Wingnut, Again

I revisit pictures that I've painted from in the past. I think this is the third attempt for this one. He is a beautiful cat with huge eyes. The face shape is not quite right. Next time I paint him, I will use a different reference photo.

Nature Shot

I have a friend who takes beautiful wildlife pictures in the local areas, including the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge. He's given me permission to paint from them, if I want! This one was taken on the grounds of a local university.

The colors were tricky to do and I don't think I have them. Cedar waxwings are so beautiful!

Practice Sketch From Inside A Car

For the online Craftsy class, I am taking the current exercise is to do a several, quick five minute sketches of buildings. The focus is more of a "planning" sketch, rather than a full sketch. Here is today's attempt. I added a few more details, but certainly did not finish the sketch.

I did a better job of figuring out the outside dimensions and I'm glad that I did. First, I measured the of the front corner of the building and used that to figure out my total width. The ratio was 1:4. At first, this looked way, way too wide on paper, so I measured it again. Yes, the ratio was in fact 1:4. Silly lying eyes.

It Took Time To Get To A Good Place

Here is one for Art 4 Shelter. It took a lot of paint strokes to get it to this place.

For a long time, I thought my paintings looked better close up rather than from across the room. Lately, it's been the opposite, which is probably a better place to be. Hopefully, it means that I'm improving on getting a better range of values.

By the way, the picture below is the one that I originally posted. It was taken at night with no natural light. I decided to take one with indirect natural light this morning. That one is above. What a difference it makes in the colors!

What Happens When You Carry A Sketchbook With You

The Huffington Post article titled "9 Things That Happen When You Carry A Sketchbook With You Nonstop" was mentioned on Sketchbook Skool's Facebook page.  I read it and liked it.

Also, in that spirit, I was in a meeting this morning.  It wasn't a bad meeting. In fact, it covered some good material on the proper classification of independent contractors and employees and what can happen if you do this incorrectly. In some of the less interesting parts of the meeting, my attention was pulled in the direction of a folding chair located across the room.  Rather than pull out the sketchbook in my work bag, I used regular paper in my notebook.

folding chair scribbles - 02/23/17

The one in the lower left hand corner is getting there, especially since I could not measure anything or check angles. I was in a room filled with finance professionals. Most of them would not understand. I did use the eraser a lot.

I will continue to draw folding chairs, when the opportunity presents itself, until I have done a better job of figuring out how the pieces come together.  The angles are crazy. The square ellipse formed by the seat is challenging. Is that even a thing?  Can an ellipse be a square?  Ah, the mysteries of the humble folding chair.

What To Do With The Blues

The sky was amazing late in the afternoon on Tuesday. I was driving to a northern suburb and the clouds had all sorts of different textures. Plus, the clouds were dramatically colored from a medium warm gray to bright white. The blue sky peeked out here and there. The different shades of blue were quite varied. I caught myself thinking about brush strokes for the clouds and what color to use to capture the different shades of blue.

Since I struggle a bit figuring out what color to paint the sky and water, I decided to play with my blues. Last night, I experimented with the two blues in my palette, phthalo blue green shade (GS) and phthalo blue red shade (RS), To get the lighter versions, I used titanium white. On the left is the GS. On the right is the RS. In the middle, I mixed the two. Since it seemed like the RS is "stronger", I tried to mix in a bit more of the GS. Who knows what the final proportions were in the mix.

If I remember the sky correctly, I think it was the color of the mixed shade along with something in between the mixed shade and the RS. This was a good experiment. On the palette, the RS just doesn't look like it should be for the sky, but the GS by itself, not surprisingly, is a little too green for the sky.

Pencil Sighting

I've been slowly watching a Craftsy class called Sketching Essentials In Graphite. It's a beginner class and it's really good. The instructor is a teacher and it shows in how he is able to explain concepts. I watch the class in short snippets, mostly when it's my turn to feed the cats. The cats have to be monitored and one of the older cats needs to be fed often, so there are four scheduled feedings per day. During the two (or three, if I fit in an extra meal for the one cat) that I do, I've figured out that watching a class fills the time well.

So far, the class has gone through the process of planning a simple outdoor sketch of a building. After watching the chapter on seeing and measuring, which included a good example of pencil sighting and sight sizing, I decided to try my neighbor's garage, which has an interesting shape. The problem was I forgot some of the approach and went for some of the details too soon. I re-watched part of the class and will select an easier building for the next try. The instructor suggested that we try 8 - 10 "planning" sketches and spending only 5 minutes or so on each one.

02/22/17 - neighborhood garage

Next time, I need to use a harder pencil at this stage. Something like a 2B or an HB. Also, I caught myself trying to use the pencil to measure in 3D rather than 2D. What I mean is that rather than measure both the front and side of the garage by holding my pencil flat in front of me (like the flat piece of paper that will be drawn upon), I caught myself cocking my wrist at somewhat of an angle. I think I've been doing this all along, but never realized it. This is hopefully part of the reason that my proportions are off.

