What Have I Done!?!

I signed up for a different on-line class. I signed up late yesterday and the class started today. That meant I needed to get through all of the introductory information, which was available prior to today, the first set of lessons, and the first day of homework. Needless to say, this took a big chunk of the day.

This is going to be a time commitment, during a busy time of year, but I am glad that I did it. I think it will be a useful class and help me gain skills. When you sign up, you are committing to keeping up with the twice per week release of lessons and the 30 minute per day homework. On a few days, there is even more of a time commitment. The plus side is that unlike the other online classes that I've seen, this instructor is involved and offers feedback. Somehow, I'll get this done, plus my painting homework.

The class is with Roz Stendahl and it's called Drawing Practice - Drawing Life Subjects In Public. The class is starting with gestural drawing. There was a lot of information to take in and I can tell that my brain does not quite get it. Most of the drawings that I did focused more on contours. This was the closest that I got to the concept. I truly am okay with that.

Most of what we will be doing is not going to be "pretty" or even finished. Still, I plan to post examples here and there in order to document my journey!

Sketchbook!!

I would like to start keeping a sketchbook. While doing scribble-type drawings is fine, I'd like to start documenting things in my life, and think about layout and design. It would be fun to develop some skills with this. I love the idea of being able to capture some of the small special moments of day to day life or those unique ones from traveling. One thing that I like about drawing and painting is that it  can sear a moment in time in your heart and brain.

Since I enjoy gardening and growing things, inspiration over the spring, summer, and fall is readily available. Today, I went out and captured one of my rhubarb plants. It's still early in the growing season, so the plant is not full sized yet.

I'm also debating whether or not to sign up for another online class. There is one that starts tomorrow. I'm not sure that I have the time, but I am really intrigued. There's lifetime access to the content, so I suppose the worse that can happen is that I will fall behind (like I have on several other classes).

I Finally Painted

I need to find the time and discipline to paint more. Other parts of my life have been in overdrive and I just haven't been able to carve out the time. Finally tonight, I did. It felt good.

While I am not pleased with my brush strokes, I am very pleased with the eyes. For a long time, I just could not see the different shades and things going on in a cat's eyes. Slowly, I'm starting to see more.

I Needed Fun

I needed some fun, so I did two more apple drawings. These are very enjoyable to do. My hatching was done as neatly.

30 Day Brush Pen Challenge

The brush pen challenge has not been happening. Even though I am less than enamored with it, I'm going to try and get back on track, since consistent habit yields progress. This morning, I drew my teapot two ways, one with the brush pen and one without.

Drawing 7 - teapot

This goofy little teapot continues to be hard for me to draw. It is wider than it is tall, not that you can tell that from my drawings!  Also in the hatched one, I tried to capture the values, but I am off. It's hard.  The teapot is a dark cobalt blue, so I have troubles seeing the minor changes in values. Next time, I might cheat by first trying to see it for myself and checking that against a black and white photo.

That Was Fun

I watch this video of Crosshatching with Tommy Kane on the Sketchbook Skool blog and did this drawing.

It was really, really fun to do. Building up values in this way made sense to me as a way to create shape. It also looks way cooler than my usual scribbly lines.

I still need to leave my light values even lighter!! It is much less frustrating to realize this on a four minute drawing than on a painting.

Drawing While In Class

Yesterday, I was in training all day. I could not get a good view of an empty chair, so instead I work on a several quick sketches of people. I liked this one better before I added any facial features.

When I opened up my sketchbook to start this sketch, I realized that I never posted some of the sketches from the conference that I attended 1 1/2 weeks ago.

My goal is to sketch, so I don't lay things about very well on the paper and different sketches run into each other. The top picture is actually a combination of two separate sketches. 

Concert Sketches

I went to 2-night concert on Saturday and Sunday night. Since I didn't get much art making done this weekend, I took the opportunity to do some sketching. The stage was way beyond my skill. The musicians weren't much easier, but it was fun to try. Here are several attempts.

 

Also, I worked on a sketch of a couple in one of the box seats before the show started on the Sunday night.  

Observation and Annoyance

This past fall, I replaced a car that I had owned for 17 years with a different brand of car. Not that long after I purchased the new brand of car, I started noticing this brand out of the corner of my eye everywhere. I am talking about the brand, not just my specific model. On their own, my eyes have figured out some of the unique features of this brand, my eyes zero in on these features, and my brain says "oh, yes, that vehicle is the same brand as yours". This has not been conscious on my part. Today at the gas station, it happened and as the SUV drove away, I looked at the back portion of the car and consciously looked for and saw the brand-specific similarities.

