That Was Harder Than I Thought It Would Be

I spent the weekend at my friend's cabin, so there was a little more time than usual to play with drawing and painting. On Sunday, I got rather flummoxed by the bird house. While I am getting better with angles, I still have a long ways to go. Whatever I did looked wrong. Plus, my sketches made it look like part of the roof was visible, but in reality it was not. Rather than doing a complete sketch, my goal was just to figure out that corner and to complete a simple outline of the thing.

It took holding up my pen and thinking about a clock face to finally "see" the angles. My eyes alone weren't up to the task. My main problem was the tricky little line on the left hand side. This line, in equating it to the hour-hand on a clock, was about 12:30 or almost straight up and down. With all the other angles and visual information near this line, my brain would not accept or see this fact.

I'm pleased that I stuck with it, but when I was done with this one I also was done with the bird house for the day.

Good First Attempt

For last night's daily drawing, I went over and worked on sketching some of my neighbor's lilies in bloom. The mosquitoes were out, so I finished up inside sketching a cloth rose that someone gave me. Since one of the things for the next painting club meeting is flowers, I figured I'd try some flower sketches as a way to practice seeing a flower as a bunch of shapes.

I'm not sure what to think, although this sketch is slowly growing on me (and yes, I did mean to include a groan-worthy play on words).

There are so many shapes and details that it mostly felt like an accomplishment to not get completely lost. Back in May, I remember doing just that in a sketch of an iris bloom where I was looking straight down at the flower. I got lost and had to abandon that sketch.  The right side of the flower is a little on the flat side and I'm not sure that I captured all of the detail in the center, but I still think this was a worthy first attempt of a complicated subject. It has some good shapes. Plus, this was a good opportunity to play with hatching. One thing I learned was that it really helped me make the dark crevices on the left side of the flower dark enough.

I will return to this as a test subject for sketching some time in the future!

Boo Hoo For Me, But Not Really

The Urban Sketcher's Symposium is currently underway in Chicago. At one point, I thought seriously about signing up and attending. This is an international gathering, so frequently it is in far, far away places, but this year it is in Chicago. I love Chicago and absolutely adore the architecture there.

I grew up several hours south of Chicago.  Five to six times per year from the time I was a young child until I was a young teen, I would travel by train with my mom to downtown Chicago to spend the day. To this day the hustle and bustle of the Loop, including the trains running on the elevated tracks, makes a little place in my heart whisper "home", even though I've never lived there. While I don't make it back as often as I'd like, those early experiences formed some sort of imprint on me.

The older buildings in Chicago just "look right" to me. This is what started my love of certain styles of architecture, especially anything by Louis Sullivan. One of the stops on each and every trip was the Carson Pirie Scott store on State Street.  I didn't realize until well into adulthood that it was designed by Sullivan.

So there a bunch of urban sketchers in Chicago happily sketching and posting here on Instagram.

I made a deliberate decision this spring not to sign up for the symposium, because I am not ready. Mostly, I sketch one object at a time and I have not tried to sketch buildings, other than a very occasional sketch. At some point, I could see this becoming a big part of my sketching, but I haven't even started this line of learning. I am someone who leaps, but I was afraid that this type of immersive experience at this point could backfire and be too overwhelming. Currently, I am good with putting together one 6 week plan after another and figuring out where I should focus. I am getting my daily drawing done each and every day. The skills will come. While I am having more fun that I can describe learning to draw and paint, on the other hand, I am also very serious about this. I want to make good decisions about what I want to learn and how I want to proceed. For now, it is best to work the current plan and not get sidetracked by buildings.

In two to three months, though, I may branch out into buildings. I already have purchased several online courses on Craftsy about urban sketching and sketching architecture. I also plan to take Liz Steel's online courses. Until then, I may do an occasional building sketch here and there, but I hope to stay focused on what I'm sketching now, which is mostly cats, people, flowers, or replica toys.

