Como Zoo

I love sketching at the Como Zoo. Tonight, I stopped on my way home from work. The zoo was closing in 1 1/4 hours, so most people had already gone home. Many of the animals seemed tired. While they did not stay perfectly still, I was able to get some good partial sketches done. I like this one the best.

Also, the big cats all seemed to be done napping for the day. I got to see a lioness play with a ball and a tiger taking a dip in a pool.

I Still Get Surprised

I did my daily drawing practice this morning, which works much better for me. The several evenings, I haven't drawn until right before bedtime, which does not work as well.  I'm fresher in the morning. The challenge always is pushing back all of the things that need to be done in the morning. I end up doing those. On the weekend, there's more time, so after feeding the cats (one of those morning things that can't be pushed back) I drew.

I drew cats. My warm up was trying to copy a cat sketch in the Steinlan Cats book several times. After that I turned to my live models. One of the things that I like about Steinlan's sketches is that he can convey so much with the big picture. Enough of the details are there, but you aren't overwhelmed with them. Given that mindset and, also, from going back and looking at some videos last month's drawing class, I worked on some cat sketches where I really wanted to focus on values, not details. Also, I get a bit overwhelmed and, in truth, sloppy if I try to do an entire cat, so I deliberately focused on a partial cat.

I got lost in this one in the way that makes my brain feel refreshed when I'm done. I become totally involved with capturing the shapes and contours. When I looked down, it was a complete surprise how much this was Ella in that moment of time. So many sketches turn out to be close (or not so close) approximations. When a sketch like this happens, it feels like I've reached out and captured "truth". It sounds a bit silly to write this down, especially since it is only a partial sketch, but that is the feeling that I get when I look at this sketch. Plus, there are not details!!

I Missed One

This was my first try in June 2016.

Finally!

Here is Sadie.

I first tried to paint her in August 2016.  At this point, I had been painting for about 6 months. 

Since that time, I tried again, 

and again, 

and again, 

I cropped the picture differently and tried again.

I tried one more time last night. Painting the same picture helps me see how I'm doing. All of the drawing that I've been doing has helped me. There is still so much room for improvement, but I feel like my skills have taken a step forward. The things I like best are the eyes, the muzzle, and the color.  For some reason, I've tended to make my oranges and browns muddy and that's how this painting started, but I went back and changed it. My darkest values may be a little extreme, but that works better than now having enough range in the values. 

Plumb Lines And Horizontal Lines

When I was drawing last night, plumb lines were very helpful. What I figured out was that when I am drawing and looking for relationships or reference points, I mostly look close by in the vicinity of where I am drawing. Using plumb lines helped me see that I needed to broaden my focus. For today's drawing practice, I continued to use both plumb lines and horizontal lines.

Today, I scheduled time to draw in public. While work is crazy busy, I was lucky enough to be near the Como Zoo at one point due to a client meeting and I used my lunch time to draw for about an hour. Up until now, my favorite animals to draw are the ones which are sleeping, but now I have another favorite. When I arrived today, it was feeding time for the giraffes. People can line up to feed a giraffe. What that means is that there is an animal who keeps returning to the same position over and over and over again. It's perfection!  I get to practice on something that is moving, but that is also predictable.

Rather than warming up, I just started drawing. I like this sketch the best. The dashed lines helped me compare my proportions and the relative position of things. I even wrote "pretty good", since I do think this was pretty good.

The curved line on the right is carry over from a different drawing. The same thing happened in the following sketch. There's some extra stuff form on the right hand side. This is a snow leopard. I didn't try to go for detail, but the dashed lines, again, were very helpful to figure out how close I was to his actual form. I reworked his paw, face, and back a bit to get it closer.

In the last week or so, my practice sessions have felt more useful and productive. This happened after a period where I was feeling stuck and frustrated. That seems to be a pattern. It feels like I am going backwards. If I keep pushing, many times I'll get a mini-breakthrough.