Eyes and their ability to see are pretty amazing. When I'm looking at a drawing or painting and my eyes immediately zero in on what is wrong, it doesn't always seem so amazing, but as I notice more and think about it, it makes more sense why this is happening.

That's today's observation, now for the annoyance.

This painting is annoying me. The left side of the face does not work. I struggled with the shape, values, colors, all of it. I'm rusty. I'm also trying to paint from a small tablet, rather than from color copies. The colors on the tablet are better, but source material is much smaller. These are the minor annoyances. The big annoyance is that I tried to fix the nose and mouth with gesso. The worst part is adding back the line that separates the top of the mouth which goes half-way up the nose. It looks awful and stands out, not in a good way. I need to remember to never do this again!

I could go back and fix the whole thing, but it's on paper so I'm just going to more on, instead.

30 Day Brush Pen Challenge - Recap 2

On purpose, I tried to sketch the items on one shelf above the sink. This drawing is fairly small and was done with the brush pen.  Blah.

Day 5 - shelf with object

This is the bathroom sink. This was a good scene to draw.  Usually, I sketch one single object. I want to work on more "scenes". This offered the right amount of detail to tackle.

Day 6 - bathroom sink

It's been a difficult to share these drawings on the blog. This one is the first one that I feel even remotely good about. It's easy to become self-conscious. However, the intent of this blog is to not present "the good stuff". It's about documenting it all. It gives me an easy way to look back and, also, gives me the freedom to discard a sketchbook when I'm done with it.

At the same time, I think my ability to see and notice is getting better and more varied. When I first started all of this, an individual object just looked like one big, overall shape to me. Slowly over time, I am starting to see nuances in different ways. With painting and trying to capture values, I'm learning to see shapes within shapes. Blind contour drawing or pseudo-blind contour drawing has helped me notice edges and the outer shapes of things. More and more, I notice shapes within the negative space that falls between object. Recently, I can feel myself switch between looking at the edges of things and looking at the negative space between objects. It's pretty cool stuff. It's better to not let any self-consciousness take over. Instead, I need to just keep at it and welcome any new changes and discoveries.

When You Paint A Lot Of Cats, Dogs Are Harder To Paint

So far, last week's painting of Hammett is my all-time favorite. One of the nice things about being a beginner is that I get a new all-time favorite every month or so, The downside is that afterwards my next several painting attempts don't go very well. I've worked on two paintings, since the one of Hammett, and they are already out of my life. One was a bird. The other was a painting of the same dog, but it was from a different picture - - - a much harder picture to use for a painting. I decided to give myself a break and try again, but with a better/easier picture.

While I'm not thrilled, I'm not disappointed either. When I try something new, it generally takes 3 attempts to start to "get it".

While this has some problems, I'll take it as a first attempt. Also, this one looks much better when you look at it from way across the room.

30 Day Brush Pen Challenge - Recap 1

This clock has a lot of detail, so it's interesting figuring out how much is enough versus too much. The inner portion with the pendulum could use some more details.

Day 2 - clock

Truthfully, I am not enjoying this challenge as much as the last one. For some reason, I go too quickly and get really sloppy when using the brush pen. For day 3, I did two drawings. The first one includes the items on the ledge of my kitchen sink. I ignored the faucet.

Day 3 - kitchen sink ledge

Day 3 - tea kettle

Finally! It's not that this drawing is any better than the rest, but I finally was able to settle back into the process. The unnecessary mental chatter faded away and, instead, the focus was on things like  how does this shape relate to that shape, is this enough detail without too much, and so on. The brush pen and I are not friends at this point, but we are starting to form a relationship.  

Day 4 - kitchen sink

Not Enough Sleep

All and all, it was a tiring week. Not enough sleep leads to not enough sketching or painting, both of which leave me cranky. I'm caught up on sleep, at least for the moment, but I still have a busy work schedule, a house with a million things to do, and a yard and garden to clean up.

On the art front, I'm part of a painting club. We have homework and are planning to meet around once per month or so. I also want to work on my basic drawing skills, figure out how to draw complete scenes, and also try to go to the local urban sketching outings.

Trying to accomplish all of this is a recipe for disaster and if I'm truthful with myself, I could summarize my current desire to do it all versus feeling overwhelmed by saying, "oh look, it's spring". I go through different variations of this every spring.

For this part of my life, here is the plan. I am going to do another 30 day or so self-challenge. When I did my first self-proclaimed 30 day kitchen drawing challenge, I enjoyed it and thought my skills improved. Most of my drawings were done in the morning, it only took 5 to 15 minutes, and it started my day out on a positive note. Painting is also going to be a priority. The rest of it will have to wait.

Since I gravitate towards detail but really want to learn to show less, this next 30 day challenge is going to be the 30 day brush pen challenge.You simply cannot put in so many details when you are using a brush pen. Also, that means any sketches go quickly.

I got the idea this morning when I did a super-quick sketch of him sitting in the chair. In truth, I liked it better before I added any facial details, which is hilarious when I'm wanting to show less detail. I should have stopped and just left the outline of a face. Sigh. Oh well, I learned lots from my last 30 day challenge and hope to learn just as much with this one. Doing a little every day is the best way to learn and that's why it's been so frustrating that I've been too tired to do much, after I completed my last painting.

Day one

Just so I don't drive myself too crazy, I'm giving myself 35 or so days to do 30 simply brush pen drawings. I also plan to post a collection of them every week or so.

Hammett In Repose

After not having time to paint, it always feels good to pick up the brushes again. I'm a little rusty, but I am pleased. I want and need to branch out. Let's face it. I paint a lot of cat faces. It was fun to paint a cat in repose.

Even if I'm never completely happy with a finished work, I still get a thrill when I try something new and the painting reads as object that I was trying to capture. I've written similar thoughts many times on this blog. This feeling might go away at some point, but I hope that it doesn't. Especially in these current times, I am glad to have a way to plug into feelings of delight.

I was worried that the eyes being closed would not "read". When I looked closely at the picture and added the light highlights around his eyes, they finally stood out. It continues to amaze me that when you paint an orange cat, you need to use purple (although it is an orangish purple). The shadowy fur parts read as purple.

More Plants

Since I have house cats, I don't have house plants. Here are rough sketches of two of my Aunt's plants. Family visits are busy, so I was glad to get a tiny bit of sketching done.

I like today's version of the African violet better than the first one.  Less is more / better.

I wanted to be able to do some sketching at Gamma Phi Circus, but the performers moved too quickly and my skills aren't to this point. Instead, I took pictures. There was amazing stuff to see. It sure has improved, since I was a participant.

Spending Time With African Violets

My Aunt always has African violets. When the plants are lush and full, she will start new ones. I warmed up with a partial doodle of one of the mature plants using a micron brush pen. Using the brush pen meant that I couldn't go for as much detail.

I moved to one of the starter plants and gave that a couple of tries. 

Lastly, I tried a simple watercolor, using a travel watercolor kit. Watercolor is tricky. It also does not lead itself to control, which is probably the understatement of the century!

After all of this, I walked away thinking about choices, practicing and trying new things, and not judging oneself too harshly. There are so many choices and so much to learn! One of the things that fascinates me is how much information is needed to convey meaning or convey an object.  I trend towards offering more detail and want to get to a place where I present less. 

Cat In Pen - Study 3

I'm still at it! When I take a break for lunch when I am working at a client, it's very relaxing to work on one of these for 10 minutes or so. It clears the brain and gets me ready to do accounting, again.

I met someone last night who was surprised that I do accounting work and am interested in drawing and painting. The overlap for me is in the world of process. For many years, I've had a strong process orientation in my work. Being completely ignorant about how art is planned and created, I was surprised that it is so much about process or at least it can be approached that way. Plus, it's a process where you get to use color!!

There is room at the creative table for all and it saddens me that many people are afraid to take a seat.

Art 4 Shelter 2017 - 2nd Mailing

I mailed 8 pieces for Art 4 Shelter back in March. The original batch was painted from June of 2016 through March 2017. Since March, I've done 8 more pieces for the event, so it's time to mail these in. My goal after last year's event was to create one piece per month.

I branched out with this batch, which is one of the things that I like about making things for this event.

I tried painting wildlife from nature pictures taken by my friend, Jeff. For the deer, it's amazing how much the tiny dots of white in the eyes make them come alive.

I tried some pen and ink drawings. These were a blast and were a fun way to focus on values.

There's one water lily painting.

Of course, there are more paintings of cats. There can never be too many paintings of cats!

Close examination will show that one of the pen and ink drawings and one of the paintings was from the same source picture.

Revise, Revise, Revise

After finishing this one, I took it back down to make minor revisions three times!

While I have not been painting as often as I would like, I have been fairly obsessed about painting for Art 4 Shelter, when I do find time to paint. I am enjoying creating things to both go out into the world and help support a good organization.

Yesterday's Painting

It turned out slightly comical looking.  That was not the intention.