In spite of feeling wistful from time to time when I look at the sketches coming out of Chicago, I believe I made a good decision this spring. Plus, I'm very fortunate and have some fun things to look forward to this weekend.

Flamingos At Como

I wish flamingos would not move around constantly! I really want to figure out  the beak shape and head shape, better. They are fascinating birds and the shape of their neck changes so much based upon whether it's straight or curved. Also, their wing span is pretty remarkable for the brief moment when they unfurl their wings.

Today, I went to Como Zoo to sketch and I worked mostly on the flamingos, although I did also venture off, briefly, to look at the big cats. Here is one page from the sketchbook. It's not the greatest paper, so for some reason it does not lie flat.

Tonight, I took time to do a self-evaluation of how my daily drawing practice has been coming along since June 1st and I established new goals for the next 6 weeks.

Cabin Garage Service Door

Finally, finally, finally, finally, I carved out an entire hour to paint tonight! Since my painting club is meeting tomorrow, I wanted one more piece on the theme of window/door/portal. Several weeks ago, I remembered a picture from one of the trips to my friend's cabin and I painted that. By the way, my friend's family just had a 100th birthday celebration for the cabin. The land and all has been in their family that long.

Even though I have not been painting for some reason, I was able to just sit, paint, and not fret about the outcome. It felt so good to mix colors and paint! I really need to practice painting in the 15 to 20 minutes and that I can carve out here and there, because the opportunities to paint for an hour just aren't happening. It's been hard to let painting slide to the side in lieu of drawing, but drawing is such a fundamental skill for this art-making stuff that I think it's the right decision to stick with that and squeeze the painting in when I can.

I also did my 30 minutes of sketching practice.  As frequently is the case, the cats were my models. I had fun playing with this sketch. It was a bit looser than usual. The cats moved a lot, so most of my other sketches consisted of two ears and the back of a head.

For the sketch, I used a calligraphy pen. I am learning how to use it and am starting to like the different line weights that you can get with it.

Simple Sketch

This was a very quick, simple sketch that I did while I was at the juggling convention. The reason that I wanted to post it was that it just flowed off of my pen. Usually, I am slow and deliberate and this one just seemed to happen. One of the reasons that I like it is that it was loose. When I was sketching at the convention, I felt tight and a bit constricted most of the time, probably because I knew so many participants but did not want to share what I was sketching.

As always it runs into lines that were the abandon start of a different sketch. The neck is a bit funky. In the 7 days that I was at juggling convention, I practiced sketching people every day and worked on trying to see how necks attach to heads and shoulders.

It Is Hard To Draw At A Juggling Convention

I was away at a juggling convention.  It is really challenging to sit and and focus on drawing at a juggling festival. It's a playground, where nothing really matters except for juggling. Okay, maybe it's okay to occasionally take a break to play pinball or ping pong, but mostly it's about juggling or going to juggling shows. At the festival, it's loud. It's distracting. I know a lot of people. It's really hard to focus. Still, I did get my 30 minutes in each day.

At some point, I had to basically remind myself to use unit of measure, since I was getting some wonky shapes.

Usually, I do not sketch children, but I made an exception. There were two pinball games that were at the festival and were free to play. I played quite a bit the first two days. On the third day when I wanted to sketch people who were not juggling, I decided to camp out near the pinball. At the time, only kids were playing, so I sketched them. After I was warmed up, I started one of a child kneeling on a chair. It is a bit of a mess since it runs into another sketch.

A Pair Of Paintings

While drawing seems to be flowing these days, I do not feel loose when painting. In fact, I feel stiff and constricted. This week, I worked on a homework painting, which I finished yesterday. Yesterday, I also did a quick still life, since I had a pocket of time and I miss my acrylic paints so much!

This one looks better in the picture than I think it does in person.

I call this a peachy pair (insert groan here). For the peach, I think more up and down paint strokes might have worked better. Even so, I'm pleased with the colors in both pieces of fruit.  

I must figure out how to carve out more time to paint.