Cats, Cats, And More Cats

This blog post is about cats, cats, and more cats. First of all, I checked out two Dover Art Library books from my local library. The first one that I have been swooning over is Steinlen Cats. Boy, could he draw cats. For my drawing practice, I warmed up by copying one of his drawings. I plan to copy more of them. I'm hoping to get some ideas about how to suggest features, especially eyes and noses, and marks to show fur, shape, and values.

Second, I used my toy puma that I purchased at the Como Zoo gift shop for part of tonight's drawing practice. I focused on the two legs and tummy on one side of the puma. This might not sound like much, but it was! When I dropped plumblines and horizontal lines, there were relationships that I hadn't even thought to check until the lines showed me things like where the bend in the tummy didn't line up with the part of the paw that should have been directly below. Instead of being discouraged, it was fascinating.

Lastly, I practiced several quick sketches of my real, live house cats. Here is one of them. I really liked the start of the other sketch, but the cat moved before I even finished the outer contour.

By the way, my whole life is not about cats.  I also got the Dover Art Library Book of Edward Hopper's drawings. I'm going to try and get 2 or so of these types of books every other week or so.

The Output Is Not The Point

Yesterday, I sketched for closer to an hour. I've been thinking about and practicing refining an initial sketch to better reflect the actual object and making hatch marks that support both value and shape. It's been slow going. On Wednesday night, I used a viewfinder to draw out a beet and paint it. It seriously felt like I took several steps backwards. Rather than get frustrated or mad, I shook it off. In Roz's class, we spent a lot of time dealing with the internal critic.

Yesterday, I sketching that same beet several times from different angles and I also worked on several sketches of a partial red pepper. While the beet is a rather simple shape, a cut-up pepper has a ridiculous amount of complexity.

I'm not sure that anything shows in the two sample sketches below, but it felt different. I was able to slow down and focus in a way that's been missing. Measuring the relationships and angles with my eyes or, on my earlier versions, with dotted lines worked better. I also practiced and practiced and practiced hatch marks. It got to the point it started to make the tiniest bit of sense which way to try and make hatch marks in a way that would help show shape in addition to the value.

Again, I don't think it necessarily shows, but that's not really the point. I'm practicing.

This beet sketch does a pretty good job of showing the shape of the actual beet. It's not finished. I didn't even complete the shadow, because I learned what I could from it and was ready to move on.

For the partial pepper, it took me so many lines to get the true outer shape that it's a bit of a mess, but the hatch marks on the left side flowed off my pen more easily. They also worked much better, except for the ones long the edge. For those it would be better if they followed the long line of the edge rather than cutting across it. I'm not saying that to be critical. It's part of learning what will work better.

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Also, I have no illusions that this will all flow more easily for now on. Progress does not follow a straight path.

Sleeping Flamingos

Yesterday, I went to the Como Zoo to sketch in public. I really like going to the zoo to draw. Most of my time was spent with the ducks and flamingos, although I did visit other displays and worked on sketches of other creatures. So far, my favorite animal to sketch is whatever animal is being perfectly still, which means that I like animals who are sleeping. Although, I could develop a side business. If you want your kids to see animals awake and moving around, just have them follow me around when I am trying to sketch animals who appear to be sleeping soundly.

There were several flamingos who were semi-cooperative.

It's weird, but flamingos don't look like flamingos from this angle when they are sleeping. I tried to do a few sketches from more of a head-on view, since the curl and angle of the neck was fascinating. None of those flamingos would hold a pose long enough for me. The only flamingos who stayed fairly still were all in this position and I could only see them from the essentially the same angle. The drawings on the right are closer to the true relationship of the height versus width. 

What I'm finding is that I am noticing more, but can't hold the details in my head long enough to get them on paper and live subjects move so frequently! I am looking forward to the Bell Museum of Natural History opening back up next summer and being able to sketch animals in the dioramas.

