11/21/11

Brown glass jar

Okay, almost two weeks since my last "daily" drawing...

11/8/11

Birthday cake pin

 

Acrylic on gessoed watercolor paper - I glued a pin to the back and wore it to work tonight.

11/6/11

Adjustments to "A"

 

I worked on this a little today, but the whole time, I felt an extremely physical urge to get away from it. I've made some major changes to the composition, taking away the artichoke, adding a red apple, removing the avocado from the bowl, putting acorns in the bowl (although I haven't painted them there yet,) and putting the ace of hearts where the acorns had been. Of course the paint is still wet from two days ago, so I was making these changes with lots of thick paint. I readjusted the shape of the amber bowl, too. I'm seeing lots of mistakes in the drawing, although I know that doesn't really matter. I'll work on it again on Tuesday. Fits and starts.

11/5/11

Metro sketches

Gregory and I took to Metro into DC today, and of course, I sketched. It's a habit I've had since college - can't ride on a train without drawing people! These are in my Sketchbook Project book, which is getting filled up.

11/4/11

First pass at "A" painting

Not a drawing, I know, I know, but it's what I worked on (for Hours) today, and I'm too tired to use my artist brain anymore. I haven't painted in quite awhile (excuses!), so today is kind of a muddy mess, but I'm posting it anyway, because hopefully I'll be able to redeem it tomorrow and Sunday. I changed the setup from the photograph I posted yesterday - I added apricots to the bowl, then took them away (too much the same color and value as the bowl). Then I put an avocado in the bowl (I'm planning on cutting it in half to expose the green flesh and the seed) and an artichoke and bunch of asparagus in the back right. Moved the anvil and arrowhead down. There is so much here that I felt kind of panicky for much of the day, but I'm fairly happy with the composition. I wish the African Violet was blooming. ...to be continued...

11/3/11

Acorns (drawn in my Sketchbook Project book)

I didn't spend any time arranging these acorns, I just sat down and drew them from the setup for my "A" painting, which I hope to start working on tomorrow. Below is a photo I took of the setup - I won't work from the photo (never!), but I use my camera to frame the composition and see if it works.

Setup for "A" painting

(everything in the still life starts with the letter A - it's an arbitrary rule, but fun.)
Oh, and I forgot - the amber bowl will have apricots in it, after I go to the store and buy them tomorrow...

11/2/11

Watercolor leaves

I admit to succumbing to laziness tonight: this is the drawing I did during my art lesson with Grace, my ten-year-old student who comes on Wednesday afternoons. We're exploring watercolor - a medium I have never been too comfortable with. But I did spend an hour on this, so I decided it would do as my daily drawing.

11/1/11

November self-portrait

Okay, I really haven't been keeping up with my drawing a day pledge, but I'm going to try again.

10/30/11

Little excavator

Today was a beautiful, cool, crisp fall day, and I took a walk over to the neighborhood street-widening, still underway. Sunday's a great day to visit. I found this little excavator, with its shovel resting on the ground. Drawn in my Sketchbook Project book.

10/23/11

Intersection of Braddock & Poplar Tree

 

Done in my Sketchbook Project book. I love poles and power lines, and the traffic lights. This is just down the street from all those big machines I've been drawing since the summer.

10/18/11

Oak leaf

Picked up on a walk around the neighborhood. Done in my Sketchbook Project book.

10/16/11

Off road dump truck

 

I walked over to the road-widening that has been underway near my house since the beginning of the summer. There are still plenty of interesting machines over there. I drew this in my Sketchbook Project book.

