Squares, Retangles, and Proportion

I have several drawing books and I am slowly working through the exercises.  One recent purchase is Sketching from Square One to Trafalgar Square.  One reason for the interest in this specific book was that it talks about learning to see things as an artist.

On Wednesday night, I did the first set of exercises which involved drawing squares and rectangles. After that, the next set of exercises had you draw a square or rectangle and place additional squares or rectangles with specific proportions inside the original one.  It doesn't sound like much but the exercises and the author's text, helped me think differently (better?) about proportions and relationships between shapes and objects.

The next morning, I was in work-mode.  I hopped in my car, drove down the alley and stopped. Across the street was the front of a house.  I stopped the car and had to spend several minutes looking at the shapes of the windows, including the inside shapes made by the window frame and sash, their placement, and so on and so on.  It felt as though a light switch went off in my head.  All day, I was noticing windows on buildings.  At lunch, I noticed windows on cars in the parking lot. Today, I'm still catching myself noticing shapes and wanting to stop and evaluate how they relate to each other proportionally.

The book is 192 pages.  I'm only on page 28 and I can't wait to see what else I'll learn!!!

Here is the front of a small apartment building.  I would like to do a rough sketch of the windows and doors, using what I've learned from this book so far.

A Learning Painting

This is a new way to think about a painting.  Am I painting this one solely from a learning perspective?  Tonight, the answer was "yes".  I didn't want to mess around with composition.  I just wanted to try and paint 3 sugar snap peas, knowing that the result would not be that exciting. Plus, I figured this helps me figure out what works and what does not.

Some observations:

• The background is pretty awful, with the light part being really distracting.  
• The position of the dark line on the snap peas was better than yesterday.
• It's hard to get the indentations along the sides of the peas.  The acrylic paint dries so quickly.  You can't really blend.  The top pea turned out better then the middle one.  
• The bottom pea was the best attempt.  This was a bigger pea and the green was not as bright.  

Still Life And Finished Painting

Here is the set up.  The picture was taken from slightly lower from where I drew and painted:

Here is the painting:

The three things that bother me the most:

• The shape of the apple.
• The black raspberry is too big and also is lost in the dark.
• The shadows of the snap peas are over exaggerated.

Still, I'm not disappointed.  Until Wednesday's class, I have painted exactly one item per painting. It may seem silly, but it's a lot harder with this many objects to tackle. Tomorrow I might try a similar composition or one snap pea or one black raspberry painted really, really large!

Value Study - Take 1

I indulge in a different hobby every Monday night, making it hard to find the time to paint.  To get better at mixing paint colors and seeing color values, I decided to do a quick exercise.

My goal is to replicate the values along the gray scale with a different paint color each week.  My self imposed rules are:

• Start with a color that you think will fall in the middle of the scale at 5.
• Bounce around the scale.  Don't go completely in order, but try to stay with the same color.
• At each point on the scale, use the same paint color on a paper primed with black gesso and paper primed with white gesso.
• Just mix the colors.  Don't get slow and fussy.  

I ordered a gray scale and value finder  (along with paint brushes) which should arrive this week and should make it easier to evaluate the results.

This week I mixed a saturated purple.  Big surprise!!  Here's what I see in this first attempt:

• My first color was pretty close to a 5.  
• Especially on the black background, the values are too close.
• On the white background, the mid-range colors were purple-red, while the lights and darks were bluer.
• My lighter valued colors need to be much lighter.  This is not a surprise to me.  Hopefully, this helps with my color-mixing.

This was fun and I have 4 more weeks, so I can see what happens as I keep trying this.

Homemade View Finder - Take 3

I decided to try and solve one of my current frustrations.  A well-defined grid helps me draw.  Grid lines can go directly on a picture. With branching out into still lifes, it's back to using a view finder. I want a number of view finders, but don't want to spend a lot.

My first attempt to create grid on my homemade view finders was to use dental floss. This idea came from a blog. It worked for about 2 days, after which the floss got loose.  I also was worried about remember to always put them away, since I have string-eating cats.

A better solution was to get a cheap clear surface that easily attached to my homemade view finders. I found some clear (paper) sheet protectors and tested to make sure that lines drawn with a thin Sharpie marker would not smear.

It was easy to cut a piece slightly larger than the opening, tape it to the back, and draw grid lines on the front.

Here's the back.

Here's the front.

This may not be a perfect square, but it's pretty close. I'm using a pad of 3" by 3" post it notes to figure out the piece that I want to cut out.  If I want a smaller opening, it's easy to draw a smaller square inside the 3" one and cut that out.

I think this is going to work and I feel extremely clever!

