Beach Scene

The use of photos to get shapes right is one thing, making a direct copy is another. My chair in this painting doesn't look much like the chair in the photo I used as a reference... but it does look like a chair.

The Path

I've now been working with watercolors for about three months... these next pictures are my attempts at getting something artistic onto the paper... 

Stuff You Can Learn From Kids' Paints

I'm painting now, with watercolors... but one of the first experiments was with Tempra paints.

Sharpie markers - like you can buy at most office supply stores in the US, and Tempra paints - some of you might remember those from school. Three primary colors, three secondary colors, plus black and white... or essentially the colors you'd get in a box of 8 crayons. Some of what you see below is mixed colors, and some colors straight from the factory-mixed bottles. I learned that small amounts of a darker color added to a lighter color change the hue much more than you might think.

Signing your name with a paint brush is an acquired skill that has not much to do with how well you can write with a pen or pencil... My signature was cloned out of the graphic below both for asthetic purposes (it's horribly sloppy)... and because I don't like posting my real name online.

Medieval Fantasy

My Latest Sketch.  The frame and mat seen here were digitally created.  The original hung in my livingroom for awhile, but has been given to my mother-in-law, and now hangs in her livingroom. I worked on this sketch for quite awhile during March and April.  Click picture for larger view.

Quickie Sketches

 

 

Here's a couple of the quick sketches I did this week. Lessons from About.com  Sea Turtle and, Dog. I used Derwent Studio Colored Pencils and Pro-Art, 90# [147gsm] paper. On one 9 X 12 sheet, both of these sketches and room for a few others... No, they're not large at all.

Pirate Sketch

Those of you who are old enough may remember the little characters sometimes seen on matchbook covers... where you were invited to draw the character and then submit your drawing for evaluation. This pirate is one of those characters, provided by Art Instruction schools.  No, I didn't submit my drawing to them... I really can't afford to pay for their courses.

Finished Wren

Here's the finished bird... I think I enjoy the drawing more than painting... not sure yet though.  The painting was finished in February, 2009. It was shown in March for one week, and in a different location in April for less than one week... during it's showing in April, this painting sold for $65.00 framed, less than two months after it was finished.

For The Birds

This bird might be a little difficult to see. Some of my lines aren't as dark as others... but that's okay at this stage, since it's an in-progress scan of a sketch I plan to paint. As usual, I've drawn a subject from drawspace.com. Lesson J07 is about using a grid to establish proportions in your drawing - which is what I attempted to do here; only I liked the little bird in the lesson so much I wanted to draw him... so I did the best I could...

In my search for a wren with similar markings, I ran across this blog with a photo of an absolutely perfect specimen of a male Superb Blue Fairy Wren.  Curious as to what the female looks like, I took a look at some of the other entries on the same blog. I knew she wouldn't be as colorful, but thought she might still make interesting sketch material.

Rat Tales

This little critter looks like he's got a story to tell (well, he does to me) so I called this sketch "Rat Tales".  It's from Drawspace.com Lesson # I07 - Rocky Rodent.   I'm still not too hot with the fur and shading... but I suppose it's progress. My original is done on 9X12 inch, 90lb Canson Classic Cream drawing paper. Heavyweight, medium tooth surface good for charcoal, pastel, pencil and pen. So says Canson anyway. My sig, date, etc. in the corner was done with PSP X2 after I edited the scan for brighness, contrast, fading and clarity - not to mention that I had to remove unwanted shadows - again. The only way to not have the darned shadows would be to scan the page after removing it from the sketch pad. I don't have any good place to store loose sketches, so I don't do many of them like that.

Three Skulls, after Cézanne

My version of Cézanne's famous painting. You can see the original here: http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/80336 (well, okay, that's really just a more accurate reproduction of the famous painting), you'd have to go to Chicago to see the real deal. Mine is Graphite on Mead Academie heavyweight sketchbook paper. Roughly 7.25 inches high by 11 inches wide.

My brain must have been on vacation when I watermarked this... It's among drawings I did late in 2008, not a 2009 effort.  My sketch book tells the truth... when I bother to date the work.

Scruffy Puppy

This lesson builds on the lesson in the previous post. For comparison purposes, here's my finished sketch.  My husband says he looks like a scruffy puppy, so I called this sketch "Scruffy". The original is 9 inches X 9 inches, graphite on 45lb paper.... yep another page in the same sketch book I used for the first sketch.  To preserve the integrity of my first sketch, I made a photo copy of that sketch and then traced it onto another page and then continued with the advanced lesson T05  Isaac from Drawspace.com.  He's cute - and looks like a dog somewhat, but certainly not like little Isaac in the lesson... And instead of bothering with color for this sketch, I think I'll move on to something different... maybe try Isaac some other time, after my skill set has been enhanced by other lessons.

Drawing A Dog

In Progress Sketch

The dog is from Drawspace lesson B08 - Seeing Shapes in a Photo of a Dog's Head.

