Starting Inktober 2015

Well, it isn't the best drawing I have ever done, but I did it without any preliminary work, so I don't think it is too bad. I had totally forgotten about the Inktober Challenge until I saw a posting on facebook which reminded me. It was still early enough in the day that I could take the time to make the above drawing.

If you are interested you can go HERE to read about Jake Parker and the Inktober challenge. It is still fairly early in the month so if you want to join/start there is still time. Most people post to facebook, or flickr or wherever, if you do a search on #inktober you should pull a lot of images.

Not quite sure where the idea for this came from, but I am finding it a lot of fun to continue with the theme of a small helper making my drawings for me. Just the kind of thing I need to ease me back into some more serious works.

For the first drawing my helper was just doing letters, reminding me of the Inktober challenge, for this second drawing it pulled out a couple of acorns and drew them. The drawing shows it caught in the act of shading the nuts. Well that is the story I am telling myself anyway.

For this drawing I first did a pencil drawing and added the ink afterwards. The result is a much more polished drawing and I am much happier with it. All of these challenge drawings are being done in one of my smaller (5 x 8 inches) sketchbooks and I am using either my technical pens or my Copic Multiliner pens, mostly the .1 and .03 tips, or the 0 and 00 technical pens.

Above is my drawing for the 3rd, this time I started with a White Pine pine cone, and my little friend is viewing the results of it's efforts. I haven't decided if it is male or female which is why I am trying to be gender neutral.

Again I made a pencil under drawing for this one and then did the inking.

We have had clouds and rain most of this past week so I haven't been out with the camera since last weekend. This photograph is from last Sunday's visit to Daniel Webster, I think the plant is Wild Lettuce but I may be wrong, all of my plant ID books are still packed away so am guessing. It is a tallish dandelion looking flower. I just liked the image of the sun lit seed head.

That is it for today, hopefully I will be continuing with my Inktober drawings so should be updating the blog again soon.

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.

Some Pen and Ink and other Updates

Oops, been way too long since I managed a blog update. Mostly because a problem with my Apt. required that I pretty much pack it up and store stuff while the problem was being dealt with. Heat has also been an issue as I just don't feel very creative when I am hot. That said things are mostly settled, thank heavens, and I am slowly starting to put the Apt. and my life back together. Still for the moment my art supplies have been reduced to a couple of sketchbooks and my technical pens and pencils so the type of work I can do is limited, graphite or pen and ink.

All of today's images are pen and ink aren't really much more than doodles, but still a way for me to keep my hand in, and some of them are kind of fun. Above a stylized moon with some funky stars and I think galaxies, hey if I say that is what I intended you will just have to take my word for it. Drawn with pen in one of my small sketchbooks.

Another pen work, this time an imaginary still life, Not sure what that image in the background is, but I had fun drawing it.

I have been photographing Hydrangea's, the flowers can be white, blue, pink and sometimes a purple color depending on the soil conditions they are growing in. This little sketch isn't from life, but from my imagination even if based (more or less) on real flowers. Drawn with a .03 Copic Multiliner in one of my sketchbooks.

The upheaval in my Apt. caused me to toss the curtains in my living room. It was time, they were old and some of them had sun rot and were splitting. Trying to keep the cost of the replacement curtains down I purchased some inexpensive flat sheets from Walmart, They are a cotton/poly blend and knit not woven. The fabric is not very nice and I would hate to have to use them on my bed, but for curtains they will work, however the plain cream color just was too bland for me to want to go with it.

Hey I am an artist and something of a fiber artist though I haven't been doing much with fiber these past few years. Still I had/have supplies (just had to dig them out of storage) so the above photo shows an in-progress image of what I am doing to the sheets to liven them up. I am stenciling leaves to the cream background using Shiva Oil Paint sticks and some leaf templates I had picked up at a quilt show years ago and never really used. I am using several colors of green paint, along with several gold/yellow/red iridescent paint colors

Needless to say this is turning out to be a larger project than I initially planned. It is taking longer to stencil the leaves than I expected and is a lot more work. I have four windows that I have to re-curtain, and at my current rate it will probably be sometime next year before I am done. I will try to remember to post an image of a finished set so you can have an idea of how the project came out.

Last week I finally managed a trip into Boston, the main purpose was to make some photographs in Copley Square for the 2016 Calendar that I am working on but I also added in a quick visit to the MFA, with a side trip to Dick Blicks for more paint sticks. I am working on 3 calendars for 2016, flowers, butterflies and a seasonal year of Boston images. More about these in further posts.

From my visit to the MFA, above are three photographs of artwork from a new exhibit called Pastoral to Pop, 20th Century Britain on Paper. As you can see the exhibit is very eclectic from abstracted to realistic, buildings to figure. I take every chance I can get to view works on paper, for many years a neglected part of world of art but one which I find compelling. Some of these works I found very compelling, others not so much. Since it will be up until next Feb. I expect to visit it a few more times and to be able to really examine some of the works more closely.

Sorry for the poor quality of the photo's but the gallery has low light and I can't use flash so.., also the works were sometimes hung over each other putting them above my line of sight, making a head on photo shot a bit tricky (hence the cut off top of the figure drawing)

Last image today is a photograph of a sunflower that I made last week. It is growing in a neighbors front yard. Actually a lot of my neighbors grow sunflowers, which I appreciate since I love to photograph them. Yellow, brown, green and blue wonderful colors that go well together.

That is it for today, hopefully it won't be so long before my next update. Hope everyone had a good summer and is looking forward to a splendid fall. Per usual comments are welcome and appreciated even if I don't always respond.