Absentmindedness

I forgot to add my Matisse inspired badger last week when I updated Challenge Gillian. Matisse, in his later years, created art from cut paper but on a large scale. My Matisse badger is only little, 8x11 inches, but is created using gouache coated paper. Let me tell you, it's a messy business cutting out gouached paper. The design was inspired by Matisse's 'star' encrusted pieces like The Fall of Icarus and Icarus, Jazz. But anyone who has come across a badger on a moonlit night will recognise the ghostly figure shining beneath a carpet of stars.

The other pieces are my first attempts at zentangles. 'Doodles' to most people, the art crowd have taken them back to their hearts and are playing with patterns and shapes again. They remind me of some of Franz Marc's work where he used a framework over animal shapes that were then painted in different tones and colours. Although these are really simple to do they might just have a place in my experiments with colour.