summer

Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day everyone! What an amazing country we live in. I can't think of a better place to live. Living in such a beautiful country and province, it's not very surprising that I love nature. I've been doing lots of biking since I've been home in BC for the summer. I try to take my sketchbook with me every chance I can so that I can sketch things while I'm taking a break on longer bike rides. Last week I biked 26km from Crescent Beach to White Rock Beach and back home. Here are a couple of sketches from the journey. 

 

I also started to do some more watercolour which I'm very excited about, since I only really started to get into watercolour last year. I recently did a series of watercolour paintings of leaves that are based off of images found in a book I bought from Black Bond Books in South Surrey. After I painted them, I added fine line details with a black pen. 

This series of leaf paintings are going to be used as source images for a new digital artwork I will be creating as part of my MFA studio work. I also have two other projects I will be creating during the summer for my MFA including one based off of the human body and one based off of sea creatures/sea-life. Stay tuned to see more of my MFA summer projects! 

Coming Home

My first year in the MFA program is almost complete. I will be home in two weeks and I couldn't be any more impatient. I find myself missing the mountains, especially since everyone from BC has been posting photos of the nice weather all over social media. This longing for the mountains inspired me to paint a landscape in my studio the other day. Here is how it all came together. 

I started by using a paint brush and india ink to create an outline of mountains, a lake, and some trees. I visualized a scene from my camping trip last summer in BC. Next I added line details using coloured micron pens. 

Coming Home, India Ink and Coloured Micron Pens on Bristol, 11"x14", 2016, Mallory Donen

Afterwards I scanned the above image using a flatbed scanner. I used Photoshop to generate the panorama landscape image below. 

It's amazing how much you can miss things from home that you often take for granted. Can't wait to come home and be reunited with the mountains.