know where this all came from, suddenly, it was just there.

Now I have to think about if being 'glued to the spot' has some kind of meaning for me in my life somehow at this moment....:-D.
(For the readers in the Netherlands; my translation of 'glued to the spot' in Dutch is: 'aan de grond genageld staan'.)

Two quotes

Two quotes I came across that spoke to me this sundaymorning.

Autumn Nights

There's something about autumn nights. Staying home where it's warm, with a cup of tea.I felt like drawing a cosy autumn scene. Yay for my Nikon camera! Well....not really mine, but my cousin was so sweet to lend me her camera, since she's got a newer one. I'm so happy with this, because now I can take better pictures.

Art Supplies

It was a beautiful, sunny, autumn day. I made the most of it by enjoying a cup of coffee in the sun, watching people in the city. If that wasn't enough, I made myself even more happy by going to the art-supplies store. Off-course I didn't leave the shop without some fun stuff.....:-)

The Sun was just Yellow Energy

                                   

Yet another Moleskine

I started working in -yet another- Moleskine today. This time it's a little watercolour Moleskine book.
I have several going on. Every book has a theme, and I'm planning on working in each one every now and then. I find it hard to concentrate on one medium for a longer period, because I find so many things interesting to do and learn about. So I guess I"ll just have to skip from one to another, however I feel like.
This one is about watercolour. I also used a little pencil, stabilo fineliners and collage. Oh, and Indian Ink,
I've enjoyed working on these two a lot!

Red and White Wine

It's been a week!
These are the two winelabels I wrote about in my last blog. I have family in Portugal. My mothers sister was married to a Portuguese man, he passed away last year. The family owns an old vineyard, with red and white grapes. Now that my oncle passed away, my cousin tries to keep the wine harvest going. She lives in the Netherlands but flies over to Portugal as much as she can. There are so much things to do overthere. The old house needs fixing for example and there's the grapes that need to be picked every year. Before, my oncle used do all the things in and around the land, but now he's gone, my cousin tries to organize things. It's a lot of work! Especially since my aunt (her mother) recently had heartsurgery. Luckily, they got a lot of lovely people over there to take care of things around the house and to look after the land.

This year the grapes were picked by a lot of local people. I offered to design a wine label for the red and white wine from 2012. This seemed to me like a very fun thing to do! The idea of winebottles with a label made by me, gives me a good feeling! My work for people to see, and to hopefully, enjoy for a moment when they look at it.

My oncle who passed away last year was named "Fausto" and my cousin came up with the idea to name the wine "Fausto Tinto" (the red wine) and "Fausto Branco"(the white wine). "Moita de Alvorninha" is the name of the mountain the vineyard is on.

These are the results of the lables I came up with. A lot of trying out....It's a little collage, drawing, painting and writing in indian ink, watercolour and coloured ink. And drawing pen.

The white wine label (Fausto Branco), I'm not completely happy with yet. Work in progress! ;-).

I still, and I say this almost in every blog I write, have to buy myself either a good scanner or a better camera. This is the sharpest I can get the pictures, even with some adjustments in Iphoto and Photoshop. I haven't got the best camera. Still haven't decided if I should spend my money on a camera or on a scanner....Suggestions?

An addition, writing this sunday the 7th: second picture made with a good Nikon camera! Such a difference!