Lily S. May–Life with Art
The weeks before and after Christmas were hard ones, what with much cloudy wet weather in Toronto and the fear inducing news about Omicron. I found that walking in the neighbourhood helped. The appearance of a flock of birds was a welcome surprise and rescue. The occasional hawk or two gliding above the ravines was… Continue reading Birds, The Sun and a Collage
This week I completed the Day of the Angel mixed media piece that I showed in its initial stage in my previous post. I began it as a collage of early wood and linocuts. Over the week I added drawing with pigment markers and water soluble pencils. The Day of the Angel, Mixed Media, by… Continue reading Day of the Angel 2
November 2021, Brickworks, Toronto Though the work I'll show today is black and white, outdoors the colours were magnificent this past week. We came out of much rain and clouds to days of sunshine on the turning leaves. Photos don't do the leaves justice, but invoke memories. I felt that that's as it should be,… Continue reading This Autumn
I've been drawing some objects in our apartment that I love. These include a wooden hawk that we once bought at a lawn sale in our neighbourhood, a ceramic cookie jar that we bought decades ago at a large art fair in Toronto and a little stone elephant that I can't recall how we acquired.… Continue reading Household Jungle
I’ve been doing more blind contour drawing every day. In addition to that way of drawing, I also drew this self portrait last week. Although it’s obvious that I was looking at the paper while making the self portrait, I felt that the blind contour drawing I had been doing helped me see more accurately.… Continue reading Self-Portrait in Pencil
I've continued making contour drawings this past week. Most of these have been blind contour drawings. Blind because you don't look at the paper while drawing unless you wind up at the end of a contour or off the page. You follow the lines of your subject slowly with your eyes while your pencil or… Continue reading Ahab Mask
I've been making line drawings this week, most of them direct contour drawings or incorporating that style as part of the drawings. This drawing is of my workroom. I often call it the art room, though there's artwork by me and other artists throughout the rooms my husband and I live in. The Art Room,… Continue reading In the Art Room
In the evenings, I often sketch imaginary images in a variety of sketchbooks. Some of these images influence other work I do, some feel like extended doodles with no need to be anything other than themselves. Here are several recent images that I've made with felt pens. The divided image below did influence the scratchboard,… Continue reading From My Sketchbook
This is the latest work I've made, an abstract piece. The shapes remind me of an aerial view of islands or part of a map. It's a scratchboard drawing with pigment felt pens layered on top in places. Islands by Lily S. May, 2021, 5" x 7"
There were beautiful dogwood trees in flower in Toronto over the past few weeks. I love the shape of the petals and included them in a scratchboard drawing I made recently. Dogwood in Toronto, 2021 Although I’ve made several scratchboard drawings, I'm just learning about the medium. I'm not someone who usually takes courses in… Continue reading Dogwood–Learning
Arts of May 