This morning, during one of the cat feedings, I tried a quick sketch of the player piano.

02/21/17 - player piano

This sketch was on the last page of one of the cheap Artist Loft sketchpads that I use. This paper is fine for the level that I am at, although I do like the better paper in the sketch pad that I carry in my purse. This blog is for documentation purposes, so that I don't feel compelled to keep every scribble that I've ever made. The sketchpad is already in the recycling, but before I placed it there I buzzed through and took pictures of some of my favorites. Most of them have already been in a blog post, but it's still fun to revisit the favorites. I used this sketchbook from mid-November through today.

This first one was homework from painting class. It took a long time and it was hard to see and represent the different parts.

This is Ella, my little cat who needs all of the meals.  This was the first time that I captured a cat in a free-hand drawing. The outline was straight lines.

I like the accent lines, including the seeds, of the green pepper. 

This is another one of Ella. 

I like this can opener. When you feed cats four times a day, you use the can opener frequently. 

I also like this teapot. 

Lastly, here is a page where I started making straight lines and devolved into making different types of lines close together to play with creating texture. In the bottom right-hand corner, the blob looked like tree leaves to me, so I added a trunk. 

Folding Chair - My New Frenemy

Last week, I drew the legs of a chair by focusing on the negative space and stopping to see the shapes created within the negative space. This is an exercise from one of the video segments of How To Draw Without Talent at Sketchbook Skool. It's been a good online class. I wish it had existed when when I first was learning how to draw, since it covers basic concepts which would help anyone get started. I plan to take more courses from Sketchbook Skool.

It's taken me awhile to work through the various chapters of the course. Each one has a short on-line video and usually there is an exercise to do. This was one of the exercises. It took me a few tries. This was the best one. The chair legs are less wobbly than when I'm usually trying to draw or paint a chair.

02/13/17 - chair legs (by drawing the negative space)

After my relative success from last week, I decided I was ready to try and draw the entire folding chair. I tried focusing on the negative space. I tried focusing on the shapes of the actual object. I did not take pictures, since it did not go well. Last night, the score was folding chair: 1 and me: 0. Back in October, I had a similar experience with some donuts. It's humbling to be bested by a donut, but eventually I figured it out here.

I have similar mixed feelings towards the folding chair at the moment. Needing help, I turned to my trusty homemade viewfinder.

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I haven't been using the viewfinder lately, but the chair is too complicated for me without it. This was a quick sketch. Whether or not I post pictures, I will revisit this chair, since there is more to learn from it and about it.

02/21/17 - folding chair

There are times when I feel like a remedial student in the school of my own choosing. The experience of learning to draw and paint can be humbling. Still, I'm stubborn and I'm hooked.

This is a long post. It originally started out as a daily sketching recap. Here is a daily sketch from last week.

02/16/17 - kitchen scale

Since I've been doing more painting or sketching out in the world, I got away from doing my daily sketch in pen. That's okay, since the overall goal is to do something each day.

Cabin Sunset

Yesterday morning, I finished a painting a sunset from this summer's cabin weekend. When I looked at source picture, I felt like I was seeing more, so I wanted to take another try at it. Plus, I haven't painted a landscape for awhile.

The number one thing I would like to figure out for the next time is how to do better paint strokes for the water. 

Here's my last attempt at painting this same scene back in September. 

Just Keep Sketching, Just Keep Sketching

I went to the MMEA All-State Bands and Orchestra concert at Orchestra Hall yesterday. The musicians are high school students. I am friends with the family of one of the clarinetist. Of course, I took the opportunity to sketch. These were in pencil. I needed to erase a lot. Trying to sketch the stage was beyond my skills, so I focused on one person or instrument. First up was a string bass and an audience member.

Next up was a harp. After including the person one time, I got intrigued by the shape of the harp.

At one of the intermissions, I started on another audience member.

The last page is a bit of a mish mash. I tried to get a couple of face shapes. It didn't go well. With the bottom one, I started with just the shape of the hair and that went better. The end result looks a bit cartoon-ish.

All in all, it was a pleasant sketching experience with trying to capture all sorts of crazy shapes, objects, and how the objects relate to each other.  On yes, the music was quite splendid, as well.

Musing About Contour Drawing

I found a blog post about contour drawing that I really liked for two reasons. First, it speaks to the value in doing contour drawings. My 30-day kitchen drawing challenge was modified contour drawing. It felt like it was helping me improve my skills, but I couldn't completely articulate why and, if you read this blog, you know that I like to articulate almost everything. This post helped me understand why simple drawings are worthy.

