East of the Sun and West of the Moon by Kelsey Hamersley. Pencil. March 2013.
“When she awoke in the morning both the Prince and the castle were gone, and she was lying on a small green patch in the midst of a dark, thick wood. By her side lay the self-same bundle of rags which she had brought with her from her own home. So when she had rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, and wept till she was weary, she set out on her way…”
I posted a study for this sketch earlier…Kind of fun seeing how the composition developed. I changed Lassie’s pose a fair bit and made her smaller—it just helps contribute to the loneliness which is a big part of the mood in this stage of the story. After doing a lot of experimenting with different inks, I’m leaning towards simply doing watercolors for the finals. The ink color I liked best was supposedly waterproof, but would bleed whenever it got wet, so I would have had to put all the watercolor painting in before I got to the pen work. And knowing how easy it is to get drips or mistakes that you can’t take back with pen work…I’d rather save myself the stress! :P
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By Kelsey Hamersley. Sharpie and watercolor. April 2013.
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By Kelsey Hamersley. Painted with colored inks, using a brush. April 2013.
I decided to experiment with inks a little, since I haven’t used them much in washes and have, for the most part, stuck with dip pens. I didn’t mix the inks at all before painting, just added layers of washes (in yellow, red, violet, blue, and green) and some brushed line work in black. Consequently, there are a lot of colors in there! It is cool, though, because standing further away from the drawing, they blend together into more recognizably “pineapple” colors.
I haven’t posted a card in a while! Of course, our craft table has only recently been reclaimed from its labyrinthine, catchall state, so for a good while there I didn’t really have the option of making cards or other crafty things. It felt good to get back to it.
I went more all-out with the embellishments than is my usual habit with this card. The base was a brown card from a set; over that I layered scrapbook paper, stamped with flowers and embossed with holographic swirls (you can sort of see them in this photo. They aren’t terribly prominent). The “Enjoy” was a sticker, placed over a cut-out label, the ends of which I tied with twine. I used another cut-out for the stripe, some flowers, metal leaf embellishments, a brad for the white flower and a few seed beads for the blue.
By Kelsey Hamersley. Acrylic. December 2012.
A gift for my sister—done with scrapbook paper, Mod Podge, and acrylic.
Quick gesture drawing, by Kelsey Hamersley. Pen. February 2013.
That’s my mom on the left. (Her legs came out too skinny, but I don’t think she’ll mind. :P) I drew this while she was waiting in line at the gas station. It makes for a fun challenge, drawing under a short time frame.
Self portrait by Kelsey Hamersley. Pen. March 2013.
I had attempted a few self portraits using dip pens, and they just came out…blah. I can manage gesture drawings with a moving target and make them look like the subjects (ish), but for some reason when it’s me, standing still, I get very fussy. So, ahem, here’s one I don’t hate! :)