Categories
People Sketchbook Pages

Figure Drawing

figure7-2.jpg
Pentel Brush Pen and water in 6×8″ sketchbook – 20 minute pose

As you can see we had quite a large model tonight. She was excellent at posing but when you faced her back it was like drawing a landscape with a big mountain in the middle. So I grabbed a small notebook that I could easily carry around to the other side of the room along with my brush pen and waterbrush. I drew with the brush pen and used the waterbrush to bleed the ink out for shading. Then the next pose I went back to my table and big sketchbook.
Figure9

Pencil in 14×17″ sketchbook – 10 minute pose
figure8.jpg

Pencil and Pentel Brush Pen with water in 14×17″ sketchbook – 20 minute pose

It was a good night at figure drawing after an annoying afternoon working on the postcards for my show in March. I learned a lot of stuff I wasn’t really interested in learning but they’re done and finally ordered.

Tonight they had the overhead lights on instead of the directional ones because they needed to replace the bulbs in the spot lights. It was nice having enough light and there were still some decent shadows.

Categories
Drawing Still Life

Glide

Glide

Uniball Signo white gel pen on black Canford Card paper
(To enlarge, click image, select All Sizes)

This is a pack of Glide dental floss. It’s part of a series I’m drawing of things that support my life — items I could live without but would rather not have to. I’ve been considering items I own, asking myself, “Is this something that supports my life and do I want to draw it (or if not, toss it)?”

ART CITY: On another subject, I want to recommend “Art City,” a 3-DVD documentary about the life of current day artists in New York (available from Netflix). The artists are working in their studios and talking about their work, lives, motivations, creative issues and success (or lack of it) with humor, passion and honesty. Some of the artists in the series are Chuck Close, Elizabeth Murray, and Brice Marden (who draws with long sticks taped together and dipped in ink).

P.S. I changed my template again and on this one you can comment at top or bottom of each post. Is this one easier to read than the previous template?

Categories
Every Day Matters Life in general Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Pilates Reformer – EDM 103 (again)

EDM 103 - Pilates

Ink & watercolor in Aquabee 6×9 Sketchbook

This week’s Everyday Matters challenge is to draw your exercise equipment so yesterday and today that’s what I’ve done. I drew it directly with a pen which is why it’s not proportioned properly but I told myself to just be playful and draw for fun which I did.

This is my Pilates reformer plus various associated exercise gear in my exercise room. I have lots of exercise equipment and I used to use it faithfully for at least an hour every day until I started blogging. Since then my exercise time seems to have transformed itself into blogging time just as my muscles seem to be transforming into blogging blubber.

At least if I was doing an art/walking or art/bicycling blog like two of my very favorite art bloggers, Julie and Alison, I’d be doing art and getting fit at the same time. I think the only solution is to go to bed earlier so I can get up in time to do an hour of exercise again before work. So I’ll end this here and get to bed so tomorrow I can get up early and workout.

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Every Day Matters Sketchbook Pages

LeMond RevMaster (EDM #103)

EDM 102 - LeMond-RevMaster

Lamy Safari pen and ink with crayon in Aquabee sketchbook

This week’s EDM challenge is to draw your exercise equipment so here’s my LeMond RevMaster spinning bike which I like very much. I probably would have been better off riding it than drawing it tonight…or just going to bed. I started the drawing four times, but kept running out of room on the page. I finally got most of it on the page and then made the mistake of coloring it with Caran D’Arche Neocolor wax crayons (yuck).

Categories
Acrylic Painting Flower Art Sketchbook Pages Still Life

Scruffy Roses – Scruffy Day

Scruffy rose acrylic

Acrylic on mat board, 7 x 12″
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Scruffy rose pencil

Graphite in Aquabee sketchbook, 6×9″
To enlarge, click image, select All Sizes

I had a hard time getting started in the studio today. I’ve been studying and reading many books on technique: oil, acrylic, monoprint, drawing…and I’m at the point of too much information and not enough practice. It’s like learning how to drive by reading books, without actually doing any driving — you might know lots of techniques and rules, but are terrified at the idea of getting behind the wheel and driving off. I started feeling paralyzed, unable to decide which medium I wanted to explore, what subject I wanted to paint, and after looking at all the fine work in the museum Friday and my books and on others blogs, was beginning to get that awful, “why bother, it’s all been done before and much better than I could ever do” sort of feeling. I also had a headache and had some annoying errands to do.

I did some organizing in the studio and then gave up and went out to do the errands and then it was dinnertime and still no painting. After dinner I finally got to my drawing table and just started sketching this scruffy, battered winter rose from my bush that still hasn’t been pruned. Then I scanned it, printed out the drawing a little bigger, and using Saral transfer paper (like carbon paper but waxless), transfered the drawing to a piece of matboard and then painted it with acrylics. I know I would have done a better job with watercolor, but it was fun experimenting and learning how to “drive” the acrylics by taking them on a little jog around the block.

Categories
Every Day Matters Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Maidenform

Maidenform

Watercolor in large Moleskine watercolor notebook
(To enlarge, click image, select All Sizes)

Well, I don’t know what could be more ordinary and every day than an undergarment or more odd than publishing my underwear on the internet… but I was so tired today after a really busy day yesterday that I couldn’t muster the energy to look further than my laundry basket for a subject to sketch. I asked Michael if he could tell what it was a picture of and he guessed “Um….Onions?” Oh well…I know it’s not great but it felt good to spend a little time at my drawing table and get something posted after a couple days away from the computer.