The other part of the post that resonated with me was the quote "Unfortunately I lose interest when I see that things are working out, so I set this aside and went off to create a problem I could solve". I love that neat little spark that comes with identifying and solving problems. That happened the other night when I was drawing the cat tree and had my little epiphany.

Here are a couple of sketches from the little 4" x 6" sketchbook that lives in my purse. Over time, I am starting to feel slightly less ridiculous pulling it out and sketching in public. The larger one was when I was waiting for a friend to show up for lunch. I did the contour and started to fill in detail. The smaller one is from yesterday. It hit 60 degrees. It was sunny. I was working from home so I took a short walk at lunch. I love bungalows and would like to be able to both draw and sketch them. The drawing was better before I tried to draw in shingles on the porch roof.

Making Marks

I practiced making different types of marks in pen.

Figured It Out

Last night, some friends, my hubby, and I went to the closing party at Diamonds Coffee Shoppe. I had four paintings hanging there for about 6 weeks, along with other students of Kat Corrigan.  It was fun to see Kat and either see or meet some of her other students.

Later in the evening, we were feeding the cats. I was sitting in a chair and decided to sketch the cat tree. The shapes were interesting, since I was almost level with the lowest platform of the tree. At first, I couldn't figure out how to draw the top platform. After staring at it, I picked up my pen and traced the shape of the back of the ellipse in the air, followed by doing the shape with the front of the ellipse. Voila! This helped me see that the back of the ellipse was behind and below the front part of the ellipse.

From drawing and painting a lot of coffee mugs from above, my brain wanted me to see the ellipse going the other way, but my eyes made me slow down. This was the first time that I've drawn something from the perspective of looking up.

This is not a great drawing, but it was a great experience. Instead of measuring, I just focused on the problem-solving with the overall shapes.

Surly - Take 2

I intended to leave more black gesso in this second attempt. Still, the face shape is much better than the first try.

Here is the picture, although it is not cropped to the same dimensions.

Attempt 1:

 Attempt 2:

In Carol Marine's book, Daily Painting, she talks about the need to put in your time learning how to paint. She talks about either 10,000 hours or 500 paintings. One of the advantages to painting small is that it should take significant less than 10,000 hours to do 500 paintings. While I haven't counted sequentially, my guess is I'm around 250 or so. While I can still see a lot of room for improvement, I feel good about the progress that I've made and am currently making.

Surly - Take 1

This is Surly, the cat, not Surly the beer. Wow! I've painted three days in a row.

This cat has a big ruff coming down the sides of his face, so the left side is more accurate than the right side. For some reason, it's always been hard to leave swaths of the black gesso showing. I did a bit in this one. I like how it looks, so I'll try to leave even more the next time I paint him.

Oh, I also decided to enter a pet portrait in Blick's contest.  You can go see Chandler and also vote, if you want to.  Voting starts on 02/27.

Ralphie - Making Progress

I don't paint dogs as often as cats, so I find them harder to paint. While I like this picture, it's dark and that makes it challenging for me to paint.

While the dog's face is still scrunched up and the eyes are too big, the face is less scrunched up than usual!  I've had some real stinkers that I haven't posted.

Marvin - Take One

I would like to give this another try.

I'm not thrilled with the paint strokes. For awhile, I was having a lot of trouble with eyes. Slowly, they are getting better.  

Daily Sketching Recap

He's been very supportive of my drawing and painting. He may have been just the slightest bit less supportive when I said, please don't eat those cookies yet, because I want to sketch them. I had already eaten mine.

02/09/17 - milano cookies

I spent a long weekend at a juggling and unicycle festival. It's the sort of place where seeing things like this goes with the territory. I don't know who made the balloon dress, although I could make a good guess. There were a lot of people that tried it on over the course of the weekend. My favorite was this one,

It was a busy weekend with so many things to do all at once. I managed to slow down and do a little sketching each day. People are hard. People who move are harder. The first night, I tried to capture a ball juggler. I had trouble with the lines of the face, but I think I nailed the posture. Ball jugglers, especially male adolescents, hunch the back of the shoulders up and slightly collapse the front of their chests. Many of them walk around with this posture all of the time, even when they aren't juggling.

02/10/17 - ball juggler

During the raffle, I sketch a guy sitting in front of me. This guy goes to a lot of juggling festivals and always wears denim overalls. I tried to sketch other people, but they moved around too much.

02/11/17 - man sitting on bleachers

I also tried to sketch the table and table legs of the banquet table used during the raffle, but never quite got the correct lines and angles. With all of the hubbub going on around me, I did enjoy making my own island of quiet and trying to really "see" the banquet table. When I got tired of that, I tried sketching a unicycle on its side. It was hard to see, since it was a bit far away. Since I couldn't see its shadow, I couldn't figure out how to just add one, so it looks a bit as though it's floating in space.