Cat Drawings

I am still sketching every day for at least 30 minutes. Most times that does not feel like enough time. I wish there was more time for drawing and painting, but I'm grateful to be squeezing in at least 30 minutes per day. Progress is slower now that class is done. It takes time and effort to keep the habit going, including mapping out what to draw and focus on each day, and learning to evaluate my own drawings. I am working to figure out how to use various tools, pencil, pen, brush pen, and watercolor to name a few, although I mostly stick with pencil and pen. I am working to figure out how to make marks that capture and convey what I want to show. I am working to figure out my relationship to detail. That's just some of what's going on!!

Two nights ago, I worked on sketching cats. My intention was to capture a contour drawing of the cat and select an area to "finish". The cats had other plans. While the gray ones were mostly cooperative, they were shifting a bit too often. This was the start of one that was going well and her body placement was interesting. I used her glorious ears as a marker to figure out where her hips and back portion were in relationship to those ears. One of the things I'm trying is to make my initial lines lighter, so if they need refinement the drawing is less messy.

After several partial contour drawings, I switched to her face. Most of my drawing goals for the current 4-6 weeks are general, but one of the specific ones is to work on cat's eyes. It's weird, but in the last several weeks I've had some good experiences starting with the eyes and working my way out. That's what I did with this sketch. This is different from what I've mostly read or been told, although Roz tends to do this for her portraits. The lesson that I take from this is that I need to be willing to experiment and try different ways of approaching a drawing.

This is where having limited time can be a problem. It takes time to figure out and make marks to show value and texture. Also, I don't think I have the stamina to finish a complete sketch yet. I sketched about 45 minutes on the night I was sketching cats. When I got to this point, my time was up and I was ready to be done.

It's hard to figure out how to show 3 dimensions in 2 dimensions, but I think I'm making progress. One of the things I'm interested in is figuring out how to show the slope / depth of how a cat's face shifts up from the nose to the forehead. I know from looking at cat's in profile that the part straight back from the nose angles up and away.  As it gets close to being even with the eyes, the angle shifts. It shifts again as the nose shifts to the forehead. When I was looking at the cat straight on, this shift was mostly represented as a change in value.

While I like this sketch, I also really, really, really want to figure out how to convey the same understanding of values, but with less detail.

Window / Door / Portal - Homework Painting 1

The general homework assignment for the July meeting of my painting class/club is windows, doors, or portals. While I put myself through a significant amount of angst figuring out what to paint for our last assignment, this one is starting out much easier. If the windows in the house are closed for several days, the cats are highly motivated to hang out in the windows when the windows are opened back up again.  They love to experience the world through an open window and this seems very much in keeping with the theme or a portal or entrance to another world, since the cats are all indoor house cats. I've had several good photo sessions with them and ended up with some good pictures. I'm especially thrilled that several of the pictures show a reflection in the window. I selected the one with the simplest reflection for my first attempt.

For my skill level, this is a complicated scene for me. I am still the most comfortable dealing with one object per painting. It's really good practice and experience to tackle an entire scene with multiple objects and many more decisions to make. I was surprised at how "real" the purple garage looks. Another thing to note is that I continue to feel more "in control" of my values and use of color. For instance, the indoor colors were more muted, since they weren't in natural light. The outdoors really did pop in places. For an editing standpoint, the eyes don't quite work. They are too big, so I might fix that. I also might work on his tail, since it sort of disappears.  

This was painted in two sessions and I'm glad that I did not rush. 

While I miss posting more frequently on this blog, it's been more important to fit in the minimum of 30 minutes of drawing each day, which gets replaced by two longer sessions of drawing in public each week. This was the recommendation post-drawing class and so far, I've continued with it. 

Ahoy, Mom! Flamingos!

I finished up work early today and stopped to sketch at the Como Zoo for an hour on my way home. I was extremely fortunate, since I think it was the first day that the flamingos were out. Even better, I got to watch the zoo keepers and I presume some volunteers release the flamingos. My pictures weren't great, but here is the best one.

