My Art Workshop

Finished a bunch of these Tarot cards last night. They are not traditional Tarot cards, but each card holds meaning for me.

Not the traditional Tarot cards. These have their own stories and meaning that probably only make sense to me. I made the first one in a new batch that I plan on printing on tea stained paper again.

I like the story that comes with this card and I don’t mind sharing so here goes:

Back in 1999/2000 I was in New Zealand for 8 months with my husband. We were both working on our finals for university; his work was for a phd in Quantum chemistry, mine was a cand scient in biology. I missed my family in Denmark and one day as I was talking with my dad over the phone, he went: “We will come visit for Christmas!” He had not exactly discussed this with the rest of the family, like my mom for instance, but they landed in Auckland for Christmas. I was incredibly happy to see my mom and dad but also my younger brother who had been sailing the world for months with Mærsk Line.

One day we went snorkeling at Goat Island, just north of Auckland. Now my dad used to dive back in Denmark in his younger days, but at this point he had not been doing any of that for at least 20 years. Goat Island was magical. Shallow and clear water, plenty of sunlight and an ocean of colorful, curious sea creatures. It was such an adventure and he loved it. I went swimming close by him to show him a few highlights I knew from previous snorkeling and diving trips there, when suddenly he took off diving down to the bottom to catch something. As he came back up he went to me and placed something in my hand. We were both still a meter or so under the surface so we had no words, but he closed my fingers around the object and smiled wide despite the mask and all.

It was an amazing huge conch shell he had found and given to me. Unfortunately we were not allowed to bring anything from this beach as it is a natural reserve, so I carefully placed it back at the seabed. My dad sadly died that year and I miss him terribly to this day. Sometimes I regret that I did not keep the conch shell, but I will forever remember the excited expression on my dads face as he was snorkeling in this place and when he placed this gift in my hand. And really that was the true magic in that moment, not the conch shell, even if it was incredibly beautiful.

My contribution to the theme “Old Fantasy Man” at Oabnormals Twitch stream. I think this one might be an old sailor, or perhaps even a pirate 🙂

Yesterday’s bison rolling in the dust for refreshment. Encountered at Ditlevsdals Bison Farm at Funen, Denmark. The painting was given away as a present same day 🙂

Drawing bisons in ink. Those huge animals are so powerful and impressive and like cows their proportions are very alien to me. I am feeling good about this drawing however. I like the composition of it all. I like the leg and the tiny bison in the corner too. The skeleton took longest by far and it was super interesting to do. I learned how the head connects to the body and how that huge hump they all have at the neck is formed.

Inktober bison number 2! The drawing went ok, I really like the eye and the bison from behind. I also like the style I found for my inktober drawings. The photos I have of bisons are not as varied as the ones I have of wolves. I might make an exhibition to the nearby river bringing my camera. We have european bisons there, only 2 kilometers away. If I can find the herd that is, sometimes they hide in the tall grass and dense bushes.

Today I started my bison project. I never drew a bison before, but as with the wolves I am sure I will learn fast. I also played with creating an ACEO card (Art Card Originals and Editions). Those cards are meant to be traded with other artists. They are small: 8.9×6.4 cm. It’s not much space for painting! I never painted much with acrylics at all so I wanted to try that out. It’s very different from ink and watercolors, but it was fun playing with a different tool still and it’s not the last ACEO card I make for sure.

I also had great fun printing on printer paper I had dyed in tea and crumbled up the paper to get an old used look. My poor printer had a tough job and it often choked on the paper. I ended up with a nice card collection of one of my current projects. I got the effect I wanted so I’ll count that a success. I’ll be creating more of these Tarot cards for sure too. All those seemingly meaningless cards give sense to me as they are my dreams, fears, joys, ideas and old memories. Some people might know the dark wolf “Mørkeulven” since I told about him and also drew him earlier here on the blog.

Last wolf drawing today. Tomorrow I will continue the Inktober challenge but with a different animal.

Today I did a bit of digital drawing as well again. Another wolf for the Tarot project that I have been playing with. Rasmus is telling me it has T-rex arms. He is probably right 😀 Proportions proportions proportions – that is still my main focus and challenge.

Here is also another drawing I did about a week ago. It’s digital work as well, done for a specific challenge from Oabnormal on Twitch during his stream. The prompt was “Draw an animal as a druid” or something along those lines. I decided on a reindeer. I am OK with how the drawing turned out even though I would have loved to work a bit more with details and surroundings, but I ran out of time.

Another wolf. Today was a quick sketch. It gave me the opportunity to play around with the ink, not caring so much about the outcome. So today my Inktober challenge turned out to be an angry wolf sprayed in ink as I wanted to test that effect.

In the beginning of the day I played around drawing Tarot cards, following a style I started a little while ago as digital drawings. The last one will be my own personal card collections backside.

It is fun when I can see progress every day so far with these wolves. Wolves heads are so difficult to get right so I had to study what’s going on under all that fur. Today I included a wolf skull using a reference from Wikimedia Commons.