10/13/11

Underpainting for "Floodit" painting

OK, this is not a drawing. And I haven't been doing a drawing a day for awhile. But I have been looking at a lot of art online, most of it abstract. I have never worked abstractly, but am very attracted to it, and admire those who do. I've also been playing an online game called "Floodit", where you have to choose colors and try to turn the whole game board one color within 25 moves. I usually lose this game, and am left with a large field of one color with a few scattered squares of other colors here and there. I've been fascinated with the random aspect of this game, and sometimes the end result looks like a geometric abstract painting. So, both to break my non-working streak, and to dip my toe into abstract water, I have started to reproduce the game with paint. This is the first stage - a random pattern of six colors into a grid of 10 by 10 squares. (My husband actually made a random number generator in Excel to come up with the random pattern.) I mixed up a palette of six colors and dutifully painted them in to the squares. (I may redo the dark red, because I don't like it much, and it's too transparent.)

The next step, on another day, will be to play Floodit with this board - starting with one square, I'll choose an adjacent color and paint the beginning square that color. And so on, moving from color to adjacent color. Look up the game on line to get a feel for it, if you want. I have no idea if this will be successful, and I'm painfully aware that it's not a very creative thing to do. Maybe it will break the ice for me to do a little abstract work - please don't laugh at me, I'm taking baby steps.

10/4/11

Stuff on the shelf

Some of the objects that live on one of the shelves in my studio.

10/3/11

"A" painting set-up

This is the still life I've set up for my "A" painting (where everything in the painting starts with an A.) This is not the angle I'm planning on painting it from - I'm going to stand and look down on it - but I was sitting in my studio wondering what to draw, and I looked over and saw the still life from an unaccustomed angle. I've been living with the set-up for awhile, to see if it's right. It's actually not bad from this angle, but I still think I'll paint it from above. (Can you tell what's going to be in it? Let's see... African violet, anvil, arrowhead, antler, ace of hearts, ampersand, amber bowl, avocado seed... I still need something in the bowl...)

10/1/11

October self-portrait

 

The first of the month, self-portrait day. I'm getting pretty tired of looking at myself, which is why I look grumpy. I used colored pencil on Canson pastel paper - not a great choice, but I wanted to start from a middle tone.

9/30/11

Today's drawing is in the Sketchbook Project's sketchbook. It's a marina near Baltimore's Inner Harbor.

9/29/11

First sketchbook project page

OK, there will be overlap. Today I'm posting the drawing I did in my new Sketchbook Project book. Sometimes I'll do another drawing for this blog, and other times I'll just use what I draw in the Sketchbook. Here's my blog about The Sketchbook Project.

9/27/11

Deer antler

I've drawn this antler before, but I didn't have time tonight to think of something new. Even a few minutes of drawing is very relaxing.

9/26/11

Sabu

Sabu was lying in front of me, just like this, and gazing at me for a long time, before I suddenly realized I should draw him! I had to go to the studio to get my sketchbook and pencils, and I asked him very nicely to stay, because I wanted to draw him. He did stay, just like that, until I got resettled in my chair and was ready to start drawing... and then he left! So I drew this from memory. He is doing "The Famous Sabu Paw-Tuck", as we call it. I love the way his shoulders protrude forward. His name is pronounced "Sayboo", by the way...

9/25/11

Rascal

 

I donated a charcoal portrait (of a person or pet) to Alex's high school fundraiser's silent auction, and this is the winner's choice. He is a Vizsla, or Hungarian Pointer, a beautiful reddish-brown dog with a slim build and very short, glossy fur.

9/20/11

Little crackle vase

 

This is a very pretty little blue and white crackle-glazed vase. I have no idea where it came from, I just had it among my still life stuff.

9/18/11

Cut up ATM card

I cut up this expired ATM card - instead of just cutting it in half, I made a bunch of random half cuts and folded it up. It was very sculptural, so I turned it different ways to draw it.

9/13/11

Malkie

 

It got late, and Malcolm was in the chair right next to me, as usual. He stayed pretty still, but ...

9/12/11

Cauliflower

 

Cauliflowers look like cumulus clouds to me, and vice-versa. The cauliflower stays fairly still, however.

9/11/11

Pile of sticks

This pile of sticks is on our deck, waiting to be tied into bundles for use as kindling this winter. It is the result of trimming and pruning trees and bushes in our yard. Most of it is cherry, and will make for good fireplace fires. This would have been a much more developed drawing, but I was being eaten alive by mosquitoes.

