Bookmark, Still Life, Figure and more snow

Just a short update today. I have been working on the above bookmark design for a while. I started it before Christmas but somehow after a quick start it just didn't jell for me and I had other things to keep me busy. Anyway in the after Christmas blahs I decided that I either needed to get it done or bit the bullet, toss it, and start something new. I decided to just finish it and see what would happen.

I finished the pen work last night and added watercolor this morning using some of my watercolor pencils and a damp brush. I like the colors but the ink work doesn't totally work for me. Still after it is dry I will start to finish it off as a bookmark.

After a trip to the grocery store the other day I came home with 2 apples and an orange. I thought the 3 would make a reasonable still life so pulled a bowel out of the cabinet and made an arrangement with them for a quick drawing. I feel it is important that I manage to draw from life a few times a week, meaning I need to observe for real what I am drawing, not just working from imagination and/or photographs. Observation skills need to be nurtured even if the results are pretty ordinary.

Done with graphite (2B pencil) in one of my new sketchbooks. The orange is already history as I was worried it was getting a bit soft, made a nice evening snack. Two apples don't quite a still life subject make so it looks like I need another trip to the grocery store.

A week ago Monday was December 30 and I attended the long pose session for that week since there wasn't going to be a short pose session New Years Eve. Above is the drawing I made that evening.

Not sure how I feel about it, Some areas I like and other areas I am not happy with. It has been several months since I attended a long pose session so for the most part I feel I didn't do that badly. Think I need to mix up long pose vs short poses a bit more this year and see if I can get my groove back.

I am closing with a photograph I made last week after our snow storm. The wind had blown this pattern in the snow with a bare spot in the upper left and gradually deepening snow radiating out in rings. I have no clue why the wind would have swirled just there but it does make an interesting image.

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.

Cats, Figures and New Year Wishes

First I want to wish everyone a Healthy, Happy 2014, may this new year bring you much of what you wish/hope for.

Today I am going to share a couple of the drawings I made while visiting Chicago. The first is an image of a friends cat from a photograph she made and shared via Facebook. I think the cat is wearing a hooded cape, and while she is posing for the photograph I doubt she stayed put long. Got to say I am fairly pleased with this, not a totally polished piece, but I think I captured the cats not so pleased expression.

For a Christmas present I received from my sister more Polychrome colored pencils. I asked for them of course, but was totally pleased with the gift. Needless to say I felt they needed to be taken out for a test run, hence the above sketch.

From a National Geographic photograph I sketched this lion cub standing on a zebra kill. Not totally pleased with it, but it least it does look like a lion, and the color isn't bad considering the colors I was working with. I didn't spend that long on it, so it isn't even close to being photo-realistic.  Still it was fun to do and I got to play with some of my new pencils.

Now that I am home I am discovering I need more pencil holders for my growing collection. I have started working on a new set which will hopefully be finished soon.

The above drawings are from the only short pose drawing session I managed to attend in December, Tuesday December 3rd. The following week I was either suffering from a cold or an allergy attack since I spent the day bonding with a box of tissues and getting a sore nose. The following week was cancelled due to a snow storm, it didn't drop a lot of snow but did manage to happen during drive time and made a huge mess out of the roads. Our model for that evening drives a fair distance and didn't want to risk the conditions. I can't say that I blame him, it was nasty out there.  The last short pose sessions were cancelled due to being Christmas and New Years Eve. so during those weeks they held only Monday Night long pose sessions and I was in Chicago the week of Christmas.

Anyway, the top grouping is of short 2 minute poses, middle grouping is 5 minute poses and the bottom two 10 minute poses.  Oddly enough the ones I like best are the two 5 minute poses in the middle. I also like the 2 minute poses, but I feel that the 10 minute poses aren't as dynamic as they should/could be. Both I and the model were probably getting pretty tired at that point. That is my excuse and I am sticking with it.

Last but by no means least is a photograph from my visit to Chicago. On Friday we visited the Chicago Art Institute and saw some wonderful drawings and watercolors from a private collection. There were many ink works and I found it interesting that the artists didn't seem to feel that he/she had to choose a media and stick with it. Most of the ink works were a combination of ink and graphite (pencil) or Charcoal, sometimes pastel and sometimes Gouache. The artist used what they needed to use to get the look/effect they wanted with the drawing. Artists ranged from an early Picasso to a study Romney did for a larger painting with some older and more recent artists added to the mix.

The sculpture in the photograph (called the Bean) is found in the park that is a few blocks north from the museum. The surface has been polished to a high gloss and reflects the buildings and people around it. There is a hole in the center that is large enough that several people can stand in it looking up at their reflections. We didn't do that on this visit because both of us were tired from the museum but I have done just that on previous occasions.

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