Doodles, sketches and #inktober

I fear I am slacking off again with the #inktober drawings. Though I did manage to finish the one above. It is a second look at a still life I set up of 2 apples and a pear, this time with a simpler background and I used colored inks for the fills. I had a bit of trouble getting the color of the pear approximately right, it was a Bosc pear and they are more brown then green or red, but the browns I have aren't quite the right shade so I added several different colors in an attempt to get it right.

Still I am not displeased with the results. The shapes end up relatively simple which I rather like. Hmm trying to remember the artist who liked to outline in black. Maybe I can channel Cezanne he did a lot of still life's as I recall, though of course he used paint not ink and in his later works wasn't using shadows.

I was at the library yesterday for a while and did the above pen sketch of a fellow patron sitting at one of the benches. Not great I should have used a pen with a broader tip, but still not too bad for a quick sketch.

While I was at the library I watch the 2nd Nature show about penguins which was filmed using penguin-cams. Models of penguins, eggs, and chicks which contained cameras which they used to film the breeding birds. While watching I tried to make some quick sketches of some of the actors. Top a Emperor Penguin chick, they have such distinctive markings, Then a couple of other penguins including a side view of an adult Emperor Penguin. Started drawing in pen and then moved to pencil as I needed to be able to erase and make corrections.

They are such strange looking birds, but the sketching was rather fun, and the filming is amazing, a must see program if you didn't catch it when it aired.

For something entirely different a pen doodle, done using various micron pens. Several different colors here, orange, red, purple and even a touch of green, and of course black. Just playing around with this one, sometimes these doodles become a more finished work, but this one while I like some of its features is I think a dead end otherwise.

I have been watching this bush/plant since spring when I photographed its frost damaged leaves to use for a watercolor project. Finally it is in bloom, Better late than never, though this plant needs to be pretty frost hearty blooming this late in the year. I believe this is a type of Shasta Daisy, though most of those I see in gardens bloom earlier in the summer, like in July. It might have been delayed in blooming by our dry summer, sill I hope it isn't killed off too quickly by the coming cold.

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

#inktober Still Life and a visit to the Zoo

I am going to blame the weather for the fact that I got almost no art work done this past week. We had a beautiful sunny day Monday (though a bit chilly) and I took advantage of it to visit the Franklin Park Zoo in Dorchester.

Franklin Park is part of the Emerald Necklace of green spaces and parks that circle Boston. The zoo is an old one established in 1913, it has gone through some hard times but seems to have gotten its act together. They don't have a lot of animals on exhibit, but those they have seem to have appropriate environments and plenty of space. The zoo is obviously focused on kids and how to entertain/inform them. They have a large playground and a several exhibits (most of them closed for the winter) that would make a kid happy, feeding parakeets in a large enclosure, viewing butterflies in another, and allowing folks to feed giraffes to name a few in addition to the petting zoo with farm animals.

I enjoyed my visit but was hoping for opportunities to make some good photographs of unusual animals which I found limited because of the fencing they use for many of the outdoor enclosures so I doubt I will be going back soon.

After Monday the clouds and rain moved in for a prolonged (4 day) stay. We had a strong nor'easter Wednesday afternoon into Thursday with thunder and lighting, strong winds and heavy (downpours) rain. Yesterday afternoon the rain let up but the clouds stayed with us until it cleared overnight. Today we have blue sky's and sun and I am hoping that things will dry out a bit. We needed the rain, but after a very dry sunny Sept. the gloom got a bit hard to take and I wasn't motivated to create art.

Sorry didn't mean to get so wordy. On to the art, the focus piece at the top of the blog is actually my second attempt at a small still life I set up with an onion, potato and some mushrooms one day last week.  I photographed it with my tablet so I can just view it instead of printing the image out on a piece of paper. I can't leave the still life up for very long as I tend to use food I purchased for meals and it gets eaten.

For this drawing I used only pens, some with colored inks and I simplified both shapes and the shadows just to have more drama. On 6 x 6 inch Bristol Board, image size is 4 x 4 inches. I have not been managing the one ink drawing per day of the #inktober challenge, but I am still working at it.

