I can't believe it is December

 Oh where has the time gone, I can't believe it has been 6 months since I last updated the blog. Oops, sorry about that anyone who is still checking it out. Been busy but not with art, well, not with drawing. Photography after all is considered by some art and I have been busy talking walks and making photographs.

I have done just a little drawing, mostly just pen work. The above sparrow done in pen and ink was my attempting to get back to my drawing by doing the Inktober pen drawings a day. Then I got sick, and while I wasn't all that sick I was sick enough that I just didn't have the energy or motivation to follow through; next year, maybe.

 The above bottle drawing was done for the first of Inktober (October) but isn't really very good so I put the sparrow first as I was much happier with that one. The top image is the one that shows up in links, so I like the first image to be one of my better posts.

 This rather abstract drawing was me playing with some new to me colored pencils. Over the summer I purchased some of the Dick Blick line of pencils. They are OK, but not really artist quality, there just isn't enough pigment in the leads for them to make the grade. Still I had fun playing with the colors.

 I have a new camera, a Canon D70 and I am in love with it. The old Canon Rebel and I parted ways, and since I have become addicted to making photographs, I had to immediately replace it. The D70 is a much better camera and I am making some really lovely photographs. The above is a Titmouse about the land at a bird feeder. This was made at the feeders at Borderland State Park, Easton, MA.

 The above photo is a couple of Canada Geese in flight, they had just taken off from the panne at Daniel Webster in Marshfield, MA.

 Above is the Smith Farm house in Borderland State Park. The sky was overcast but opened up enough to give me this spot lighting of the house, background trees and meadow just around the house.

Last but not least I was busy putting together the 2017 calendars using photographs I have been making through the year, though mostly in the spring and summer. I am quite pleased with this years selections, hopefully I am not only making better photographs but doing a better job selecting the images I use. 

That is it for today, there are more photographs on my Facebook page if you are curious since I was posting photos there over the summer. Per usual comments are welcome.

Pen and Ink from Life, more studies

Haven't managed to do another of the WetCanvas monthly challenge images yet, but I have been doing some pen drawings while out and about on my walks. After that statement I am sure you are now wondering what kind of walk has a wine bottle, a piece of broccoli and a slice of cucumber, none actually. I was visiting a friend for a monthly book club meeting and we had wine and a veggie platter with dip. To keep my hands occupied while things other than books were discussed I drew the wine bottle and a couple of the veggies with my copic .03 pen. I didn't want to actually draw the platter so just drew one piece of broccoli, and one cucumber slice. Obviously this was not a real arraignment and to be honest I even took a bit of liberty with the bottle.

Still not totally displeased with how this came out. Drawn in one of my small sketchbooks directly with pen, no pencil involved.

Drawn in my local city park, duck, a couple of geese, another park visitor, and a segment of distant shoreline. These drawings are more impressions than detailed studies. But hopefully doing them will help me keep my hand in, and even help me to improve at doing this type of drawing.

Another of my park drawings, a visitor with child feeding the ducks, it is a bit sketchy but I am not totally unhappy with it.

This started out as a cloud study, There were large cumulus clouds in the sky that evening looking pretty. Sometimes up for a challenge I decided to see if I could draw them with pen and ink. Just clouds didn't seem to be enough so I started drawing the skyline of the trees in the distance. Oops, not sure the woods are very successfully done, so I guess I should challenge myself to work on how to depict distant trees besides working on my techniques for clouds. I think part of the sky works, but some of it doesn't. That said I usually find there is always need for improvement in some aspect of my drawings.

Again all of these drawings were done in one of my small sketchbooks with either a copic pen or one of my technical pens.

Before I get to my photo postings, I wanted to comment on something that came up on an e-mail list I belong to. They question was why make art, and someone commented that they were really interested, not so much in the hows of someone making art, but the whys. In that case the art works are quilts, so there are a lot of techniques that can be used and usually those techniques are what is described by the makers on their blogs. All well and good according to this writer, but what she really wants to know is why the artist is making the particular quilt in the first place. For me that is a hard questions to answer not only about the quilts I have made but also generally about my drawings.

Obviously I don't discuss how I draw, there are plenty of how to draw books out there, and I feel that most of them aren't worth anything, drawing is a very personal occupation and every artist has to undertake the learning to draw part on their own using trial and error to learn what works for them.

But why do I draw what I draw? Hmm, that isn't any easy question for me to answer. I love animals so for me there is a challenge in learning how to draw them well, actually there is a personal challenge for me to draw anything well with a fairly high degree of accuracy. That said I am slowly learning and realizing that accuracy is not the be all/end all of a work of art, in fact when it comes right down to it accuracy can be the least important part, as long as there is enough for the subject to be recognized. Real works of art need something more, and to be honest I am fairly sure I am not there.

But I am having fun working on it so will continue to do so. Any thoughts on this subject would be of interest to me so feel free to comment.

I don't often post dragonfly photographs to the blog. I find them endlessly fascinating, but I know that others don't share my views. Still I really love this photo of a Window Skimmer Dragonfly that I made this past week at Borderland State Park in Easton, MA. And yes they do have white on their wings, that white isn't a reflection. Whether you find them as interesting as I do doesn't matter, you should still be grateful for Dragonflies, they eat mosquitoes.

