New Materials

Posted on by
Shell Study: Derwent Inktense

Shell Study: Derwent Inktense

Inktense are intense! Fun to try some new materials today. My first try was just the intense, the second sketch I decided to use the #inktense pencils to do the underpainting and then use prismacolor for the drawing. This seems to be a good combination. Next try will be inktense and then ink pen. I love how saturated the color is. This is similar to the water-soluble crayons…but different. Once you put the color down and it dries, it is permanent. Looking forward to exploring how to work with this medium. These two sketches were in my moleskin, paper is soft, so I am going to try a different paper next. Just in case you are interested here is the link for the Derwent Inktense.

Looking forward to drawing tomorrow!

Slipper Shell in progress

Slipper Shell in progress

 

Experimentation

Posted on by
Casein, inktense pencils, prismacolor pencils

Casein, inktense pencils, prismacolor pencils

Today was a slow day. The day after Thanksgiving. For some reason this year I am just not feeling the holidays. It’s just feeling like any other day to me. Anywho, I will work on that. Today I was really excited to try out my new Derwent Inktense pencils. However, I think that my approach was all wrong. I started with some swatches and then worked on top of those, and then because I had some wet casein paint available, decided to work over a casein ground. I love the casein…but unless you let it dry for quite awhile, it remains “soft” and workable. So, this had that challenge to it.

Tomorrow’s goal: just use the inktense alone…maybe with some ink pen over drawing. And, I am going to start a larger piece with an opaque watercolor ground that I can spend some time with.

Hope you all had a really nice Thanksgiving day. Nice to have a couple of extra days off.

Drawing for fun

Posted on by
opaque watercolor and colored pencil

opaque watercolor and colored pencil

This was my for fun sketch today. A warm up for a longer drawing. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this…it’s in my “no fear” sketch book. I really like the white paint marker, but it needs some ventilation! It can’t be healthy. I need to find a white marker that isn’t so toxic smelling.

All these shells came from the outer banks of North Carolina.

The Kitchen

Posted on by
Micron blue pen and opaque watercolor

Micron blue pen and opaque watercolor

So, I ditched the shells on the counter idea. I did a quick sketch with a pineapple on the counter–which I liked, but all the proportions were off. The shells just didn’t look right on the counter, so off they went. In the end, I decided to block in the color first, so I put on a wash of a medium blue for the stove, a yellow for the counter and light green for the wall. This made me feel better. I started in with the stove and worked out from that. The pineapple was next to the toaster, but by the time I got over there, I couldn’t squeeze it in!

I have to admit this was somewhat painful for me. I did a lot of complaining while I was drawing. I looked at the clock a lot! I put in 3 hours, I was happy when I finished with this. It’s good to tackle difficult things, I appreciate the assignment. I loved, loved, loved Tommy Kane’s class. The ideas I will take away are:

  • Go ahead and “steal” from your favorite artists
  • Slow down and spend more time with your work
  • It’s okay and often preferable to make mistakes and keep going (often times no one else will know)
  • Finish what you started

Great way to end this semester. I have to say I am so sad that it’s over though. Looking forward to the next semester starting in January.

Going slow.

Posted on by
shell study: graphite

shell study: graphite

This week in #sketchbookskool is all about slowing down. It’s a really good way to end the class, Tommy Kane has been really enjoyable to learn from. I am not too keen on this homework assignment, but I get it. He wants us to take 3 to 6 hours to do a drawing, and the subject matter is “your kitchen”! Yikes. Again, I get it, he wants you to overcome that fear and challenge yourself to capture all those overwhelming details. I am working on figuring out how I can enjoy this, I think I am going to put some shells on the counter so that I have something I love to draw in the drawing. At the same time, I am going to work on a long detailed drawing of shells trying to incorporate the style of Georgia O’Keefe and Van Gogh. This should keep me pretty occupied.

Sketch above was a warm up for this assignment. A much more lengthy and detailed sketch…about 30 or 40 minutes, longer than I usually take. I did enjoy slowing down and really paying attention to all the variations in the shadow and in the shell.

Drawing Animals!

Posted on by
Opaque watercolor and graphite

Opaque watercolor and graphite

Loved this week’s #sketchbookskool lesson. This is one that I know I will go back and read through many times. A week was not enough time for me, but I will enjoy going back and doing these exercises again. The first part of the homework was to draw from taxidermy or from figures. I was lucky enough to find some nice little Panda figurines in the hardware store to use as reference. I am looking forward to going to either a natural history museum or to our Portland LL Bean for drawing from taxidermy. Next time I draw these I will make sure that my view point shows the other two feet–he looks a little flat without the other feet! Panda’s are hard to draw! But, they are super cute and I found myself really happy to be looking at these and drawing them. Bonus!

Next part of the homework was to draw live animals. Much harder. Thankfully I have a dog and a very handsome one at that. And, he is pretty slow and loves to sleep. Even with a slow and sleepy dog, they aren’t reliable and they move! I will keep working at it, it was a lot of fun. Really helped with observation skills.

Graphite on paper. Big dog sleeping.

Graphite on paper. Big dog sleeping.

Drawing for nothing

Posted on by
Opaque watercolor, colored pencil and white paint marker

Opaque watercolor, colored pencil and white paint marker

Discovery of the week: it’s good to just draw for yourself! That is how the onion came about. I needed to try out my new white paint marker, so I had to have a subject. My friend Paul brought us these beautiful onions, along with many other wonderful heirloom vegetables from his garden. So, I grabbed one, did a color background and started drawing. I just finished some shells with a background and used graphite…which I like fine, but it didn’t seem as bold as I wanted. For this I decided to limit myself to a dark green and dark blue prismacolor pencil and then white paint marker. I am really pleased with the way the materials work.  I put this in my “No Fear” sketchbook, so of course it turned out great. I didn’t really care what happened….somehow I need to trick myself into this for everything!

Next #sketchbookskool assignment is to draw from figurines or taxidermy. I don’t have access to the taxidermy, so I found these great little pandas to work from. I found them at the hardware store of all places!

pandas1

Materials

Posted on by
Warm up assignment

Warm up assignment

I was a little behind on my #sketchbookskool homework, so I think that I rushed through a little to catch up. I don’t think that I should do that, I need to remember, its an online course! It’s not going anywhere! So, because I rushed I didn’t feel super great about the projects. I also didn’t really like the technique that we used. The assignment was to draw in pencil, ink in the outline and then color in with watercolor. It’s just not my thing…but, I can see that it can be a good approach for certain things.

This week the subject matter is more interesting to me, drawing animals! Looking forward to this, but I need to find some figurines to draw from for the assignment. The first step in this weeks class was to draw your art supplies. I see other artists do this a fair amount, it’s something I never really considered as a subject. However, once I sat down and really focused in on it I did find it fun. On to the animals!

Ink outlines and watercolor washes

Ink outlines and watercolor washes