Flowers, Pots, more Still Life's

Just noticed that all of  my images today are various forms of pen and ink work. These first two are from the WetCanvas Pen and Ink forum's monthly project photos. The African Daisy's above are from a January selection and the pots below are from a photograph posted last fall.

Both were done with my technical pens, 3 different sizes for the daisy's (quicker to stipple the background using a larger tip). Daisy's are on Stonehenge paper and done with mostly stipple. The pots were just done in my notebook as a quick study. I was actually a bit surprise by how well the pots came out as I didn't do any preliminary pencil work on this drawing, guess all the drawings I have been doing are paying off. I admit that I did do some pencil work for the daisy's.

The next 2 images are drawings of objects in my Apt.

This first pen sketch is from the other day and shows one of my cups holding various art tools, pencils, brushes, and pens. When I am working on a colored pencil drawing I use this cup to keep the pencils selected for the drawing separate from the hoard. Makes it easier to keep track of the actual colors I am using to have them at hand. I have also started to keep my clutch pencils in this holder.

This is really a very small vase, only about 4 inches high. I started out drawing it as a pencil drawing and decided to add ink. The objects stuck into the vase are mostly dried berries, and thinking about I don't think I have them sized correctly.  May try this subject again on another day.

A photograph from a walk last week. It was made after our most recent snow fall, which really didn't amount to all that much (only about 6 inches). There is a stream that semi winds through the center of town and now has a couple of parks adjacent to it. Between the snow and the rain we have been having since Christmas the stream is running pretty high.

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

Stuff and a solution for Too many Pencils

A couple more drawings done or at least started in Chicago. Above is a portrait from a photograph in one of last years National Geographic's. Their photographs are often fun to use as a reference because they get the lighting right, usually strongly directional which shades one side of the face while highlighting the other.

Not sure how well I did with this one, not too bad as I recall, but of course there are errors, I haven't gotten to the point of not having them. Oh Well, just have to keep working at it.

One of those subjects that I seem to return to again and again are cups. You would think I would get tired of them, but I find them an endless challenge to get right. The one above was started in Chicago but finished here at home when I realized I had done my usual trick and slanted it to the right. I turned the drawing upside down, realized my major error and tried to correct it as much as possible without the reference cup.

Wish I knew why I do that, because I am right handed, or is a visual issue with my eyesight? I suppose either is possible as I do have to wear glasses and have an astigmatism. I will just have to remind myself that I need to flip drawings with vertical lines upside down to check how perpendicular they are to the base line before I get too far with the drawing.

Do you suffer from the same problem I do? Too many pencils to fit easily into traditional pencil holders. Below you can see photographs of my solution to my problem, home made pencil holders.

I start with paper towel tubes, cut them into lengths, usually 4 or 3 inches, cover them with fabric (I quilt so I have lots of fabric), then seal with acrylic gloss medium. I use thinned Elmers School Glue to glue the fabric to the tubes, applying to the surface of the tube, wrapping the fabric around it and then applying more glue to the surface. The fabric is usually about 2 inches longer than the tube so I fold it over the top and bottom of the tubes to give a neat edge. I allow the glue to dry before applying the medium.

Once all the tubes are dry again I use hot glue to glue the tubes together. Then using thin cardboard which has been cut to shape I hot glue the tubes to the cardboard. This gives the tubes a bottom so the pencils don't fall out. The bottom image above shows most of my pencils in their holders. These are just my colored pencils and some of my graphite ones. The watercolor pencils are in different containers.

I like the tubes because each tube will only hold so many pencils (about 12 to 18 depending on the dia. of the pencil). I can take pencils out of the holders to use without having the rest of them fall over which I have found to be a problem when using a large container that holds a lot of pencils. Question for the day: Can one have too many pencils?

I am ending the update today with a sequence of three photographs made over about 24 hours:

Here in Eastern MA we had a couple of days of blowing snow along with quite cold temperatures. The above series of photographs was made out of one of my windows showing a south facing porch railing that got covered with snow and what happened to the snow over about 24 hours. Top photograph was made shortly after it had finished snowing (around noon Friday) The middle photograph was made later that afternoon and shows how the ridge of snow had sagged but not fallen to the deck. The bottom photograph shows the snow yesterday morning sort of drooping in the middle but still hanging in there. As I recall it fell to the deck about an hour after I made the photograph so the railing is now free from snow. Usually snow on the railings just falls or is blown off, so this sequence is quite unusual.

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

Sketches, a new ATC and some DrawingTools

Above is a new Artist Trading Card (ATC) that I finished over the weekend. It didn't come out quite the way I was envisioning it when I started, which I suppose means that I need to make another one that may be more in line with my concept, except at this point I am not sure what the original concept was. I hope I am not the only person who looses track of the original concept once they start working. Sometimes that is a good thing, but with this card I am not so sure.

Thanksgiving day I spent with friends and while listening to the chatter I spent some time sketching, these two drawings are a result. Hmm, all I can say is that I think I need to spend a lot more time drawing from life. I am not totally thrilled with either the basket or the cup. Though the cup drawing is a bit better than the basket.

Above is a cup of tea with a teaspoon in it. Course the cup did have a design on it, but there was no way I was going to attempt that.

My friends family includes several fairly young children, and of course they were interested in my drawings and supplies. Since I use some tools that aren't familiar to them there were quite a few questions. It occurred to me that I might include some of the information I shared with them here on the blog. So the above image is some of my standard drawing tools. On the left a kneaded eraser, bottom middle is a clutch pencil holder, above that is the 2 mm "lead" that fits the holder, and on the right is a pink pearl eraser.

Because of cost and ease of  "sharpening" I prefer to use clutch pencils with 2mm leads. Course the tool used for pointing the leads can get a bit messy to haul around so I keep one in a plastic bag, but I don't think it is quite as messy as a regular pencil sharpener. I also use kneaded erasers which most of the kids had never seen before. One young boy wanted to insist that it was a piece of clay since that was what he was familiar with. The kneaded eraser is used to lift a bit of graphite when things have gotten a bit too dark. I also like Pink Pearl erasers, but those are fairly common so no comment was made about those.

For the clutch pencils I have several different hardness, B, 2B, 3B, 4B, 2H, 3H, and 4H, each in its own holder. I prefer the Staedtler Mars carbon  leads as they seem to be the best quality. For the really soft grades (above 4B) I use regular wooden pencils. The softer the graphite the darker the line you can get, a 2H is more grey than black, though graphite is never truly black but only a dark grey. For best lifting with a kneaded eraser I find that it needs to be warm so I tend to hold it in my opposite hand when I am doing work where I will be using it.

Saturday was a beautiful though chilly sunny day with a few clouds. I drove up to the Blue Hills Reservation and walked around Houghton's Pond. Above is a photo of the pond that I made that day. I find it interesting that clouds in photographs at this time of year even in early afternoon have some pink/lavender color to them.

The pond looks so still and calm reflecting the trees, clouds and sky. There were some ducks on the pond, but since I hadn't brought my field glasses I am not sure of the species, all I know is they weren't mallards as some of them were diving under the water and mallards don't dive. As you can see there were no beach goers there that day.

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