Gesture Sketches And A Revelation

The last several days when I've been sketching, I've experienced brief moments where it just seems to flow. I feel loose and my pen or pencil just seems to be doing what it needs to be doing. Even when I'm not in that state, it's as though I'm not fighting the drawing so much. I've had this feeling in my painting and I know it's something that comes and it's something that goes and it's a good reason to just keep practicing.

Last night while I was feeding the cats their last meal of the day, I worked on a few gesture sketches and I felt looser as I was doing them.

This one was post-meal and it just sort of rolled off my pencil. 

When I was taking the drawing class, rarely did I get enjoyment from trying to do gesture sketches and that's changed. Lately, I've been enjoying them (or at least what I think they are!). It's also been a helpful way to warm up. Hopefully that means the same thing will happen with thumbnail sketches.  

Today's revelation occurred when I was watching one of the videos from drawing class. For some reason, I got this silly rule in my head to not lift my pencil when I was doing gesture drawings. That's not the case. I think banishing this silly, self-imposed rule that appeared in my head from nowhere will help with focusing on the whole when I'm working on gesture sketches.  

Three Months Of A Twelve Month Series

At the Minnesota State Fair grounds, there is a historic bust on the porch of one of the buildings. Since I am on the fair grounds for work, I decided back in May to draw this historic bust every month for one year, using whatever medium I want. Each time I do this, it's literally a snapshot of where I'm at and what I can do at this point in the journey. Sometimes if I feel stuck or on a plateau, this type of post helps remind me why it's important to keep working and practicing.

The first time that I tried was back in May at the start of the one-month online drawing class that I took from Roz Stendahl.

The second time was at the beginning of June. This took around 15 minutes.   

Today, I warmed up with several gesture sketches and did this sketch in about 15 minutes. It was really warm on the porch. I guess I didn't consider that when I made the 12 month goal. While I still have a lot of room for improvement in capturing the actual object that I'm drawing, I like how much looser this one is than the one from one month ago. There's something a little cheeky about it and there's better depth and shape to the face.

Saved By The Ducks

Let's just say that it was not a good day at work. On my way home from a client, I was near the Como Zoo. I decided that a quick sketching session would make the day better. It was a very warm day. The temperature hit 90 degrees. The plus side of this, zoo-wise, was that I found a great parking spot and the ducks were mostly sluggish and sleeping. The ducks saved me from a very crabby mood.

I warmed up with some gesture sketches. This was the best one.

After warming up, I worked on sleeping ducks. I still don't have the head shape figured out, but I made progress. Here is the best page of my quick sketches. The middle duck on the right changed his head position and I just went with it. Take that, perfectionism tendencies.

I really like sleepy and sleeping animals and birds!

Happy 4th Of July!

Have a fruitful holiday. Here are the pickings from this morning. I love that I have two types of raspberries and a small black currant on my small lot.

I finished a homework painting last night. I really need to get more painting done. This was from a picture from long, long, ago when Ella was a kitten. I would like to give it another try. In the picture, she is mostly dark, but you can see the tiniest bit of shoulder definition and I did not capture that in the way that I wanted.  Also, the scene outside was a little overwhelming. It's not clear to me how to paint a bunch to different shrubs, leaves, and so on. Next time, I would like to try capturing pools of value to see if that works better. I am pleased about her legs and paws on the right side. There was a tiny, tiny bit of window frame that showed between her paws.  Six months ago, I'm not sure that detail would have registered. Also, I like the light that reflects up on her chest on that side.

One of the things that I liked about Roz's class was that she was practically militant about how a person should talk about their art when they are sharing it, especially with peers. When we posted our homework, her rules were:

• Don't make excuses.
• Find and document one thing that you like.
• Critique and note one thing that you would like to work on or improve. This was supposed to be stated in a productive manner, so that it is something you can address. She talked a lot about the "editing eye" and/or the "fresh eye", which are both helpful versus the internal critic, who is not.

