Revisited

Yesterday, I got home from work earlier enough to get a painting done before dinner. I revisited the picture of my friend's cat, Amelia. It's getting closer to looking like her. For someone who loves bright colors as much as I do, it's surprising how enjoyable mixing different shades of white can be.

Since I haven't found the time to paint much in the last several weeks, it felt really good to pick up the paint brush. Also, I adore cats and very much enjoy painting them.

30 Days (Or So) Kitchen Item Drawing Challenge

While I really enjoy trying to draw objects, I am also very good at finding reasons to put it off. One of the excuses in frequent rotation is that I don't have time. This morning I took 5 minutes to draw my stand mixer.  Yup, the proportions are way off and the drawing goes right to the very edge of the paper, but it was better to work on drawing and figuring out what details to include or exclude in a compressed period of time, rather than not to draw at all.

There really is quite a lot to a stand mixer. When I compare this to what I was trying a year ago when I started, I am pleased with my progress.

I've decided to try another 30 day (or so) drawing challenge. Most drawings will be quick like this one. I don't want to take the time to post and write about every drawing. Instead, I am planning to do one very long post at the end of the 30 (or so) days. Instead of mulling over what to draw each day, I am going to confine myself to kitchen-related objects. If any of my cats are in the kitchen, they qualify as a kitchen-related object.

The Editing Eye

It's the first day back to work in the New Year. I'm working from home and not motivated at all. I've been surfing art / creativity related blogs for the past 20 minutes or so. I'm not sure what I was looking for, but I think I found it. Also after this blog post, I am going to start my paid work.

Boo-boos in drawing impact my confidence in a deeper way than in painting. For painting, I've figured out a drawing process that mostly works for me when I am working from a picture, grid lines! I love them. However, I also want to paint and draw from life. That's the reason for the sketches and also for taking the drawing class that starts next week.

When I look at one of my drawings, the critical voice in my head is different and meaner than when it involves a painting. I stumbled across the blog of Roz Stendahl, a local artist and started looking at some of here posts. This one really spoke to me. The critic in my head is bad. I need an editor in my head, along with outside resources to help me learn.

It's easy for me to find multiple faults with my work.In yesterday's drawing, the length of the head of the broccoli versus the smaller stalks and bigger stalk was off. With my cat drawings, the heads are typically too small relative to the body. I try to measure, but it doesn't end up right on the page. I could go on and on and on. The critic has a lot to say. Instead, I hope to develop an editor that I can turn to, instead.

1st Post Of 2017

I have been drawing the last several days, mostly cats. I did try drawing a person, sitting in a chair, at a table, playing cards at a New Year's Day party. Since I'm not very good at this type of drawing and I didn't get the okay to do the drawing beforehand, I am not going to post it. Instead, here is a drawing of some broccoli. There's no having to figure out the ethics of drawing and posting a picture of broccoli!

2016 Drawing Recap

We are reaching the end of the year when I decided to learn to draw and paint. This will likely be a many year journey for me, since it brings me such enjoyment and there is so much to learn!

At the beginning of 2016, I was basically afraid to draw lines on a piece of paper. I also remember feeling a little bad about using a drawing or sketch pad, since it felt like a waste of "good" paper that a "real" artist could use.  At the beginning, I used a lot of copy paper (on the back side of paper that was going to be recycled). I don't feel that way anymore. As I write this what popped in my head is that I believe in the democratization of art. Creating art is for anyone who wants to partake and you need any special skills to start. You need knowledge and you need to practice. Really, it's the same as learning to play the piano.

Now that it's the end of 2016, I have several, full sketchbooks and I'm ready to let them go. These days, I have no problem using a sketchbook, but I'm also trying to shed my house of as many objects as possible. The reason for this blog is to capture my journey, so I don't have to keep all of my output. Before these sketchbooks go into the recycling bin, I took pictures of some of the drawings that had significance to me. Many of these have appeared in this blog when I first created them.

For the first several months in 2016, I took several 30 day challenges through Creativebug. For the first one, the artist, Lisa Congdon, demonstrated several ways to draw a certain type of object like a tree, chair, fish, and so on, in an illustrative style. At first, I would only try to draw exactly what she had drawn. With no background in drawing, it was useful. It was primitive learning for me since I didn't get how she decided to add a few hatch marks or side edges to her drawings. One day, the topic was brooms. This is one of the first times I branched out and tried to draw a real object in front of me.

Here is another early example from a Creativebug drawing challenge. I forgot who the artist was. The top light bulb was from the example that was provided. The florescent bulb was drawn from looking at one.

Here is another example from the Creativebug drawing challenges, when I drew items that were in front of me.

This is one of my favorite drawings from 2016. It was also the result of a drawing prompt from a Creativebug drawing challenge. The artist put several pins in a bowl and drew that. It was too hard to try to copy using her set up, so I made my own. I love this drawing. It's one of my first drawings of an entire "scene".  It makes me smile whenever I look at this one. 

In March 2016, I started taking painting classes with Kat Corrigan. In one of the classes, she had us do an exercise that involved doing a value study of an apple using charcoal. It was the first time that I made the connection on how important value is in drawing and painting. I was so excited when I got home from class that I tried a value drawing of a bowl using pencil.

Animals, mostly cats, have been a frequent subject. Here is a very, very early attempt to try to draw my cats. I wanted to capture this, so I can compare it to where I am today and how I hope to continue to develop!

This is one of my favorite value studies of Ella. After a painting did not work, I decided to try a value study before attempting another painting. It's the first time that I tried this and it was also the first time I remember completely losing myself in the shapes and values of something that I was looking at, in this case a picture. I wasn't trying to draw a cat. I was trying to capture what I really, really saw. When I was done, I looked at the finished drawing as a whole and was shocked that it really, really looked a lot like the original picture.

Here's a similar value study of a dog. This is actually value study #2.

For painting, I still rely upon my trusty and faithful grid lines. For sketching, I am trying to branch out and not use them.  This is a drawing from November where I felt like I captured Ella when she was sleeping.

Here is today's drawing. After this long recap, I probably should have some blockbuster drawing to share as the last one of this post. I don't. This is a simple line drawing of Ella and Dorian from this morning. I really enjoy the different ways cats fold themselves up and fold themselves together. I think this drawing closes this post by showing that picking up a pen or pencil and just drawing has become a normal activity for me.

This Afternoon

I painted this from a picture of a friend's cat. At first, it did not work for me. After getting away from it, eating supper, and making a few minor corrections, it works better, especially for a first attempt.

Mixing and painting the different whites was fun and I like the brush strokes. For once, I was able to carry plenty of paint in my brush.

I did this painting while my niece was over. We both painted together. While it was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon and fun way to spend time with her, I have a harder time painting or drawing with other people around. It's something that I want to practice, since I don't want to be down in basement all alone whenever I want to create!

Something New

A friend and I got together to paint, this afternoon. I decided to paint something quite different. About five years ago, I met friends in Ames IA. We went to the Reiman Gardens, where I took a lot of pictures of fanciful creatures and some very beautiful plants. Here is my rendition of a gnome that was in the garden. He was huge!

We also played with water colors for about 10-15 minutes. I did a super-quick painting. Water colors are sure different from acrylics!