Alison’s wonderful sister is visiting San Francisco from Australia and I had the pleasure of spending the day with her yesterday. I picked her up at her hotel in North Beach (not a beach–it’s the “Old Italy” part of San Francisco, former home of the Beat poets), spent a few hours at the new DeYoung Art Museum in Golden Gate Park, then drove out to Ocean Beach where we took a stroll on the beach. The weather was lovely, much nicer than the last time I was there last summer when it was foggy, windy and cold. Then we headed back to North Beach where we spent an hour browsing in the City Lights Book Store. I bought two good books to bring with me to Mexico in two weeks. When we got hungry we walked to nearby Chinatown for a delicious dinner, then back to North Beach to say good-bye.

After all the driving yesterday, including getting quite lost a couple times thanks to really bad directions from MapQuest which I vow I will never use again, today was about staying home and taking it easy.

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Life in general Other Art Blogs I Read Photos

Always doing

In trying to catch up with email and blog visiting, I discovered Suresh Gundappa‘s site with some of the most amazing photos I’ve seen, especially the one linked here that so brilliantly illustrates his powerful essay on how Westerners are so busy and in a hurry all the time that they are “driving themselves mad with their activity…” which really hit home.

I often complain that there’s never enough time to do everything I want to do, and make long lists of things to accomplish on days off and vacations. I’m so glad that when I go to Mexico in two weeks, I will be disconnected from all activity except relaxing and painting and that it will be goal-less painting. A week of just being. I haven’t done that in years.

Sorry…no pictures here today, but I hope you’ll scroll through Suresh’s images and words…there are some really thrilling photos there.

Categories
People Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

Meeting and Subway Sketches

Meeting People 3

Two craggy old guys sitting in front of me at the California Watercolor Association meeting tonight. The guy didn’t really have writing on his neck but it was a good spot to take down notes on upcoming watercolor shows to enter. It was an interesting meeting: Golden Acrylics had a representative demonstrating and teaching about the use of their paints and mediums with a free goody bag for everyone at the end of the meeting.

Meeting People 2

Two lovely young ladies at a meeting at work today (though my drawing doesn’t do them justice). The meeting was to envision where our organization will be in 2012 (five years) and where we’ll be–if still there, in what role, or doing something else. It’s great to get the support to pursue our own dreams as well as to help build and contribute to our organization whose mission is to improve literacy and learning for adolescents.

BART16

Two commuters and two babies on BART.

All are ink in Moleskine sketchbook.

Categories
Every Day Matters Life in general Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

More Soap (EDM #101)

Dish Soap (More EDM #101)

Watercolor & Ink in Moleskine watercolor notebook 6×9″
To enlarge, click image, select All Sizes

I keep my dish soap in this squirt bottle originally meant to mix and apply hair dye. The glass plate is on loan from my sister. When I saw it at her house I begged to borrow it to paint it. I wanted to include it in yesterday’s soap picture.

I was supposed to be doing other stuff tonight but was getting really grumpy not being able to draw or paint so after helping my son with his resume, I abandoned the art business stuff I “should” have been doing. I drew this quickly with ink (hence the goofy edges and lines) and then added watercolor, thoroughly enjoying myself for the first time all day. Well, that’s not true. We did have some fun at work at lunch today, talking about our favorite “guilty pleasure” tv shows, but the rest of the day was just work, work, work.

To end this post on a happier note than the above whining, I’ll mention two things I’m grateful for.

1. I didn’t have a headache or a backache today and I noticed that several times during the day, making me feel grateful each time.

2. Yesterday I realized that even though I get frustrated with my lack of skill when painting with oils and acrylics and want to be good at it NOW, in a year, if I keep practicing and studying, I’ll probably feel pretty comfortable with them and maybe even competent. Or maybe I’ll realize I need another year of practice and I’ll take it. Same with drawing…if I keep at it, in a year, I’ll be a lot better at it than I am now.

Simple stuff, but it makes me happy.

Categories
Acrylic Painting Every Day Matters Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Soap: EDM #101

EDM 101

Acrylic in HandBook Journal 5.5 x 5.5″
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The week’s Everyday Matters challenge is to draw a bar of soap. My original idea was to line up all the different soaps in my house, from dish soap to laundry soap to bath soap and make a grid and paint them all. But by the time I did all the errands I’d been putting off, time was short. Also, I wanted to play with the fluid acrylics I’d bought last weekend and hadn’t tried yet. So I settled on one soap, one bowl and tried painting with the acrylics as if they were watercolors.

It was fun and interesting. One thing I learned is that acrylic is basically a glue and if you get any kind of crud or cat hair on the paper it will become permanently glued in place. Also you can’t erase pencil after you’ve painted with acrylic. It’s ridiculous how fast the stuff dries. I guess you have to develop a second sense about spritzing the palette all the time.

I’m ready for some big, juicy, free painting next. After all the lettering and detail in the watercolor I finished and posted yesterday I’m tired of tiny, tight painting. It’s back to work tomorrow but hopefully this weekend I can go a bit wild with paint and loosen up.