Usually I post a landscape photo to go with a close up of a flower, or insect, or animal, but today I have another semi close up. This is a nuthatch, and it was looking for a handout of seeds, which I didn't have so it didn't spend too long in my vicinity. I was at Ipswich River MA Audubon in Topsfield, MA this past week which is where this photo was made. They feed the birds there, and have done so for so long that the birds (titmice, nuthatches,and chickadees) have gotten very tame and will actually fly to someone's hand to take seeds directly from them. The first time I visited Ipswich River I noticed that the chickadees seemed very tame, but I didn't actually see them feeding out of visitors hands until this visit. And no I didn't try, I wanted to make photos not feed the birds and there was no way I could do both.

That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome, oh I posted more Ipswich River photos on my Facebook Page, link at the bottom of the blog you don't have to belong to facebook to view.

Pen and Ink, eggs, bottles and doodles

Not fabulous work this update, but at least I seem to be back into a cycle of getting some art work done, always a good thing even if the work isn't my best. Ah well, the above is from another of the WetCanvas Pen and Ink forum monthly challenge images. This is a plate of quail eggs, if you have never seen them in the stores they are about half the size of a Chicken egg and are speckled brown and cream eggs.

For this image that I drew on Strathmore Toned Tan paper I used first a brown pen for the eggs and their speckles then added black for the plate and shadows. For the black I used one of my technical pens. Size is about 5 x 5.5 inches.

I actually started this before I got sick and just finally got back to in the the past few days.

A bottle, drawn directly in ink for one of the Treasure Hunts in the Draw from Life forum in WetCanvas. This is a very wonky bottle, I am usually much better at symmetry but as I drew directly in ink there was no way to correct and I just had to let it go. It does have a certain charm, I guess, sometimes it is just better to accept that we can't be really accurate all of the time and work with what comes out of the pen.

The drink is a carbonated flavored water, no artificial or real sweeteners and as I try to stay away from soda (too many empty calories) this one of my preferred alternatives to buy when I can when I am out and about. Flavor for this bottle was black cherry, that or lemon or lime are my favs.

Another of my pen exercises is above. I start with a shape and then just work it, adding fills and other shapes as the mood takes me, the only requirement is that I use all of the pens, and I have 5 that I routinely keep ink in.

This week I made, with a friend, another trip to the MFA. We spent time in various galleries, seeing the new Leonardo da Vinci drawing exhibit; Herb Ritts photographs; In the Wake, photographs from Japan after the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in 2011; Hokusai, Japanese prints; and Court Ladies or Pin-Up Girls, Chinese paintings. Needless to say we didn't spend very long in any one gallery, more less just sampling the works. I do have to say that I have no clue how da Vinci and his contemporaries could get such a fine line with chalk, their chalk must have been nothing like any chalk I have used. Also the Herb Ritts photographs are amazing, I am not usually that interested in photographs that aren't connected to a story, but his really pulled me in.

Anyone in Boston in the next few months/weeks should plan a visit to the MFA, there is so much to see and admire. Oh the flower arrangements were already gone when we were there on Tuesday so I am glad that on my last visit I was mostly chasing them around the museum or I would have missed them.

After we reached our limit inside we went outside to visit the newly reopened Japanese Garden, above is a photo of some blooming cherry trees in the garden.

One last image for today, above is a Trout Lily, the first flower I have been able to photograph, I saw one at Borderland State Park last week, but it wasn't where I was able to photograph it. These delicate little yellow wild flowers are one of the earliest of our native spring blooms. They are very late this year due to the slow melting snow and our cool weather.

That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome.

More Ink work, and a Library Doodle

The turkeys are finished. I took the inked drawing from my last post and added some wash with a brush and then went back in with my technical pens to add a bit more line. This technique has possibilities, but I think I need to learn more patience with it. I want to just do it and get it done, and I think I need to slow down and take a bit more time with the washes.

While at the library this week I was inspired to create a small doodle. It started out with the book worm on top of a book then I added the words "Read More". It was fun to semi create a font for the text. Not a full font as I only created the letters I needed for these short words but still it was a fun exercise. I have no clue why this idea/subject occurred to me, but I had fun drawing it.

After creating the graphite drawing at the library I brought it home and added some ink to outline letters and objects then added colored pencil for some color. With suitable modifications I think this could be a fun poster design. But I fear it will never go any further than this sketch.  I even went so far as to think up a name for my book worm, "Billy the Book Worm says READ MORE". I suppose I could ask at the library if they would like it for real, maybe.

One of the pens I purchased in my binge buying of colored ink pens was a copic .005 grey pen. Since I hadn't had a chance to use it previously I though why not do a quick sketch with it. I happened to have a bottle of ink sitting out at around eye level so it didn't take me long to use it as a subject. Done in a sketchbook with just the grey ink, one of my ink bottles. I like this color and have to think about how I want to use it to show it off. Maybe with the blue copic multiliner I picked up at the same time.

Above is a not very good photograph of my progress on the latest Mandala. Center is basically done, the next out ring needs to be finished off but probably before I do finish it off, I will design and start coloring the corner elements of the first square. I am doing an under drawing with Derwent pencils then layering over them approximately the same color of PolyChromos. The Polys are more fade resistant so hopefully the resulting work won't just fade away in light. Course when it is finished it will be sprayed with a clear fixative that has some UV protection.

My Final photograph for today is of some trees that still had leaves earlier this week, I think they are now gone. But the subject of the photo is actually the white wall with the shadows of the trees on it. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and I was on my way to library when I noticed these shadows and thought they would make an interesting photograph. Not sure I have cropped the image as much as it should be but hope you enjoy it anyway. I have been reading about Notan, the Japanese concept of balancing light and dark, to me this shadow is a form of Notan, but wanted to include a bit more color which is why I left so much of the original trees in the image.

That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome.