Drawing Class Is Finishing Up

The month long drawing class is finishing up this week. I will really miss it. I both need to figure out how to fly solo with continuing to learn from the many, many techniques, thoughts, and ideas contained in the class and how to balance this with acrylic painting. My painting mostly got pushed to the side in the last month and I want to both keep up with a daily drawing practice, find time to paint, and do all of those other pesky things involved in life like going to work, doing laundry and the like.

Yesterday, I went to a cookout and my friend had set up her knife-throwing target. While it sounds dangerous, it's not. If you follow a few common sense safety tips and you're fine. I tried several gesture drawings.

The one on the right is before you throw. Most people lean forward. When you do throw the knife, it works best to shift your weight back and roll your weight forward as you release the knife.

Homework for Painting Class

In addition to the drawing class, I also started up painting classes last month. It's structured differently than the other classes. A small group of us are meeting every month or so with the wonderful and talented Kat Corrigan. When we meet, we review the work that we've done since the last time and we also talk about different concepts. There are assignments for this class, as well. For tomorrow's class, the assignment was to paint your kitchen sink several times with parameters for each painting.  For example, one painting was supposed to be all in gray scale.

Figuring out how to approach this made me crazy for awhile. My kitchen sink is a big farm house style and I just could not figure out what to do with it. I moved on to the downstairs bathroom sink. After several doing several paintings, I could not figure out why they were BORING, until I started thinking more about contrast and focal point, which has been covered heavily in drawing class. Composition is an area where I need to stretch myself, since I have little to no experience with it! In truth, I think that is why most of my paintings up until now contain one and only one object.

After the boring bathroom sink paintings, I wasn't sure what to do.  Fortunately, Chandler rescued me.  Chandler is very fond of the upstairs bathroom sink. In the morning, he likes to hang out and also likes it when I make the sink drip slowly. I took some pictures of him and did three different paintings, each one from a different picture. Things clicked with the one that I did tonight. I found myself evaluating and making better decisions, especially regarding the use of values. I can see some things that could be addressed or improved, but one of the takeaways from drawing class is that I am practicing. If it was painted on hardboard, I'd be more likely to tweak it.  Since it's on paper in my spiral book, I'm ready to move on.

One last thing, this one really rocks when you look at it from across the room.

Homework Snippet

Roz Stendahl's class, "Drawing Practice: Drawing Live Subjects in Public" has helped learn quite a bit, so far this month. It's really stretched me and gotten me into the habit of drawing 30 minutes each and every day. While I think my basic ability to contour draw has improved with practice, there is still so much to learn. One of the basics that I've been trying to consistently execute since I started taking painting classes is to capture and represent values accurately. In drawing class, this has also been an emphasis.

With the drawing class, the emphasis has been on focusing on 4 gradations, dark, sort of dark, sort of light, and light. The more advanced folks in the class are able to do more.  For me, focusing on 4 levels is enough. I'm sure I'm not the only beginner who finds it hard to make the darks dark enough, the lights light enough and so on.  

Tonight something magical happened with one of my sketches for homework. I used watercolor in the color of Sepia and a water brush and did a rough sketch of a cat without drawing a contour first. I just went for it and made my darks super dark and so on. With this class the point is not to end up with a finished drawing, but rather to practice. Still, I am really please with how this turned out. The watercolor helped me stay out of the details and just show the values.

Still, Still Here - Still, Still Taking My Drawing Class

This has been the longest break from posting, since I started this blog.  Life has been extremely busy, but I've still been devoting enough time for keeping up with my online drawing class.  It is packed full of material!

Today was my day to sketch in public for one hour.  I went to the Como Zoo.  Since it was a bit chilly, damp, and drizzly outside, I found animals spending time indoors.  The sea lions were amazing.  Although I haven't been to a life drawing class, I imagine that this must be what it's like.  There were two of them.  They were on the rocks and would hold a really cool pose for a bit of time and shift to another really interesting pose.  This went on for 10 minutes or so.  After that, the one called out to the other and it was time to swim.

I warmed up with some gesture drawings.  This is a concept that I am still very much in the beginning stages of figuring out.  I was really pleased with this one.  At least, I think this is a gesture drawing!

Still Here - Still Taking My Drawing Class

This may be the longest break in my posting to this blog, since I started. The online drawing class has been terrific. It's taking a lot of brain power and time, but I'm learning so, so much. I've been keeping up with posting my homework on Ruzuku, since the instructor looks at all of the homework that is posted and generally provides a comment to each person each day.

Yesterday, I tried doing thumbnail sketches for the first time. The point was to do a quick non-detailed sketch of your subject to figure out if it's worth investing time in a larger drawing.  Things to test or think about include:

• How to crop the scene. 
• Are there interesting shapes in the negative space. 
• Is there a good focal point
• Is there enough contrast.  

These should not contain details. We were encouraged to focus on the shapes formed by the different shapes in the values.

For some reason, I was a bit petrified to give these a try. I did use a viewfinder to get the rough outline started. I started with some of my lawn flamingos and finished up with a cat sleeping in the sun. I worked from right to left. I did weird cropping on purpose. I don't know how to figure out what works and what does not, so doing some wild experiments seems like a good idea.