Grumble, Grumble, Grumble

This weekend has been frustrating!  I feel like grousing, grumbling, and whining.  I want to / need to work on still lifes and have the following issues:

• The dental floss used to make a grid in my homemade view finders gets loose very easily. 
• It's hard to hold a viewfinder in one place.
• The light in my basement is too harsh.  
• The surfaces in the basement make it hard to set up a still life.  

On Saturday, I started a painting, got into a snit, stopped, and gessoed over the surface before I even finished.  After that, I did a short drawing exercise from the book "Drawing For the Absolute And Utter Beginner".  

Today, I tried to paint on the front porch where there is east and south exposure.  It seemed like the light would work mid-afternoon, but there was not enough to cast shadows that were distinct. The problem is that I need things to be perfect with contrast, values, light, shadows, and so on.  As a beginner, it helps if all of these elements are obvious, approachable, and easy.  After awhile, I can start to see things better and can branch out a bit from the perfect set-up.  This happened with painting from pictures.  I will not hold myself out as an expert in this area, but I figured out a few things that really helped me.  Also with painting from pictures, the lighting in my basement work area became much less of an issue.  

Light is so important.  I really have trouble seeing the values if the light is poor.  I don't know what type of lighting to add to my painting/crafting corner in the basement.  Since the ceilings are low in the basement, I'm going to try and find something with diffused light, which can be dimmed.   

Here's today's painting.  

It was fun having the cup go off the edge.  When I went back to look at this painting, I was much more pleased with the spoon than when I first looked at it.  I really need to remember to walk away from any finished painting.  One of the quotes from the drawing book mentioned above is "viewing distance is different from what you see at doing distance".  I almost never like anything that I've painted at the exact moment that I complete it.    

Also, everyone has a tough inner critic.  Yesterday, I was at a graduation party.  A lovely man was walking some kids through a drawing exercise while he was telling them a story.  The drawing was broken down into a number of easy steps.  He apparently does this at the State Fair and at other locations.  He did this with several groups of kids.  The last time, there was only one child participating.  This child did a good job, but he was clearly disappointed that his drawing was not exactly like the adults and he was critical of his effort.  I told him that I thought his drawing looked good and suggested that he look at it again once he got home. Hopefully, he will be less hard on himself if he looks at it later. 

The next two days are busy.  I may try to work on line drawing.  The exercises in Chapter 2 of my drawing book seem useful. 

Last thought about all of this......a frustrating day of painting is better than no painting at all.  

  

Lunch Hour Drawing

On Thursday I was working at a client site and ate lunch at my desk.  My goal is to do a quick drawing at least several times per week before returning to work.

I really like my little travel stapler.

It's a hard shape to draw quickly, so I'll give it another try in the future.  It might work better as a value study.

Wednesday Night

Wednesday night I had a painting class with Kat Corrigan.  It was good to be able to ask her 1,000,000 questions.  We mostly talked, but also did a quick still life. While I had a view finder to use, it only had marks along the edges.  I discovered how much I still really, really need/want a grid to help me with drawing.  When there's a copy of a picture, I can draw my grid and that works great!

I did a quick Google search and someone suggested using dental floss to add grid lines to a simple home-made view finder.  Viola!  I did that with one of my existing ones and am pleased with the result.

The still life wasn't quite a timed painting, but was done much more quickly than when I work from home.  It's good to speed things up a bit.  It was my first time trying to paint a piece of silverware.  It's hard!  Also, it looked better before I got my shadow too close to the side of the spoon.

In any event since I took a short hiatus, it felt good to paint.

Painting Flamingos Is Painting

Touching up flamingos with pink paint counts as painting.

Short Hiatus

I am looking forward to having a painting class tomorrow and have been taking a short break.  On Saturday, I sorted through the two remaining boxes of books and notes from  high school and college and put most of it out for paper recycling.  I was amused to find some "drawing" in notes from a class in high school.

In high school, I took Power 1.  One of the class projects was to rebuild a lawn mower engine.  Here are notes and some pictures depicting how internal combustion works.

I wish I could say that my hand writing has improved over years, but it really hasn't! Here is a valve and valve head.

Sadie - Take 1

The plan is to revisit this, as I do for so many other paintings.  For some reason, the third time works best.  Maybe a forth or fifth time would be even better, but after three tries I'm ready for a new thing to paint.

Here's the first attempt. It's the third time that I've ever tried to paint a dog and, overall, I'm pleased with this.  As I've written before, it's thrilling to capture what I see in either a drawing or painting, even if the end result is not quite what I want. When I keep working at it, it makes me happy to look back and see progress.

