Graphite Drawings and some Pen Exercises

I think I have too many projects in the works at one time. LOL, the 3 main drawings for this update are from a challenge that I have taken up from the WetCanvas Drawing forum. Draw something every day from life with pencil for 30 days. So far I am managing, mostly by doing relatively simple drawings.

Why you may wonder am I doing this, well for my 6 x 6 inch ink and colored pencil works I decided I wanted to do a squirrel, I have a great reference photo and I have drawn squirrels before, some better than others so I thought this would be relatively easy, wrong, I have struggled with this drawing, which is finally I think good enough to ink. But my struggles just made me aware that I haven't been drawing enough, drawing from observation is a skill that needs to be maintained and to maintain it I have to draw so... a daily challenge is a good thing.

For day one, three whole green beans. I like having fresh green beans with my dinner so it wasn't hard to select 3 to save to draw. In my smaller sketch book with a couple of pencils, 2H and 2B, I believe.

These are seed pods that I brought home from a visit to Boston. The tree grows on the Northeastern University campus and isn't a native tree, but right now I can't recall what species it is. Again in my sketchbook with 2H, and I think the B or HB leads.

Another dried seed pod, this one from a Milk Weed plant that I picked last fall and brought home, my sketchbook again, with 2H and I think the HB and B pencils.

I don't spend very long on any of these drawings, somewhere between 15 minutes and a half hour, I think. How long I spend isn't relevant, the point is to make a drawing as accurately as I can from observation, not just shape but shading and shadows to make the drawing come alive.

And now for something completely different. These are  3 exercises that I drew in pen as part of my reading and study of Bert Dodson's book Keys to Drawing with Imagination. This very simple starting exercise called for drawing a line that meandered around ending with a closed shape and then filling the resulting shape with various fills. I have done so much of this type of work that I only drew 3 samples. I am currently working on exercise #2 and finding that one a bit trickier to do so will do the full number, 6 to 12. Starting in the upper left, a, to the right is b and the bottom is c. As you can see they got more complex as I relaxed into the project.

The purpose of this study is to see if I can pull myself a bit more away from realistic drawing so stay tuned, Right now that is something that I am not very comfortable doing so I am not sure how long this experiment will last.

I realized after I posted the colored pencil version of this Iris to the blog that I never posted the just the inked version, so here it is. Pretty simplistic after the ducklings, but just as I like the colored pencil version I also like this plain inked version.

We had rain showers on St. Patrick's day, and the rain showers brought a rainbow. The sun was starting to set so the photo looks pinker than I recall it seeming (you just don't know what a camera will pick up color wise) I didn't go looking for the gold at the end of the rainbow, but it was fun to see. The maple tree in the photo is starting to bud. Wish it luck as we are supposed to get some snow in the next couple of days.

That is it for today, hopefully for my next update I will have the inked squirrel to show off, in the meantime comments are welcome.

It is Fall, new Sketches mostly ink

It is fall, the autumn equinox has come and gone. We have had a full eclipse of the moon, which I mostly miss because I fell asleep, and only woke up when it was over and the moon was shining brightly again, oops. Ah well I have seen lunar eclipses before and hope to again in the future, just didn't see this one.

Still not a lot of drawing or other art work, except for continuing work on the curtain fabric for the living room, which I don't really count. But I have been doing a bit more sketching so today's update is all about those.

Above a pencil drawing of a candle in one of my glass candle holders which is sitting on a bookshelf. just practice since I am so rusty. Needless to say I can see lots wrong with it. Have to do more of this type of drawing to get back into the groove.

When I was last in Boston walking along the Fenway I picked up this half nut shell, the meat of the nut had been eaten, probably by squirrels, but I though the remaining shell looked interesting so I brought it home with me to sketch. I have no clue what the nut is, maybe Blackwalnut, though I don't think so. For some reason I tend to think this is some kind of European/English tree/nut that was planted along the Fenway. The whole nut reminds me of Hickory nuts, but much larger so that isn't what it is.

Drawn in one of my sketchbooks with either one of my technical pens or a Copic Fineliner.

On another walk in my local city park I collected a mushroom, some acorns and a white pine pine cone, more fodder for my pen. Above is the quick drawing I made of these articles. Again done in my sketchbook with my technical pens. I didn't bother to made much of an arrangement, maybe another time as I am collecting more objects. Can you tell I love found objects.

A page from one of my sketchbooks. Obviously I didn't pre-plan this page and there is no over all design to it. But I wanted to show it because of the seed pod that is featured. I picked this pod up in Boston on the same visit that I picked up the nut. I have no clue what species the tree it came from is, not one of our normal natives that is for sure and I don't recall ever seeing this type of pod before. It was planted in the yard of one of Northeastern University buildings so could be from just about anywhere in the world.

The pods are a bit fragile, I picked up two but only one remained whole, So the drawing of the open pod with seed is from the one that broke apart. I should have collected a leaf, but was on my way home and thinking more about that then identifying the tree at some point. I did make a photograph of pods hanging from the tree and will post that, if anyone knows what it it please leave me a comment, thanks.

Mystery tree with seed pods,

And finally my final image, made last week during a walk in my local park. The trees are just hinting at the fall color change, with a few, here and there, showing more color, but this bush obviously knows the season. Just liked the colors here, red, blue and green.

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

Sketches and a visit to the MFA

One day last week I went into Boston to visit the MFA (Museum of Fine Arts) because I hate driving in Boston I took public transportation. To entertain myself on the trip I made some sketches of people and a tree I could see at stations and on the trains. Above is a woman waiting. She is very sketchy but I am not totally displeased with how it came out.

