Author: Susanne Mack

Art and Illustration

Plunging around a plunger

My favorite tool around the house is a plunger – not for cleaning drains but for artistic inspiration….

What’s your favorite household tool? Mine is a plunger. I really like them. Not that I had many blocked up drains, I think they are curious artifacts and I always have some (unused ones) on my shelf. But is has to be the original rubber plunger with the wooden handle. I like to look at them and sometimes they squeeze into my drawings.

As they find them inspiring and fun, I wanted to dedicate them a post and share some drawings and interpretations dealing with plungers. I included them as feet in some of my creatures, and I tried stamping with a plunger using its footprints as the base for a drawing.

Work in progress or parallel worlds

About a drawing of a rabbit and its variations: still the same lines, but a different expression.

One of the wire rabbits of my earlier post started off as a pencil drawing, just to explore ideas and lines to sculpt in wire. I never bend the wires following exactly the traces of a drawing, normally I use it just for inspiration.

So, while the wire sculpture was about to be created, I went on playing with the drawing, adding basic colors and contrasts to it.

Step by step the drawing took on it’s own character, and the rabbit on the drawing ended up living in two parallel worlds, a 3 dimensional, linear one and a 2 dimensional colorful one – but they still are related, a bit like distant cousins.

Tissues and paper

Tissues with animal print

A collage using all kinds of recycled materials could be called sustainable art…

Here you can find magazine cut-outs , tissues with ink stains the look like animal print, pages of a paperback book that wasn’t very interesting to read, but proved to have other qualities.

Little bird with a new hat
Fashionable in black and white
Have a nice trip
Heavy luggage

It was fun to play and to draw, it’s always interesting to discover effects and materials – some work well together – others not so much – just like in real life.

Have a nice week!

Dog with a (rain)coat

Do dogs like rain? Not in Spain….

Do dogs like rain? Most of the dogs I know prefer dry weather… The dog I drew with ink recently, had a certain uncomfortable look to it, so I decided to put him into a raincoat.

I think it’s clearly influenced by a Weimaraner, I did some portraits of a very handsome one during the last weeks and it seems I was still drawn to the expressive face this breed has.

Some Weimaraners don't like rain

Wire bunnies? .. Wired bunnies? .. Weird bunnies!

Sculpting with wire is very fun – wether it’s lamps or sculptures of some creatures animals. It’s probably a memory of my activities years ago as a gold- and silbersmith that keeps me getting back to this material on an almost regular basis.

I work with two kinds of steal wire: This simple wire they have on construction sites to string wooden boards together for formwork I use for drawing the lines and combine them with a really thin Jeweler’s binding wire.

This time I started out with a bunny-girl that’s more or less two dimensional, with some patience you can get her to stand on her own, so there is a little hint of a third dimension, not very much of a depth though.

So, for the second one I wanted to make sure he is easier to handle and created this 3D sitting rabbit.

It’s time to start getting in shape…

Time to get in shape for summer!

While it is still cool here in the Spanish mountains, around this time of year it’s time to think about where our bikini body went… Not sure how the chances are to get it back, but it’s worth a try.

The two friends on today’s drawing are right into it already. Ms. Dollyduck is trying on her bathing gear and Mr. Musclemouse is lifting weight and working out to get strong and impress the mouse girls.

Remember, it’s important to celebrate every little success – so after an intensive work-out enjoy some sweet cherries…. have a great week and don’t forget to treat yourself well!

One-of-a-kind floor lampshade

Lampshade for floor lamp post with steal wire and African trading beads

After making some hanging lamps, I decided to explore the possibility of upright lampshade for a floor lamp that had lost its shade and was reduced to be basically a post with a lightbulb.

It looks like the shade effects are more intensive in this kind of lamp, because the light is projecting lines and shades onto the ceiling and walls. I used African glass beads and steal wire to build up the structure, no welding or gluing involved.

Abstract sketching: winter garden

Take a walk through a wintergarden, and discover little treasures half hidden under the melting snow

Sometimes I like to experiment with abstract art – just going one step further and play with patterns, colors and symbols.

You start out with something in mind, and then it starts to change in something else… it doesn’t mean it’s getting worse necessarily – just different….

It reminds me of what happens in real life: not always things develop as we would expect them to – and often we find out later, what it was good for.

I like doing the exercise – looking at the whole drawing, but then also look for the different interesting parts, and how they work on their own.

Here I started out with a collage that became a bit wilder as I went along- take a walk through the winter garden and discover the little details peaking out under the snow.

Free running mind, just playing

Let your mind run free in your sketchbook – there are some interesting discoveries to be made.

As I started out this year thinking quite hard about all the goals to achieve, the directions to take, the priorities to set, it all got a little intense and I decided to take a break and just draw whatever came out. Sketching without thinking too much, just letting things go….

I found some details in these quick drawings that I found quite interesting – just taken on their own as abstract pieces.Have a nice week and don’t forget to play!

Collage and book recycling

Love bird collage: See the video recorded during the process!

Just got started with the collages using book pages, and I really enjoy working more on this idea, it’s fun!

Without having detailed idea what picture I wanted to create, I just doodled along, cut the shapes, stuck them in my sketchbook and started painting. Sometimes it feels good to just let the natural process go on and take little decisions on the fly without thinking too long about them.

See a short making-of-video I recorded while doing one of this week’s sketches:

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