Above is my first version of my Veggie still life. I used my technical pens in my sketchbook and tried to render the fabric background the vegetables were sitting on. Not bad but I think I prefer the version I made with colored inks to this black and white one. Since I usually prefer the black and white version I am a bit surprised.

Tuesday between showers I escaped to the Laundry mat to wash clothes and did this quick lopsided ink drawing of one of the carts they have for patrons to use for wet laundry. I got the perspective almost totally wrong, but for some reason I still rather like this.

Last drawing for today is one that I actually made a couple of weeks ago on one of my Boston visits to the MFA. I was in the Fenway area to visit the large Dick Blick store and ate my lunch sitting at a bench near the T station. Across from me was a bike rack full of bicycles, of which I attempted to draw just one. Since it was almost a head on view it was a bit tricky to draw. Done in my sketchbook with a mechanical pencil.

A couple of photographs from my Monday trip to the Zoo. One of the Gorilla's in the Gorilla habitat. It was nibbling on some of the chunks of food they scatter around the habitat for them to search out, that day it was mostly carrots, but one of the keepers told me that they will cut up just about any fresh vegetable or fruit for them.

Above are some sunlit yellow mums that were planted in containers outside the Zoo entrance. I posted some additional photos from the zoo on my Facebook page, a link can be found at the bottom of my blog.

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

Short #inktober update

A short update of my #inktober progress. Mostly just doodles but still more than I want to save for a later update. So above is a quick sketch I made in one of my sketchbooks. I wanted to play with some of my colored pens. So my own take on a flower in a vase with a design on it. Added just a touch of green just because. Black and Red pens were 005 Microns, but the green is a Coptic Fineliner.

Another still life, again this one was done with a dip pen. My arraignment of fruit on a piece of fabric. I have taken to making these still life's during the day while the sun is shining and then photographing them not with my SLR Cannon but with my Samsung tablet. The photos aren't the best but they are good enough for me to use as reference while drawing. With the tablet I don't have to print anything out, and if I want to zoom into an area I can. It does take a bit of getting used to but I think it is going to be a good way to work with reference images. Still I don't think I will entirely give up printing out images, sometimes I just prefer to have paper in hand.

Well, I am getting a good range of values, but some of the marks aren't quite what I would wish. Need to be doing more of this with the dip pen so I can refine how/where to make marks. I used to  use a dip pen for all my pen work, but have gotten out of the habit of using them, Microns or technical pens are more convenient as you don't have to have an open container of ink while working. Dip pen tips also require semi frequent cleaning, but they sure do give a nice line.

Size is 4 inches square on 6 inch square Bristol Board.

Years ago my sister had given me a Parker fountain pen. I stopped using it ages ago but I found it the other day and though I should see if I could get it working and then use it for one of these drawings.

My idea for the month long challenge is to use a range of tools to discover the kind of marks I can make with each one. So above a quick drawing of pumpkins with my now working fountain pen. The nib isn't very flexible so I didn't get a large variation with the line, but it feels different in the hand and marks aren't made quite as easily as I would with a technical pen so the quality of the mark is different. It might be something I want to keep around to make quick sketches with. Will think about this a bit more.

Done in one of my sketchbooks, size is about 4 inches.

I will close with a couple of photographs. Above is a maple tree in my neighborhood. I couldn't resist photographing the red/oranges against that oh so blue sky. This is not Photoshopped, though I did crop the original photo to tighten up the composition.

Since I didn't have a lot of art work today I thought I would post this photo of a yellow rose that I made earlier last week. Roses prefer to bloom in the cooler weather of spring and fall so many bushes around me are in their second bloom cycle.

I think this is a rather nice shot of a yellow rose in full bloom. Just enough shadow to make the petals stand out but also enough light to show off the colors from the darker yellow center to the pale yellow at the edges of the petals. We will likely be getting frost soon, so this is probably one of my last photographs of a rose for this year.

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