At the Red Line stations while waiting for the trail to leave I could see a tree, not a totally successful sketch, but I was starting to get there. Below the tree is the face of a fellow passenger on the train, he had headsets on and was listening to music. Again very sketchy, but also a bit of a likeness.

Above is a photograph of the entrance of the MFA with banners for the Jamie Wyeth exhibit which was my reason for heading to the museum. Talk about a post card photograph, blue sky with just a few white clouds, not my usual style, but every now and then I manage one of these. As an aside they have to be watering the lawn as most places have very brown grass at this point in the summer as it has been fairly dry.

I must say I enjoyed the exhibit immensely. It is the first major retrospective of Jamie Wyeth's art and they certainly have a range, from some of his earliest works (drawings he made as a child) to some of his most recent, Sea Gulls representing the 7 deadly sins, in watercolor on archival cardboard. They had two of his wild sheep paintings some of his portraits (including the exchange portraits he did with Andy Warhol) and some of his drawings of Rudolf Nureyev. He was friends with both back in the 1960's. What I found interesting is that in his early portraits he was looking for total accuracy, even to using calipers to measure distances, while some of his most recent work has become quite impressionistic. All of his paintings have power, and I enjoyed viewing them all, but I admit that I am just as happy that he is no longer a slave to realism.

I gather that the exhibit received mixed reviews, but then Jamie like his father and grandfather before him have received mixed reviews from the art critics their entire lives. He doesn't care and I admit that I don't either, I enjoy looking at what all of them create despite the critics. So if you are in the Boston area while the exhibit is going on I urge you to stop by for a look.

A couple more of my from nature sketches above is a seed pod from a Sweetgum tree. The other items are the actual seeds and debris that came from inside the pod. I have drawn the seeds slightly larger than life in order to depict them in more detail.

MA is about as far north as the Sweetgum will grow, this tree was planted by the city to be a street shade tree.

The seed pod above is from a Copper Beech tree that is growing in my neighborhood. This is a huge old tree, the trunk is many feet around, and looks to be in need of a tree service to check out how healthy it actually is. Oh well Copper Beeches are not native North American trees but were planted as ornamental trees by our ancestors.

Each pod contains 2 seeds, though I have drawn only one of the seeds that was contained in this pod. Exterior of the pod is hairy and dark brown.

A couple of quick pen and ink sketches of a miniature rose blossom, side view on top, and a top view on the bottom.

In past years I have had lots of butterfly photographs to share, not this year. Mostly because I haven't been getting out to the MA Audubon Sanctuaries where I usually photograph them. My local neighborhood doesn't play host to many butterflies. I mostly see just the cabbage whites, and mostly from a distance only. The other day I finally had the opportunity to photograph one, so above is my best shot, cabbage white, male nectoring at a fall aster.

Plant Parts in Pen and Ink

Pen and Ink works of plant parts seem to be the order of the week. Partly I think because I was involved with a discussion in the WetCanvas Pen and Ink forum about how important drawing accurately is when it come to creating art. At one time I think I would have said that it was critical. I have certainly spent a lot of time trying to hone my skills so that I can accurately draw what I see. But I have come to realize that accuracy is not always the most important part of an art work that has impact. Sometimes it isn't important at all, though of course there are times when it is critical. It is often the artists job to figure out how important it is with each individual work of art.

Anyway because of the discussion pen and ink has been on my brain, and when you add in my new pen tips for my technical pens it became my primary mode of expression this week.

Above are two oak leaves and an acorn that I picked up on my walk to the library yesterday. Drawn free hand with my technical pens and then stippled to provide texture these leaves aren't totally accurate, but I don't think the viewer could or would know that without my telling you. The acorn is a bit stylized, but the leaves are within the norm for this type of oak leaf so it doesn't really matter that I didn't exactly reproduce the leaves I picked up. Drawn directly with my pen in one of my sketchbooks.

This is a lesson that I have had a hard time accepting/learning, that it is OK to not look for total accuracy when drawing items from nature. Anyway I rather like this drawing even though it isn't very complex,

Another pen and ink sketch, this time of some seed pods that I collected on one of my walks. I believe these are the empty seed pods for some day lilies. They look a bit like some daffodil pods that I drew several years ago. Again not totally accurate but I was drawing directly with the pen. Still I think you would identify the pods if you saw them.

There isn't an updated image on the mandala today, that is because I haven't been working on it other than to draw these two poppy flowers as samples for what I would put in the final ring. For these drawings I went with pencil first to try to be as accurate as possible then I added the pen work and erased the pencil. Still thinking if this is the flower I want to put in the final ring, but I am thinking that red would be the perfect color. Besides poppies are such dramatic flowers, with the red and black and green.

I seem to have leaves on the brain. On another walk I picked up three more cottonwood leaves, this time of different sizes, and using them I created the layout for the above in progress work. I suppose you could say that I cheated since I traced the leaves and didn't draw them freehand. I could have drawn them, but it would have taken me more time, and to be honest I couldn't quite see the point. This is going to be quite a lot of work even with that cheat since I am stippling the open background. Haven't totally decided how I am handing the leaves, something I am thinking about as I work on the stipple.

This is a revisit to some leaf work I did a couple of years ago. I was never totally happy with those works, for the most part they lacked a focal point, and while I liked the colors and textures the finished pieces didn't quite work for me. I am hoping I have managed the design of this one a bit better. Sorry for the uneven quality of the image, the work is too large for my scanner so I had to photograph it and didn't feel like setting up with better lighting.

My final photograph today is of a dish plate hibiscus flower. I photographed this in Boston a couple of weeks ago. It was a huge flower about the size of a luncheon plate (8 inches across). I had read about them but had never seen one before so I couldn't resist photographing it. The bush and flower were growing in the front garden of a home as part of my wanderings had taken me into a residential area of the city.

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