02/11/17 - unicycle

Sketching - Thoughts, This, And That

In the last couple of days, I've been sketching more than I've been posting. For some reason, it's been easier, especially outside of my home. On Wednesday, I tried a small sketch of part of the Horticulture building at the State Fair. Yesterday, I tried some sketches while waiting to exchange equipment at an Xfinity store. With a small sketchbook (4" x 6") and a micron pen in my purse, it's easy to draw at any moment.

I purchased this sketchbook and several other small ones to try out at Wet Paint since they were having a white sale. I'm staying with their cheaper alternatives, but even so the paper is a big step up from what I usually use. At home, my "go-to" pad is the Artist Loft brand from Michaels. As a beginner, I don't mind burning through a lot of this paper.

While I'm glad to be sketching more, I wish my skills were better. It seems like when I look at my work, the critic is sitting on one shoulder shouting in one ear and the editor is sitting on the other shoulder whispering in the other ear. It doesn't help that I don't know what I want and I don't know how to get there. Fortunately that mostly goes away when I pick up a pen, pencil, or paint brush.

Actually, I do know one thing that I really, really want. I want to be able to do urban sketching. One of the things that I like about drawing and painting is how it can change your relationship to your subject matter. It can be a mild change or it can sear a time and place in your memory. There is a local Urban Sketchers group in the Twin Cities. They have monthly outings. I plan to take my brave pill and go, but so far the scheduling has not worked out.

Last night, I had a few minutes and started a sketch of him. It started with his nose and grew out from there. At best, the result should be labelled inspired by him. I did not do any measurements. Yes, it shows, especially in the length versus width of his face. It would have been better to start with an outline of his face. By the way, these are editing comments, not critical ones. As much as the critic can lash out at times, I can't believe that I'm a actually trying to draw people.

I do like the shirt, arm and bits of the chair. Poor guy. He looks like he is being stalked by the Kitchen Aid mixer, since I frequently draw in whatever corner of  paper is available.

Dowling Community Garden Bench

My unofficial goal is to do at least two to three paintings a week. I did this one last night.

This is from a picture of a bench at Dowling Community Garden. When I'm painting from a very busy picture, it's hard to figure out what's important and hard to paint the various aspects. My stepping stones underneath the bench look blob-like. Although, I am pleased with the house in the background.

Daily Sketching Recap

The day that I drew this was a bit of a blur. Stubbornly, I carved out a few minutes to sketch. There was no time to add shading, the shadow, or anything like that.

02/04/17 - shoe with laces

 I did not have a lot of time for this one, either. I'd like to revisit this and improve the proportions and a few other things.

02/05/17 - pull on boot

After sketching a few cat parts, one of the cats finally settled in for a nap. I'm enjoying trying to sketch blankets with how they fold and all. I skipped including the chair, except along the edges. Some time, it would be good to slow down and capture a blanket in greater detail.

02/06/17 - cat on blanket

The last week or so has been rough. I was not really in the mood to sketch and I left it for the last thing of the day. I decided to try sketching the recliner. There was a cat in it, but I ignored her and tried to focus on the chair. It did not go well. It was hard to figure out how the front of the arms related to and connected to the arm rest. After several attempts and false starts, I decided to try to just draw the arms on the right-hand side of the drawing. By holding up my pencil to the front of the arm rest and comparing it to the back of the arm rest, I could finally see better. After that, I worked down and across and didn't worry about proportions (or perfection). It's not a great drawing, but it was a good learning experience.

02/07/17 - recliner

I decided to tackle the chair, again. This time I removed the covers on the arms and the cat blanket. The light next to the chair was included, since I need to start working on tackling multiple objects and how they related to each other. While this is a better rendition of the chair, it's still a little twisted and the width to height is still a bit off.  Even more frustrating, the light is to too small, since its width should be wider than the arms of the chair. I even measured it before I drew it. Sigh.

02/08/17 - recliner and light

Fourth Drawing Class

Let's just say that it did not go well. Part of the reason was me. It's been a tough week with several different family-related issues.  

Aside from that over the four classes, I felt little to no joy during any of the class sessions. Generally when I am learning, I am happy. I didn't get that with this class. As an adult learner taking a beginning class, that was a big disappointment.

Yesterday's Painting

It's a cat (of course).

Sketching Out In The World

Last night, I went to see Flower Drum Song at the Park Square Theater. This was a co-production with Mu Performing Arts. It was a very well-done. In the five minutes or so before the show started, I did a very quick and very rough sketch of several patrons sitting several rows in front of me. While I still feel self conscious, it also felt very good and a tiny bit more normal to sketch in public.

I couldn't figure out the stage versus the curtain. I enjoy hair. I enjoy the backs of people's heads. Some day, I'll start to try faces.

Having to sketch quickly is a good exercise in learning which details matter and which do not.