Day 1 Journey

Fearless Art Challenge - A 14 Day Journey / Journal - image 1 - student project

We walk to the top of the village every morning viewing ever-changing wild flowers, grasses and trees. We pass an orchard with hens whose free range eggs are on sale. We come back downhill alongside a stream which swells after heavy rain and becomes calmer in more settled weather.

Fearless Art Challenge - A 14 Day Journey / Journal - image 2 - student project

Day 2 Cloudwatching On the bus, blind contour drawing to find shapes in the landscape we were passing. I combined a number of things seen along the way. It was a grey day with no separate actual clouds but lots of forms that caught my interest.

Fearless Art Challenge - A 14 Day Journey / Journal - image 3 - student project
Day 3 Feeling a bit slow I felt my way slowly around the fruit. As I drew the strawberries, I became more conscious of my breathing. I noticed that I was holding my breath while concentrating on the task. I want to repeat the exercise aiming to both draw slowly and breathe slowly.

Fearless Art Challenge - A 14 Day Journey / Journal - image 4 - student project

Day 4 Shake it up! I bought a papaya after a visit to Oxford Botanic Garden where I saw two on a tree in the Rain Forest House and a ripe one that fell off the tree that morning. The fruits were part of a Wellbeing session lead by one of the garden's education officers. It was fun and relaxing. My task today was to draw and paint fast my very own papaya.

Fearless Art Challenge - A 14 Day Journey / Journal - image 5 - student project

Day 5 Metamorphosis Seeds and seedlings fascinate me. When I was little we germinated broad bean seeds at school. I drew this broad bean from more recent memories. Strangely the shoot turned into a hand reaching up to the sky with the vertical lines representing movement. So not only metamorphosis in terms of growth and changing changing form but also through movement.

Fearless Art Challenge - A 14 Day Journey / Journal - image 6 - student project

Day 6 Metamorphosis Watercolour wet in wet changing from light to dark and from definite to fuzzy and vice versa - just like life really. A mixture of certainty and uncertainty, one state changing into another.

Fearless Art Challenge - A 14 Day Journey / Journal - image 7 - student project

Day 7 Crowd of Creatures I chose fruits as 'creatures' - they all have personalities or is it characteristics? I wrote the statement about myself but on reflection it could apply to fruit. There is a movement to sell imperfect fruit and vegetables which are just as wholesome as the ideal forms shops usually display. All three, the fruit, the drawings and me are good enough.

Fearless Art Challenge - A 14 Day Journey / Journal - image 8 - student project

Day 8 Colours and More Colours Playing with colours and shapes wet on wet and dry on dry. Complementary colours of yellow and purple plus Paynes Grey which has a tinge of blue. It was fun!

Fearless Art Challenge - A 14 Day Journey / Journal - image 9 - student project

Day 9 Flatten it out My notebook with its design of garden flowers is relatively flat. It relates to a current project involving Oxford Botanic Garden. In drawing and painting the object I aimed to make it flat whilst varying the values which tended to make it 3D. It was an interesting exercise to try to draw something flat whilst being true to its form and representing its tonal range.

Barbara Dixon

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