Dinner

This was a well-documented tomato. First, it was sketched. Next, it was painted.

I am referring to it in the past tense, because, tonight, it was part of my dinner.

You Say Tomato (Sketch)

I say sketch of an heirloom tomato, specifically Kellogg's Breakfast. This is a large beefsteak variety of tomato and I was surprised to find a beautiful, ripe one in my community garden. Last night, I did two warm up sketches of this tomato from different angles and finished up with this one.

Edgy Homework

While I've been enjoying sketching lately and have really been enjoying sketching loosely with a soft pencil, painting has not been going so well. I have at least one more painting that will not see the light of this blog. Focus has been a problem. Yesterday, I slowed down and concentrated on my paint strokes. I also went back to painting on a black background.

The goal was to work on a homework assignment. The assignment is to paint the same simple scene starting with tight, crisp edges and to repeat the same scene 3 more times getting looser each time. Today, I finished the first version. This is a 4 inch by 4 inch painting. The purples are much better in person.

The handle is off, but I am pleased that the roundness of the mug comes through. 

Month Four

Yesterday, I worked at the Minnesota State Fair Foundation, so here is month 4 of a 12 month series. Each month, I've been waiting until I'm leaving work for the day and I spend about 15 minutes or so doing a quick sketch.

This was a loose sketch and it was enjoyable to do.

Facial features are still a challenge. Today, I picked up the book, Five Minute Sketching People, from the library and read a little bit of it at lunchtime. It had good tips regarding general guidelines of how certain facial features compare to other facial features. For example if you look at a person straight on, most people are about 5 eyes wide in the plane that includes the persons's eyes. When I sketch, I try to sketch what I see, but I think some general "rules" like this might help, since experience has shown that I actually don't always see so well with my eyes.

Another general guideline is that eyes typically are at the half-way point in the height of a person's face. That's not how my drawing turned out. I'll double check this the next time I see the actual historic bust.

I'm sure these guidelines are out there in the world everywhere, but there's so much to learn and to know that it's the first time I've come across some of them. Again, my goal is to try and sketch what I see, but it's good to have some back-up knowledge to cross-check things.

Finally, I love that I can check out so many sketching books at the library. It helps me make better choices  about which ones I would like to own.

Loose Turtles

These are not turtles that have been released. Nor are they lewd. Instead, I let go and drew more loosely than usual. It felt good to switch things up a bit.

By the way, all of these are drawings of my replica toy turtle.

I've Been Painting

I've been painting. During the week, I found some snippets of time here and there. This weekend, I found some bigger chunks of time. It felt good to pick up the brushes, but I confess that my painting mojo is a little off. Usually, I share it all, but there's one that is not going to see the light of this blog!

I worked on some homework paintings, which included experimenting with a different color of background. Boy does it change things and it looks super freaky, as you go along.

I decided that I couldn't deal with the pupils being blue, so I used black gesso. It was a bit of a challenge to paint with a different background color. My outline did not show up nearly as well. Still, it was fun to see how it influenced the paint colors.

I did a few minor things to try to "rescue" this one. These did not work out as well as I hoped. Still, it was a blast to see how the colors behaved differently. It might be fun to try painting this one again, but in brighter, crazy, modern colors.

I worked on version 2 of the service door of the cabin garage. This is one that I worked on throughout the week.

I like the rock foundation better in this one and I also like the addition of the foliage on the left-hand side.

Lastly, I tried a painting of one of my gray cats laying on a pillow.

I'm not sure about the background. Okay, I am sure about the background. I am quite sure that I don't like it. Also, I struggled with capturing the values, so I think the cat looks a bit flat. This is not a complete surprise, since I thought it would be a hard picture to paint when I selected it. It's silly, but I do like the paw that sticks out in the lower left-hand corner.

Take Two

I'm not sure that I posted take 1. This is take 2 from a picture that I love. This is Ella when she was a wee little cat sitting in the piano window at my former home. This is a 5" x 7". I want to try this one more time and will do it as an 8" x 10" the next time.

While the window is crooked, the cat is better than the first attempt.

Also, I got an early start this morning and went down to paint for 20 minutes. That's how I'm going to have to fit in painting for awhile. I'm not sure how much I can accomplish in 10 - 20 minutes every other day or so, but I will give it a try.