Old Paper, Fineliner And Glue - Drawing Practice
Today I can say that one of my dreams come true. For a few years I wanted to try out something and have never done it till today. It's not a difficult task, but needed a few free hours and some imagination. Yesterday I started to prepare things and today I finally did it.
The thing I wanted to try out so badly is using old paper in a drawing or painting. I've seen my artist friend barbara-orenya using it in her paintings and loved it a lot. This was in 2018 and maybe 2019 and since then I kept thinking of it. The I've seen others drawing on newspaper or book pages, that has also motivated me.
I got an old book from my grandparents' house recently, an old one that had no cover and a good part of it was missing. This is why I had no bad feelings tearing it apart. Otherwise it would have been difficult. I respect books too much. Two years ago I bought one with brownish pages for this purpose and could not reap it apart. Yeah, that's me.
Initially I wanted to use the pieces in no order and spread the pieces randomly on the paper, but it looked awful. Silly me, I did not take any photos.
So I thought I needed a new setup and leaving some space between the pieces seemed the best idea. But for that, I had to put the pieces together, which seemed like a good puzzle and took me a few minutes.
This is how the paper looked after gluing the pieces on it. Stupid me, I put it under some books, to help straightening it out, put a magazine on it and there's a small spot of blue paper transferred from the magazine. It wasn't a big deal as I knew it won't be so obvious once the drawing is done.
So initially I had another plan in my mind, something interesting but after some thinking I decided to go with the easy choice, draw some flowers as a practice to see how the paper is behaving with the fine liner. It is common knowledge that old paper sometimes acts like blotting paper but I hoped it will not be the case. This paper is more thicker than the ones they are printing books on nowadays.
Next I needed to decide if I want to use it as portrait orientation or landscape. Portrait would have been nice but more difficult, so I decided to go with landscape, which allowed me to draw more flowers with shorter stems.
Then I started drawing.
I wanted nothing fancy and remembered we had a painter lady on Hive, who unfortunately is not active anymore. She used to have a similar style, but she was working with oil on canvas. I remember I always admired her flowers and I thought I'd draw something similar (without looking at her paintings).
Slowly, my masterpiece started to take shape 😂
My biggest challenge was to ignore the shape of the old paper, focus on the white paper and avoid any symmetry.
The other challenging task was to try to draw something (almost) normal, without turning the paper around. Again, I did not want perfect flowers, leaves, petals as this is not fine art, but as a practice, I needed to focus on (some) quality.
The only time I allowed myself to turn the paper was when I drew the last flower's petals.
And here it is, my masterpiece!
Materials used:
- A4 size drawing paper 90gsm (g/m2),
- 0.4 Pelikan fineliner,
- old book page,
- white glue.
So this was my fun for today. I lived it, it was a good practice and am planning to do it again with a different theme and maybe a different setup.
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This is really a beautiful and creative art piece @erikah .
I can see you have huge of talents in you.
Keep bringing out the best in you, I feel challenged.
#Hive on
No talent needed here, a kid could do this, but thank you for the nice words and I'm glad you like it :)
At first glance, I had no idea there was any old book page underneath those beautiful flowers. Standing alone, they'd probably be too simple but look at them on the inscripitions of peieces of a book, amazing. I'd definitely put this up on my wall. A master piece in truth, a rare one from where I'm standing.
It surprised me when I realised you made that yourself, but then I should've known you're an artist yourself, you visit art galleries quite often.
Cool stuff ❤️
You're right, those flowers on a plain white paper would look simple. The paper gives them some extra and that's the main idea here. I wouldn't call it masterpiece, but it was a lot of fun and gave me an idea for the next one, that will be more interesting. Lol and I'm not an artist, I wouldn't go that far. I just like to experiment.
😄 Well I would, and I have. I'd say I'll look out for the next one you speak of but I'm probably days late so I'll just look it up 😁.
Cheers!
I would say Erika that the biggest challenge of this beautiful creation of yours was to surpass yourself as a culture of the arts as an excellent draftsman and to overcome beliefs that often limit us.
You know from the beginning when I looked at it I thought of serigraphs, I had an uncle who made them great on metals with Chinese ink... they were wonderful works of art, that with your artistic technique evolved a lot.
Your level of freehand drawing is AAA and that is a tremendous plus to be able to take your art to other materials such as newsprint, corrugated opalize is also great for drawing.
Congratulations
Thank you @janitzearratia for the nice comment. This was a nice experiment, a learning experience and gave me the start I needed. Combining different materials has been in my mind for some time and maybe now I'll have more time to create more.
An interesting fact about this: The old book page is in Hungarian. It is about family relationships/feelings and a typo in a Telegram. Some parts of the book page is hard to read, because the book page is broken, but I understand the readable parts 100% (I am Hungarian).
Whoa @erikah this looks great. The first time I saw it I didn't even realize it was drawn on a piece of paper with writing on it, it's beautiful. I think you should make more of these and share them. It looks very interesting. I think I would hang something like this in my room, after cutting off the excess on the side of course.
Thanks @incublus it's my intention to create a few more as have some ideas, just need a bit of time.
Big mistake my friend. There's no excess on the sides. If you want to frame it, you need that.
So it turned out how much of a noob I am when it comes to paintings hahaha. You are so right, the frame will cover it anyway.
No worries my friend, Hive is the perfect place to learn about everything :)
Yeah, that's why we all here. At least me 😛
Pratice makes perfection, keeep doing it and soon you will have your own gallery exhibitiom
Lol, thanks for the confidence but that's not going to happen :)
Simple but very effective technique. Great masterpiece and it seems that you enjoyed the performance.
Your not-wanted perfect flowers look pretty perfect to me. Mandala flowers.
I totally get your point about respecting books. Could not do it. In what language is that page written?
Thank you! Indeed the flower looks like a mandala as I did not want to draw regular flowers. The book is written in Hungarian as I'm Hungarian too and it was hard to tear the page, but as I mentioned, this book was already torn apart, had no cover and a part was missing already.
Ah, Hungarian. I really was wondering which language could it be. It's been some time I travelled through Hungary.
I understand what you mean and see the compromise about respecting books but once it's already broken, why not using it? Especially for a good reason like your art. Well done.
Thanks for your answer.
Exactly! That is why I'm glad I have this book. It's like giving it a second life.
A Second Life... I like this description.
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Very creative! Well done.👍
Thanks.
This is really cool, using an old paper to create something good. Weldon @erika. Am not good in drawing, I feel challenge right now. Am a newbie, and I want to grow here. Thanks for the guide's listed below. I will definitely go through it.
You can draw anything as there are no rules, so just give yourself a chance.
You're welcome, read those guidelines and let me know if you need any help.
Your such a very creative person. From the mat and then this again. Good job.👍
I'm trying my best. Sometimes I succeed, other times I fail, but I always enjoy the journey.
YOUR ART CAUGHT ME OFF GUARD!!
Noted, thanks.
Your idea dear is amazing in making pictures on torn paper. It turns out that being creative is not only in good things, but even in sluggish materials. This is so amazing
I like you
Thank you, I'm glad you like it.
Equally love
This is really amazing, I love it✌️
I'm glad to hear that.
What a good idea, i really love it! But I don't have the soul to sacrifice any of my books. Maybe an old newspaper will do! :)
I didn't have the soul either, that's why I had to look for a book that was already torn. An old newspaper will do it as well, just look for one with yellowish paper.
This is truly a masterpiece and creative #art . Just mind-blowing 😍
I don't saw this kind of drawing before.
This is awesome...
very nice drawing great use of the torn up book page