This has helped me. Although partly was a reminder to get back to a practice I started during my initial set of painting classes with Kat. At that time the gap between what I wanted to be doing versus what I could do was so vast that it could be painful. Very early and on my own, I decided to write one or more positive things about each and every painting. On an early one, I remember writing that I liked the color orange that I had mixed. It really did change how I was able to look at my own work. I did not get the critique part at that point, but it helped me accept where I was at and feel good about what I was doing.

I hope to get more sketching in today, but I did start my day with a 30 minute sketching session. As always, I liked the last sketch the best. 

It's a partial sketch. While the cat ended up too large relative to the lovely man, who was reading the newspaper, I enjoyed that I seem to be wanting to tackle multiple objects.  Two days ago, I sketched the two gray cats next to each other. In both cases, This was not a deliberate choice in either case. I feel good that my skills are getting to a point where I have more confidence to try multiple objects and figure out their relationship to each other. My guess is that I will continue to do a lot of single objects, but will start to mix in more complicated scenes. 

More Cat Sketches

I sketched first thing yesterday morning. Here is a partial page. The top left is a gesture sketch. The top right is more of a contour sketch. The one I like best is the contour sketch of the 2 gray cats sitting next to each other. I'm happy with all of these. Getting an accurate depth versus width is hard. I picked the straight on view of the cats on purpose to practice. For sketch of the two cats, looking at the negative space helped me get them positioned correctly. After I drew in the outline of the bodies, I was able to get their heads in the right place by looking at where their ears were relative to the outline that I had already drawn. The cats moved before I could work on adding any facial features besides noses, but maybe that was for the best.

Starting A New Sketchbook

What do you do after finishing a sketchbook? Start a new one, of course. This one has better paper, but it's not really thick enough to sketch on both sides of the paper (which I will do, anyway).  Also if I play with watercolor, I will need to use other paper. Still, I'm glad to be starting a new sketchbook.

Sometimes it's hard to stare down that first blank page. Yesterday morning, I just decided to play with making marks with a Faber Castell Pitt calligraphy pen. This pen was part of the package for Roz's class that I purchased at Wet Paint. Let's just say that I have not become one with this tool yet and it was time to start figuring out how to make different thicknesses of lines with it.

It was a good way to start. My first page is deliberately messy.

I moved on and tried some gesture sketches of the cats as a warm up. I'm not clear on the concept of gesture sketches. When I try them, it always feels a little frantic, so I decided to time myself just to see how long I am taking per sketch. I've been spending around a minute per gesture sketch. No wonder it feels frantic!  Plus, I am not able to execute decent lines or proportions at this speed. When I slowed down, I found I was spending 1 1/2 to 2 minutes per gesture sketch and it went much better. Of all of yesterdays' gesture and contour sketches, I am the most pleased with the bottom one on this page. It was the last gesture sketch before I did some contour work. I was warm. I didn't rush. It actually captures the overall cat pretty well. 

These sketches are from first thing yesterday morning. Sketching in the morning works better. I'm not sure that I can make this work during the week, but I should definitely try it on the weekends. I feel fresher and less bogged down by the "shoulds" and "rules" that seem to pile up throughout the day.  

Last Page Of A Sketchbook

For Roz Stendahl's drawing class that I took in May, I used a large, 100 page, hard cover sketchbook that was laying around.. This is the sketchbook I used in June, as I continued my daily drawing practice on my own. It was a lot of paper, since I drew on both sides of every page even though the paper was a bit thin for that. In honesty, I did not really care for the paper. I get that using better materials is important, especially for beginners, and paper is not that precious so it is okay to use the good stuff. Still, I decided to mostly work in this sketchbook until I had filled. Well, I filled it.  This is the last sketch on the last page and I drew it last night. It was the last sketch of the evening.

It feels like I'm leaving this sketchbook on a high note. In the last two months I've gotten better and more confident about contour line drawing, especially after I've warmed up.