Polka-Dot Dog, and more pen and ink

The Sketchbook Challenge Theme for April is polka-dots. My initial mental image was a polka-dot stuffed toy, an elephant actually, but when I went to draw my concept the elephant turned into a dog. It has some other scattered toys for company. Drawn totally out of my imagination and probably based on drawings I have seen over the years.

My idea was that the body of the animal would be a print fabric (the polka-dots) and the legs, tail and ears of a solid. Ended up picking blue as a background color for the dog, and it made sense to make the legs a darker color. The dots are actually orange though they look pretty red on my screen, orange and blue are complements, which I though would be in keeping with a kids toy.

Drawn quickly in one of my sketch books, outlined with one of my technical pens and then colored with colored pencil. It was a fun and fairly quick project. Not my usual style of drawing at all so I have to wonder who/what I was channeling. Though I did spend a lot of time drawing that dog in landscape I just finished.

The above is a Meerkat done in pen and ink for the WetCanvas Pen and Ink Forum April Challenge. The reference photograph I used is one of the April Challenge images. This was done in graphite first in one of my sketchbooks then I used the 3x0 technical pen to do the inking.

Finished another group of illustrations for the Nature Journal over the weekend. This page has images from a November 12, 2012 visit to Daniel Webster, MA Audubon Sanctuary over in Marshfield, MA.

Top image is just one Canada Goose walking on one of the paths, and the bottom is my usual tree stump in the Panne. That day there was one turtle out sunning, note that not much is showing, the water in the Panne was very high that day, probably the highest I had ever seen it. Done with mostly a dip pen over preliminary pencil drawings.

Normally I photograph sunsets but this image is of a sunrise one day last week. I had woken early and after a glance out my front windows I grabbed the camera to make this photograph. Even so I know I missed a more dramatic shot by maybe a minute or so. Colors at sunrise don't last very long.

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

A Landscape and Illustration

This may look familiar as I have drawn and posted this image once before, however this is a more finished drawing of a scene I photographed last summer at Ames Nowell State Park in Abington, MA. Eventually the woman tossed the ball off the end of the dock and the dog went in after it. I do have an image of the dog jumping off the dock, but rather liked this one better as the viewer can't be sure what has caught the dogs attention. There is a story there, but I will let the viewer make it up for themselves.

I tried a new paper with this drawing Strathmore Drawing 500. It is a white paper, whiter than their 400 Drawing paper, but the same whiteness as the white Stonehenge. It is a bit lighter weight than the Stonehenge I have been working on but has a nice tooth and accepted the pencil well. The size of this is a bit odd 7.25 x 8.75 inches but I didn't realize the oddness of the size until after I finished the drawing, oops. I used several grades of leads 2H, HB, B, 2B, mostly with my clutch pencils and their Staedtler leads.

Let me say now that getting the background trees to look like trees took forever, well not literally of course but it did feel that way while I was doing it. Lots of finicky work with a kneaded eraser and layers of graphite finally gave me the results I was looking for. I did use a straight edge to draw the dock, with man made structures edges that aren't totally straight look off.

I think I am pleased with it, and know that even a couple of years ago this isn't something I would have even thought about drawing, progress. I am slowly learning how to tackle complex drawings.

The above may also look familiar as I posted a sketch to the blog the other day of some garlic, onions and a knife, I called it Chop Chop. As I mentioned then creating illustrations for the cookbook I am working on is still an on-going project.

So I scanned the drawing I had done, pulled it into Illustrator and have been working on it off an on. Looking at it here there are some things that still need work so I am not going to consider it finished but it is starting to get there. The knife was fun, and looks surprisingly realistic. Oh I am doing this in Adobe Illustrator, so this is a computer generated drawing.

The above sketch of a rose hip with stems was done for a challenge in WetCanvas Watercolor forum and is only the first step. The Watercolor forum runs a couple of monthly challenges and one this month has us noticing the small things in nature, with the intent that we first draw then paint an object.

Walking back from the library I passed some rose bushes that still have some of last fall's rose hips on them, this section of stem was already broken so I snapped it off the rest of the way and brought it home. Drawing is done, now I just have to transfer outlines to some watercolor paper and paint. Wish me luck with this one.

As a final image, an early evening/late afternoon sky with clouds and a jet contrail lit by the sun and showing white against a blue sky. Note that the trees are mostly not quite budding just yet. Though there are a few fairly close to me that are a bit more advanced.

That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome, sorry if you are having problems with Bloggers comments section, but if it works for you I appreciate it.

Two Birds and a Pear

I finished reading the book on Painting techniques last week and returned it to the Library. I don't really have a lot to say about it. It is not the type of book that can be summarized easily. It would probably make a good reference book if I were the kind of person who went in for that sort of thing. The book is full of tips about not only painting techniques but also about design and which elements of design can/should be considered when creating various types of paintings (landscapes, portraits, etc.) so it mostly held my interest. The one universal that comes across is if you want to learn how to do something you have to just do it, failure is part of game.

With that in mind I spent some time yesterday morning painting this pear in watercolor. It was a Bartlett that had just ripened. After painting it I cut it up and ate it as part of my lunch so it is no longer available as a reference. We had a rainy day here yesterday so I had the lights on causing the poor pear to be illuminated by several different light sources, hence the multiple shadows. Actually they work to provide a background since I didn't bother painting anything else. I am relatively pleased with how this came out, The problem being that I am not really sure how I get the results I am getting.

I start out with a light color and keep adding washes until I end up with something that I think works. I am sure it isn't quite the approved way to go about making a watercolor, but so far it is working for me.

I was checking out a different pen nib the other day to use for the Nature Journal drawings. The pen nib I was using wasn't quite as fine as I prefer them to be so I was looking at a couple of others to use instead.

To really check out a nib I have to draw something so did this quick drawing of a Seagull. The reference photograph I used was made last winter and eventually I will probably draw this young bird using graphite. Still for just using pen and ink I think the drawing came out fairly well and thought I would show it here.

The Great Horned Owl in the above illustration is from my October 20, 2012 visit to Daniel Webster. It happened to be their annual Farm Day event and they had a couple doing Owl demonstrations. The couple are licensed keepers of wild birds and had brought 6 different owl species to talk about, Screech Owl, Bard Owl, Snowy Owl, and 2 European Owls besides the Great Horned. The Great Horned is our largest american owl and I happened to make a really great photograph of it so it became my image for the day.

This page really should have been done prior to the two I posted in my last update, but it had been quite a while since I had done much work with a dip pen so wanted to have a bit of practice prior to tackling this image. Just as well I think I got better results with the finer nib than I would have gotten with the other one I was using.

I took a bit of license with the image as the bird they were keeping had lost an eye. Loosing an eye is a death sentence for an owl in the wild as without depth perception they can't hunt their prey. Otherwise it was a very hansom bird.

Above is the final image for today. I photographed this the other day, I don't know where the cat came from, though from the look of it I think it is homeless and living wild. I didn't dare get too close for fear it would run off so it isn't the best photo. Still there is something about this image that speaks to me so I thought I would post it.

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