This scan still isn't as clean as I would like (lots of black spots were removed in PSP that are NOT on my sketch).... Guess that means it's time to clean the scanner glass again. :(  Otherwise, I'm happy with this sketch - as far as it goes.  I plan to develop the subject a bit more and transfer the drawing to watercolor paper to add color.  Right now, it's just in my cheap sketchbook that I got from Office Depot.  The paper is 9 inches square, 45lb., acid free with a small amount of texture to it.  Very pleasant to work with - takes the eraser better than some of the more expensive papers? - Go figure. Sketch pad has brand name of FORAY on it - the capital letters are theirs, not mine. Paper is white but my scanner wanted to read it as grey.  I had to play with brighness and contrast to get the scan to resemble my sketch... and now it does - except the lines I drew aren't quite as dark as they appear on the scanned copy... and, of course, I may not have removed all the extraneous black spots.

Starr Fish - In Progress sketch

I'm fairly happy with this sketch... I see only one major mistake I made, on the right side of the starfish, there's a larger gap between the two arms than intended.  My own impatience and the lighness of my original outline of this subject are the cause there, and it's something I should keep in mind for the next time.

Note that water hasn't been applied to this sketch... yet... The coloration will change when I do that. I need to research how to produce a sandy-looking texture for my background before I add some water to change the colors of this drawing.  As with my turtle, I used water-soluable colored pencils, but intending this one to only be a practice exercise, I didn't transfer it to watercolor paper.

Also worth mentioning: The colored pencils  I use don't erase well, so correcting the error at this stage isn't possible.  If I had spotted it before I added the color, yes, I could have made the correction... which I should also note is a good reason to delay a bit before adding color and after I THINK the initial graphite sketch is correct.

Starr Fish - A Drawspace Lesson

Roses of Happiness

These roses were done from a Drawspace lesson, except, of course, I went for color instead of just graphite.

11X15 - Strathmore 140 lb cold press watercolor paper
Derwent Inktense water-soluable color pencils and about 2 months off and on of my time - first with an 8b graphite pencil on cheap paper and then the colored pencils on better paper.

Okay, I'll admit it. The framing and signature you see here were done digitally; although the original sketch does bear my real signature...  And I can see now that I didn't do such a great job of cleaning up this scan... but oh well. The original hangs in my livingroom, a gift to my beloved husband, and that original does look better than the scan.

Turtle Sketch

Like my previous sketch, this, too, is based partly on a Drawspace lesson and partly on a photo. Unfortunately, as with other source photos I've used, this, too, is no longer available online.

Two weeks - more or less - is what I've spent on this beast. To be fair, it wasn't two weeks straight though. I took a lot of breaks after doing very little, and spent a lot of time just that last night on it. I finished it May 18, 2008. The shadow - leaves a lot to be desired... and that's the best I can say for that part of the drawing. As for the rest, I'm satisfied that at my present knowledge and skill level (talent not included) I've done the best I could.

I used Derwent Inktense (water soluable) colored pencils on 140 pound cold pressed watercolor paper. And yep, I did use the water, although that's not strictly obligatory. The original is 9.5 inches high by 13 inches wide.

When my mother asked what I was doing, I mentioned drawing... and she said she wanted something I drew... so the original sketch is hers. But I decided long before I started, that I'd keep copies of all that I do.

Original Art

Like many others, my first exposure to art was during elementary school. While I was granted opportunities to experiment with different media during school hours, there was little or no encouragement at home and fewer opportunities at school as the years passed.

For a very long time, I've wanted to draw, but did nothing much about it. Four years ago, I found what is - to me - a marvelous website, Drawspace.com now full of over 200 different lessons on drawing and painting. The artist who created the site, Brenda Hoddinott, speaks to me through her art... so I began following some of her lessons and purchased her book, Drawing for Dummies in which the author/artist does not assume the reader has any previous knowledge of drawing... which is exactly what I needed.

All too often, my efforts prove unworthy of showing, but over the last several years, I have drawn and/or painted a few pieces that will be posted here. Comments are active and constructive criticism appreciated.

This is the sole picture I don't actually deem worthy of being here, but it's something to compare with my more current pieces to help see my progress.

Original sketch dated 11/04/2007, this is a blend of a Drawspace lesson on atmospheric perspective and some ideas (loosely) taken from a couple of photos of Mount Lassen, located in northern California; one taken from Kings Creek meadow, and the second one taken from the vicinity of Hat Creek. Unfortunately, my second source photo is no longer online.

I used a standard 2B pencil for the line drawing, several colors of Derwent Graphitint pencils for most of the shading, and a blue Faber Castell watercolor pencil for the stream. The paper is from the little sketch pad Derwent included with their pencil set, which is 80lb paper suitable for multiple media. Because the Derwent and Faber Castell pencils are water soluble, I could do a very similar drawing with the same pencils and get a very different look if I used them wet instead of dry, as you see here.

As you can tell, my result doesn't much resemble any of the source materials or anything remotely real either. I jokingly say it's nowhere on earth... but I'd really like to be able to be more realistic with my drawing.