9/10/11

Bananas

I think these bananas were ripening before my eyes, I swear I was seeing more spots on them the longer I drew!

9/9/11

Large tape dispenser - charcoal on toned white paper

Well, every New Year's resolution has to get blown at some point... but I will try to do my daily drawings from now on...

9/5/11

September self-portrait, reworked

I wasn't all that happy with my last self-portrait - I thought the nose was too long. So I erased and shortened it, then I moved the mouth up. Something was still wrong, and I decided that I had placed the nearer eye too high and too far out. So I erased and moved it, too. Very dark pencil is hard to erase completely, and I didn't want it to look overworked. I think it is improved, not perfect, but I decided to stop. I'm going to use it as my profile picture until I do a better one.

I've been really inspired this week by looking at my new FB friend Carol Heft's drawings, and it made me want to draw more, and not be afraid to erase and change.

9/1/11

September self-portrait

The first of the month, self-portrait day, whether I like it or not! I used a mirror that hangs on the wall by my front door - the lighting was interesting. But I had to draw standing up, holding a heavy sketchbook, and so my aim was to do a Very quick drawing. Just for fun, I started at the very center - the bridge of the nose, and did the farther away eye first. Then down the nose, up to the near eye, top of the head, the ear, and mouth (which there is always something funny about.) I've always enjoyed drawing my glasses bisecting my eyes and causing distortions on my far cheek.

8/31/11

 Quimby

I made Quimby today while my student, Grace, was here for her lesson. Today we finished the whistles we made last week. I told her to turn her whistle around in her hands until she saw how it should be turned to become a creature. She decided to do her whistle upside-down, and so did I. Mine is Quimby, a turtle-like alien with wings. In the top photo, where I am holding it, you can see the whistle is underneath. Below is a photo of Grace's creature, a "Quadrapus". I love the little hat! Grace is going into the 5th grade, and I love her artwork!

Grace's Quadrapus

8/30/11

Corbin

This is another type of clay whistle creature, a pet for Hubert and Judith. He is sort of like a dog, sort of like an elephant. He's very friendly.

8/29/11

Tonight I made another clay whistle, Judith, a companion for Hubert. I've taken a few pictures so you can see their relative sizes. As you can see, there is a lot of individual variation within their species. Judith is darker because she is still wet. Her tone is much higher, because her body is much smaller.

8/28/11

Clay whistle

I know this isn't a drawing, but I spent a couple of hours making it, so I'm posting it instead of a drawing. I've become really interested in clay whistles, since I taught my private student to make one. You make two small pinch pots and join them together so you have a hollow ball. Then you make a mouthpiece by forming clay around a popsicle stick and then pulling out the stick. You make a hole in the ball, and shape one side of the hole into a wedge shape. You join the mouthpiece into the hole at an angle, so that the air blown through it will split when it hits the wedge. If you join it at the right angle, it produces a tone. I made this ball oblong instead of round, and added features and limbs to make a creature that sings when you blow in its mouth.

8/26/11

Alex

I don't think this is a very good drawing, but it's what I did today, so here it is. Alex wanted to pose for me, so I had to draw him. He is really good at posing, must be the actor in him.

8/24/11

Malkie and Dusty nap

I haven't drawn for a couple of days, so the best way to get back into it is with the kitties. Notice how hairy Dusty's paws are.

8/21/11

 Portrait of Alex

Alex posing for me

This was a pretty casual drawing - I didn't do any measuring at all. I thought I made his head too small and his leg too large, but when you look at him in the bottom picture, I think you'll see that at age 16, Alex is all arms and legs.

8/20/11

Dusty in the rocking chair

This is the best chair for TV watching in our house, so of course the cats love it.

8/17/11

Cow creamer

Another view of the cow creamer. I was so close to it that I had to draw it with one eye closed. Otherwise I would see a little more of each side, depending on which eye was dominant. (I think I am slightly like a Chameleon, able to move my eyes independently, and look with one or the other.)