Things I like:

• The eyes.  It's surprised me that they are less complicated than cat's eyes. 
• The background.  This is another surprise, since I generally do not like my backgrounds. 
• The nose.  It's better than the value drawing that I did awhile ago.  

On the negative side, there is something really off with the mouth and muzzle.  The face is too dark and the body is too light.  The relative values are off from the picture.  One cause was that it was hard to mix the colors.  It also took me until the end to loosen up.  

I have a painting class with Kat on Wednesday.  I can't wait and hope to learns lots!!!!  

Draw First, Paint Later (Sadie)

Want to paint.  Need to be disciplined.  Want to paint.  Need to be disciplined. Today being disciplined won out.  Here is the picture.

Here is the rough drawing with values.

Actually, I should call it a modified rough drawing.  I really try to get the outline without being too anal retentive.  The nose could use some work, but I gave myself a break.  I've been painting cats, not dogs.  The tongue ended up pink, since I feared losing it in the rest of the shapes down there.  

I tried painting from this dog picture 6 weeks ago or so and it just did not work.  I couldn't see the way that I'm seeing today.  It's like taking a tiny step up a long staircase.  Hopefully, I'll feel as though I've taken another step in 6 weeks from now or whatever time it takes. 

Ella - Finished Painting

With future paintings, I hope to continue working with color values in the way that I did with this one.  I like the relative differences in value.  Next up is taking into account painting over black gesso. It results in a darker result, so I need to adjust all values a bit lighter.

Also, I need to work on making gray cats more visually interesting.  They don't need it in real life, but in a painting it shouldn't be quite so monochrome.

Here's the picture that I used.  I still love making a grid.  I'm learning that lots and lots and lots of artists do this!

Ella - Work In Progress

I worked on this painting yesterday.  It might have been the value drawing in pencil, reading a bit about painting, or just thinking about it.  Whatever the reason, I felt much better about addressing the color values in this painting.  It felt good.  I got into a grove and went with it.  As a result, the values seem closer to reality and not so extreme.

I still need to work on colors, paint strokes and all of that.  It's weird, but it's almost hard for me to "see" this painting, since that I felt so good about the process.

I rushed on the inside of the ears.  This morning, I decided to paint the part over with black gesso, so I can give it another try.  Yeah!  I was grumpy about the ears, but now I have a do-over.

Still At It!

I have missed a handful of days where I haven't drawn or painted a thing and that's okay.  Other parts of my life needed the time and attention.  It's not anything bad. Early summer just gets busy with gardening on top of everything else.

Today, I had a break between client commitments in the middle of the day.  I went to a coffee shop, got some ice tea and a treat and worked on drawing a bit. In the book, Drawing for the Absolute and Utter Beginner by Claire Watson Garcia, there are a couple of exercises where you try to recreate a line drawing by drawing it upside down.  In the exercises so far, she wants people to go very slowly, but also to make confident marks.

It felt good to do this and to focus on it. I live in the verbal side of my head, so much it is both relaxing and a relief to get so fully engaged in something that the words just go away.  They aren't important.  Doing is important and where it's at. When I emerge, my brain feels refreshed.  I haven't thought about it in this way much, but this must be part of the motivation to paint and draw.

After I did several of the line drawings, I decided to do a value sketch of one of my pictures of Ella. The direction or how the pencil marks were made did not matter.  The focus was on capturing values.

In looking at this, it's amazing to me that the specific marks/lines really don't matter.  It is all about the values!

Esther - Take 3

It helps me to paint the same thing more than once.  I wish that I could see and execute better the first time, but my guess is that it will come with more experience. Frequently, the third time is the charm.

Here is the picture.  It's a friend's cat and I grabbed the picture from Facebook. Hope they don't mind! I do intend to give them this painting or a future rendition.

Next up is the drawing.

Here is the painting in process.

Here is the final painting.  The eyes could have been a bit more orange.  

Things worked so much better for this 3rd attempt, including the colors, the brush strokes and all of it.  I altered things a bit from the picture.  It was good to make the collar and background color different than the picture.  Also, I'm glad that I did not include the bell.  

Esther - Take 2

It's a good exercise to paint the same picture multiple times.  I like this version much better than the first one.  Although the eyes are really off.

Taking creative liberties and making the collar a different color was a good idea.

Broken Streak

I have drawn or painted every day since 01/01/16.  Yesterday, I did neither.  I feel okay about that.  Actually, I feel good about that.  There have been some days where I've had to push myself. Yesterday, there just were other things to do.  Not bad things.  Not overwhelming things.  Just other things that needed my attention.  I could have tried to squeeze in one more thing yesterday, but didn't.