It wasn't until the last one that it occurred to me to include small piece of blanket that the cat was on. My brain just gets full and does not see things right in front of me. I was really happy that I was able to stay out of the details.

Partial Laying Lion

Today was my day to draw in public for this section of my drawing class. I went to the Como Zoo. One thing I learned is that a big cat, who is sleeping, is just as likely to move, including completely out of view, as a house cat.  I learned this lesson from a cougar, a snow leopard, and a male and female lion.

Here is the start of a male lion. Even though I did not get a chance to finish it, it does read as "lion" to me and the outer contour of the mane is about the right amount of mass.

Contour Drawing

For my on-line class, we've been spending the last several days doing contour drawing and blind contour drawing and thinking about both positive and negative space. Some people were posting homework drawings of faces and other things with contour lines that make the drawing look more 3D. This is a skill that I would like to work on, since there are not hard edges when you do this. I did my official homework earlier today. Tonight, I did some unofficial homework and did some contour drawings of a sleeping cat. I played with contour lines within the drawing of the cat to get the 3D stuff going. After that, I tried something more simple, since I need to walk before I try to run.  

Behold, here is part of a cat's leg and paw.

Flower In My Garden 1

The first iris bloomed in my yard yesterday. Tonight, I came home from work, did a quick drawing, and painted it with watercolor. I also did my homework for class and posted about it in the class forum.  I'm passing on documenting it here, since I'm tired and going to bed!

Today's Realization

A new set of lessons dropped for my class today. For the next several days, we are doing contour drawing and some blind contour drawing. One thing that was discussed in today's lessons materials was negative space. My big realization for today was that thinking about negative space isn't just reserved for the object and the background of the object. You can also look for negative space shapes within an object. Until today's lesson, this never occurred to me.

Focusing on negative space helped me do a better job.  It helped with the size and placement of the various leaves. This is a drawing of a young tomato plant that I started from seed and which is currently growing in the basement.

This is a really excellent class. I highly recommend either checking out the instructor's blog or taking a class from her.

30 Day Brush Pen Challenge - Recap 3

The 30-day brush pen challenge is toast. At the time, I stopped it I had already started my next recap posting, so I figured that I might as well post it.

It took a number of attempts to get the height versus the width correct. I still want to make both my ellipsis and an object taller than reality. The teapot is a little kittywampus and I'm not pleased with the hatching, but I am pleased with the height and width.

Drawing 8 - teapot

This next one was a quick one. It's a bit wonky and out of proportion, but there are 3 entirely, separate objects in one sketch!  What craziness!

Drawing 9 - tea-related grouping

Gesture Drawing

Class is proceeding along at a fast clip. The commitment is to do 30 minutes of homework drawing each and every day. There are a couple of longer homework segments that will come later. New course content drops twice per week.

The last three days have focused on gesture drawing, which is new to me. It's also a challenge. When I started taking painting classes, I realized that some people's brains think more in shapes. I had never really thought about it and this came as a surprise to me. My brain does not work this way, plus I tend to go for the details in life. This does not mean I won't ever figure out gesture drawing. It just means it's going to take time. I plan to keep plugging away at it as part of warming up. New course content drops tomorrow, so homework will focus on new things.

All of this is pushing me outside of my comfort zone. If left to my own devices, I'd keep plugging away at gesture drawing, but class is moving on and so will I. At the same time that I am feeling uncomfortable, I also have a lot of trust in the course.

Today was the first time, I worked on sketching in public. I went to my local food cooperative and sat at a table near the entrance. This is the sketch that I liked the best. I felt very self-conscious and this is one of the few where I was able to put the feeling aside. It's a toddler sitting in the top of a grocery cart.

Oh heck, I might as well also show one of the full pages. It's challenging to see a whole and not go to contours.

Today's Understanding

Thoughts From This Morning:
The 30-day brush pen challenge is on hold or it might just be over. It's going to be more than enough to keep up with my on-line class. I'm not sure how much time I will have to post about it. At a minimum, I plan to write quick summaries of what I'm learning. It helps me cement it into my head.

After watching yesterday's material, I really did not get gesture drawing. I forged ahead and did yesterday's homework, anyway. I, along with many others, mostly emphasized contours, rather than gestures. This morning there was a Gesture Drawing Momentum Memo from the instructor with some additional ideas and thoughts about gesture drawing. I'm still not sure that I get it, but the memo was helpful.

After reading the memo and thinking a bit, today's understanding (completely in Robin language) of how to begin to think about gesture drawing is to look for or think about the main support beam or tipping point of an object. This supports the outer frame or shell.  Next, think about the outer shell as though it's draped in a a cloth. It's okay to see or draw shapes, but don't get into the details.

Again, this is a recap of one part of the instructor's materials in Robin language.

Homework And Thoughts From This Evening:
Here are a couple today's gesture drawings. The one in ink is from the lunchroom at work today. This was a person hold a phone and scratching her head. The others are from tonight's juggling club. I figured that these are movements that I am familiar with and many of the movements get repeated.

This is very different drawing than contour drawing. I'm drawn (yes, the pun was intentional) to the one in the lower right hand corner. The arms and head show juggling movement to me. I did not try to include the props being juggled.

I wish I would have make darker marks with my pencil!