Drawing on Post-its in "Auto-Mode"

I would never suggest that there is any comparison between me and Michelangelo, but I understand what he meant when he said he said, "Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it." I feel that way about Post-its. Every blank Post-it has a picture in it and it is the doodler's job to find out what it is. There is just something about drawing on a Post-it that frees you up to draw without taking yourself one bit seriously. When I draw on more formal art paper, I tend to put a little more thought into it, and pictures come out in a different style.

Georgia

A friend who used to collect some of my Post-it art once described  my style as "Contemporary Primitive." I'm pretty sure he made that up, but I guess that might be an okay description of some of my art, usually the kind that I do without conscious thought, in what I think of as auto-mode. All of the pictures shown in this post were drawn in auto-mode. When in auto-mode, I may be thinking about something, but I am not consciously thinking about what I am drawing. I simply let my fingers seek out the the picture that is "there." What I often find is there is a face, almost always a female face. I can draw males, but I have to out some conscious effort into it. When drawing automatically, the pictures that come out are decidedly female.

Novice

If you want to try it, gather a stack of Post-its and a collection of art supplies that you find appealing. I like to use markers, color pencils, and Sharpie pens.You might try it when you are on the phone or watching TV or talking to someone at the kitchen table. Or you might just look out the window and daydream as you doodle. As a writer, I tend to drift into doodling when I am tired of thinking and need to clear my mind for a while. You'll be surprised at what materializes on the previously boring blank Post-it! If drawing just doesn't work for you, you might get one of those fancy color books with the exquisite pictures, and just color!

Juliet

Drawing is not the only thing that can happen in the effortless zone. I've heard some people can get into such a zone when running. Some people can bake bread or cook in auto-mode or play piano or write a story. I don't suggest we should all become zombies and do everything in a daydreamy daze. But it can be so refreshing to let your right-brain take the steering wheel for a while.

Fun with Gimp: Start with your hand drawn art and apply filters to make something new

For years I got to use Adobe products at work and fell in love with Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and Illustrator and I dream of someday owning the whole Adobe Creative Suite at home. When that happens I also hope to be able to afford all the Ikea studio furniture I want including lamps and a new house with a sunny studio overlooking a beautiful mountain scene.... Yes, I have some ideas of what heaven might be like whenever I get there.

But right now the pricetag is a little steep and we have other priorities for our spending money. Thank goodness for freeware. For about a year I have been discovering the pleasures of Gimp, an image editing program comparable to Photoshop, and am still exploring its amazing capabilities. Best of all it's FREE.

At first I just used Gimp to crop and sharpen up my photographs, but lately I have been discovering its art potential. The only only problem is that once I start playing with it I can sucked into into vortex for hours. Here's an example of the fun you can have with Gimp.....

I drew this lady (I think she must a teacher) with markers and color pencil on a Post-it, and scanned it to a digital image:

Then I used Gimp tools to make her sharper and brighter and applied a filter called Selective Gaussian Blur to make her skin nice and smooth:

Then I got a crazy and applied another filter. (Gimp has 16 types of filters, each with different options and then options within the options.)  The filter I used for this picture is called Polar Coordinates, found in the Distorts menu:

I like how the window appears in her head, a metaphor for thinking of new ideas perhaps. How many software programs can give you visual metaphors you weren't even looking for? Just part of of the serendipity of doing art.

Welcome to Scribbleflowers: If we love doing art, let's just do it!

Hello and thank you for visiting Scribbleflowers, a blog to talk about art and share my illustrations, and hopefully the work of other artists. I've been drawing pictures–doodling actually–for as long as I can remember. I took some art classes in college many years ago but ended up getting my degree in English. But the art did not go away. My career has alternated between technical writing and technical illustration because those are the things that paid the bills.

But my real love is the kind of art that tells stories or decorates pages or communicates concepts, the kind of art we just feel like doing. I like working with bright or deep color combinations, skin tones, eyes, hair, and facial expressions. This blog is not about cutting edge concepts or pretensions of any kind. This blog is about loving pictures, color, and art supplies and expressing ourselves as we wish. Also, to me, art more fun when you can share it. Over the years, too many of my pictures simply ended up in the trash can. True, many of them were on Post-it, doodled while talking on the phone or thinking, and many of them deserved their fate, but some of them were pretty good.

"Lady with Apple"
Prismacolor markers
on Bristol board

After a while I began working with color and found that artist quality colored pencils, markers, and water colors made my doodles look really good. Then I tried doodling on good quality art paper and they looked even better! Then I started posting some of them on my Facebook page and found that people enjoyed them. I considered that I love drawing pictures, love art supplies, and love sharing and talking about art. Further, I began to think how much fun it would be to do illustrations for people as a job some day and design things like cards, website logos, and book illustrations.

Then I thought, but to be professional illustrator I'd have to go to art school and with one son is starting college and the other a smart ambitious  high school sophomore, art school is not a finanancially an option for Mom right now. But that is no reason to stop doing art. Art school and college are wonderful things, but the lack of funds for expensive tuition should not to be an obstacle to pursuing what we love. Of course, if what you love is brain surgery, then the lack of funds for medical school would in fact be an obstacle, hopefully one you could overcome by finding a way to pay for it.

But if you really want to be an artist or a writer or even other things – say a Russian translator – you can learn the skills through other means, such as books, videos, and practice. I hope to review and explore some of these educational and training materials on this blog. I am a strong proponent of self education and learning things because you value them, whether these things are learning skills or acquiring knowledge such as a deeper understanding of literature, history, philosophy, or science. Before science became a big important business requiring advanced degrees, it was pursued by many regular people who simply loved experimenting with and observing the materials of the world. That was back in the 18th century when they used to call it "natural philosophy."

So to start, I will share at least one picture per post, and share thoughts about art and creativity, and in the near future will share some techniques and tools and some delicious art books and some artist websites I like. Eventually I'd like to introduce other illustrators here and show their work. My older son will be majoring in graphic arts, so I'll probably show some of his funky art if he'll let me.