Happy Halloween!

This evening, we had fewer trick or treaters than in years past. My guess is that it was partially influenced by the weather (cold) and the participation on our block this year (lousy). Still, it was fun to see the kids that did come to our door. Early in the evening we had two witches who both had good costumes and make-up.

For my daily drawing, I finally broke with the streak of leaves and experimented with a few pieces of candy in a bowl. I did several quick sketches. The point was to try and get multiple items to fit within a confined space, since I mostly work with a limited number (namely one) of objects in a sketch.

Here's the best one and a slightly more focused attempt at drawing a single piece of candy.

Ellipse - The Sequel

My profession is getting nuttier and nuttier and there are days where I struggle with the relevance of the new requirements and changes which continue to occur. This angst comes about mostly when I spend time getting the continuing education hours I need each year. Most days when I am in the world working, I mostly enjoy what I do. Last week when I spent the day at a conference, I had one of those angst-filled days.

What does that have to do with the ellipse? I used them and drew them when I needed a break from the nuttiness of all of the new standards and requirements being discussed at the conference. I could rant about the new lease accounting standards, but will spare you.

There were ellipses everywhere, on the tops of glasses, mugs, and pop cans. They were close to me. They were far. They were straight ahead and at the side. I really, really looked at them and tried to draw them in the margin of the conference materials, when I needed a break. I drew some of the glasses and mugs. I also did a few simple sketches of the conference presenters.

As far as ellipses are concerned, I noticed that I tend to make the back part less deep and flat and the front part more deep and more round. Also on the sides of the ellipse, I tend to make them too round. Actually at the outer edge, a very small part of the edge is a straight line or mostly a straight line. It's when one those times when my eyes and brain fight. My brain is saying it's round, it's round, it's round and my poor eyes are trying to interrupt and let's slow down and really see what is in front of us.

I also realized that for most ellipse which are flatter, you can put a fish tail on the end of them and, viola, you have drawn a simple fish. For me, this was a revelation. When I was talking to the hubby about this, he already knew this. He is full of all kinds of knowledge and delightfully surprises me from time to time. Although it also made me thing, what other apparent things about shapes, seeing, and all of that have I been missing all of these years?

Just Call Me A Leaf Lover

I am really grooving on drawing leaves. It's almost meditative. Plus, it's been good practice for  drawing shapes, thinking about negative space, and working on shapes that fold back on themselves. With drawing shapes, it's helping me get better control. There are subtle shifts and shapes and I think I'm getting better at syncing what I see and what comes out of my hand.

Essence

Here is my current understanding. At it’s essence, painting is about capturing shapes and values. That’s it. While it sounds simple, the application is not.

Drawing Leaves

Throughout the fall, I've gone out to pick up leaves with the intention to paint them. For some reason, I just did not get it done! Instead as the leaves got dry and crinkled in my basement, I've been grabbing a few from time to time to draw them. It's been great practice, especially with the parts that fold back over onto themselves. This summer when I took the on-line drawing class, I really struggled with shapes that do this. I feel like my skills have improved, because it hasn't seemed so daunting.

This was the my first leaf of the season. I drew it with a water-soluble pencil and a water brush and tried to show some of the value differences.  The veins were drawn in pen. I am going to enjoy learning more about using this pencil with water.  

At some point, I need to push myself to add values in my drawings either with hatch marks or shading. I've mostly stay with line drawings, since I am getting more comfortable with that. Here is my leaf gallery. They presented a good opportunity for practicing. For the ones which were really folded over, I tried to think about the negative space. 

On the bottom page, I didn't capture the top part of the bottom-most leaf very well. I liked how it curled, so I went back and re-drew just that part. It's surprising how satisfying this was.

I Should Have Painted More Leaves

I should have painted more leaves this fall.

#152 - Fall Leaf - 6" x 6" gesso board - regular palette

I must remember not to go back and paint in the leaf veins. I had fun with the background. On one paint stroke, I hadn't mixed the paint very well on my brush. The brush stroke turned out swirly-looking, so I did the entire background that way. I also went back in and outlined the leaf in gesso. One of my friend's leaves a broad distinct outline when she paints. I like how it looks, so I am experimenting.

The Mystery Of The Ellipse

Last night, while I was feeding the cats, I browsed through one of my beginning drawing books. The page I landed on happened to show a bunch of drawings of ellipses. Something clicked in my brain.  I realized that I tend to either draw an elliptical shape more like an oval than an ellipse or I tend to draw them like a long rectangle with the corners made into curves.

When I got home tonight, my brain was fried, but I really felt the desire to draw something. Out came one of my favorite mug from the cupboard and I thought about, drew, and played with the idea of ellipses. On purpose, I started with trying to draw the basic shape of the mug, prior to measuring the depth versus length of the ellipse.

As usual, my initial drawing turned out more oval than reality.  The width of the ellipse was actually about 2-1/2 times longer than the depth and I drew it more with a relationship closer to 1-1/2 times. I slowed down and really tried to see the actual proportion and, honestly, I could not. I could see it when I took a picture, but I just could not see it in real life. While it's frustrating, it's useful to know (and hopefully remember) that I should do a simple check of the proportions prior to drawing elliptical shapes.

On several sheets of paper, I played around with drawing an elliptical shape with the general proportions of the top of my mug. I also discovered that my ability to draw the changing angles of an ellipse could use some work. From the angle I was working the angles are more severe on the outer edges than towards the middle. If I drew slowly, my shapes looked goofy. If I just tried to draw a quick upper arc and lower arc and attached them, it went much better.  Another option would be to do an initial light under-drawing in the form of dashed lines. For some reason, it's easier to draw the change in angles in dashes rather than a continual line.

While this post may sound critical, this evening's experiments with ellipses were enjoyable, instructive, and fun.