Not long after all of the flamingos had settled into the water, I heard a boy yell, excitedly, "Ahoy, Mom!  Flamingos!".

While I was at the zoo, I worked on some gesture sketches and some contour sketches. If the bird or animal would stay mostly still, I also added some details. I would like to be more disciplined and do smaller gesture sketches, but they seem to end up pretty large. I did about 5 pages of sketches. Most were fast and rough.

When I first started doing quick sketches of the flamingos, they looked more like swans or geese. It took a bit to really see the odd "S" curve in a flamingo's neck. There's a lot of variability, but it's always there unless they are stretching their heads up as tall as possible.

I tried some rough sketches of ducks.

I was grateful for the duck that was sleeping. I wish I could have sighted him from a different angle. 

Lastly, I hung out with the two sea lions for a bit. They are really amazing. It's fun to try and do gesture sketches.  Several times when I've sketched them, they will do the most interesting poses with their necks and heads. I'm not sure how to capture the solidity of the bottom 2/3's of their bodies versus the fluidity and lightness of the top 1/3. I try not to get stuck on this. I figure if I'm noticing this, I'll eventually figure out a way to capture it.

All and all, it was an enjoyable hour spent at the zoo on an absolutely beautiful Tuesday afternoon.

Skills Do Crossover and Practice Does Lead To Improvement

I have made a commitment to myself to draw for 30 minutes each day. My goal is to draw with intention, so that I can eventually sketch live subjects from life, not pictures. I don't know if I will get there or, if I do, how long it will take. At the same time, I have to find a way to fit acrylic painting back in my life, because I miss it so. How this will work with a busy life in gardening season, I am not completely sure. One of my goals, post-drawing class, is to figure it out. The first priority each and every day is to draw.

My current strategy for getting in more painting time is to paint smaller and to also use simpler items. That should make it easier to pick up a paint brush more frequently each week. I also need to be realistic and remember that priming surfaces with gesso, finding things or images to paint, and drawing prior to picking up a brush all support my painting practice. When work is less busy, I have more time to paint and frequently will carve out time to finish a painting in one sitting. That's not the present situation and carving out 30 minutes either in preparation of painting or actual painting several times a week is worthy and good.

Enough of that.

I did take time to paint today. This is a 5" x 5" painting.

It was a wonderful experience. Mostly because I felt in control and was in a better place about seeing shapes and values, making decisions about what I wanted to do, and executing that. With seeing, I feel like slowly this bigger more interesting world is unveiling itself before my eyes.

I also feel like I'm seeing a payoff from the drawing class and spending the last month trying to soak up the content from the class and also drawing from 3D subjects. The idea of the shapes created by the changes in values makes more sense to me.  I shouldn't be surprised by how much I think the crossover from drawing to painting went, but I am!

In this painting, I like the shapes and the values of the colors that support and define the shape. It captures the actual pepper pretty well. Although, this painting is on the darker side so was the pepper, plus it still works from across the room. The one thing that I'd like to improve upon is slowing down and taking more care with painting the highlights.

Puffin Practice In Pencil

I went to the Como Zoo today to sketch in public. Post-class, we are being encouraged to do this two times per week. Here are the puffins. I also did a few quick sketch of sea lions and the polar bear's face.

Drawing Class Is Done (Sniff, Sniff)

It was a good experience and taught me so much. Now, I just need to keep at it, but also find time to get back to painting. My goal is to continue to draw for 30 minutes each and every day. There is so much to learn!! I'm practicing not trying to get to a complete sketch, so I may not include much here.

One of the things that I want to figure out is how to get more of a 3D feeling to my drawings. When I have a few space minutes, I thought I could work on drawing my hand at funny angles and to use lines to give more of a feeling of the shape. I may try to do this during lunch time during the work week. I did two drawings like that today. Here is the better of the two. Ignore the finger in the lower right-hand corner.  It does not really work.