Class is done!

Today I had my last drawing class and now I am trying to figure out what to do with my one week break. 

This weeks seemed to be all about getting things done from my yearly doctor's visits (grateful to once again find out I am all healthy) to getting class projects finished. 

Now it's time to regroup! One thing I can tell you is that after working for months in shades of gray, I am craving color!! First on my agenda is to get my studio set up again so I can get working. During the hot summer months I had abandoned it because it is upstairs and it gets too warm for me, especially in the afternoons. It seems that our temperatures are going to stay in the 80's for a while. Could it be that fall is on it's way - even here?!? 

I still have more to tell you and am looking forward to having more time to blog and visit you all. I have missed my regular time in blogland and am grateful that you keep visiting me anyway!! 

Happy creating!!

Watercolor Finished!

Well, at least it's close enough to being finished that I can show it to you here. And once again I realize I am not a patient person... Actually, that was totally evident throughout this watercolor project which requires that you let layers dry before you work on or near them again. I had to actually walk away so I'd leave it alone. 

I thought this would be my least favorite projects of them all, but it turns out it was the one I enjoyed the most aside from the first charcoal drawing. This was definitely the most difficult of all the projects because with watercolor I really had to plan ahead as it is a most unforgiving medium (as I know from years of watching Daniel master it!).

The paper we used for this painting was Richeson Premium 300lb. cold press watercolor paper, and I used Winsor & Newton Winslor Blue and Burnt Sienna watercolor paints.

Tonight I am going back in to work on my graphite drawing some more and then on Thursday we have our final critique and are done with the class. I can hardly believe it!! It was so totally worth it!

I have much more to share with you, but that'll have to wait for another post. I hope you are all doing well and that all of you dealing with the floods up north are safe and sound!

Watercolor - WIP

Today in class, I had to finally put the first watercolor washes on this drawing/painting. I say "had to" because I am so cautious when it comes to those things where I could really mess up. There are some students in my class who jump right in and were painting with watercolor last class already. I admire that! 

I did my outline drawing first and then today I couldn't put it off any longer - I had to apply watercolor, sink or swim. And you know what? So far so good! I put down about three layers and am starting to see some nice values. I can already tell that I'm going to have fun working on some of the more detailed areas. Plus, I am amazed how different it is to paint with watercolor on really good paper rather than in our sketchbooks.

In other news, it looks like hurricane Irene is going to miss us here in Savannah and I really hope it won't make landfall at all. Then this afternoon, I heard that there was a pretty big earthquake in Virginia - I hope all of you are all alright in that area.

That said, I wish you all a peaceful Tuesday!

Playing with Watercolor

Daniel has been working in transparent watercolor for the last 20+ years and I've always admired his beautiful paintings. You can click here if you want to take a look for yourself.

Now I have to do a watercolor drawing and I'm trying to get a handle on how to use this rather difficult medium.

Many years ago, I took a two-day watercolor workshop Daniel was teaching in Oaxaca, but by now I've forgotten most of it. So, here I am again mixing colors and learning about transparency and such.

For this project we are to use a blue and a brown - doesn't matter which blue or brown.

With those two colors, we mix a neutral to work up a four-value drawing/painting and then add some of the blue and brown for color.

Last night I raided Daniel's watercolor stash and played with many different blues and browns.

Some of those combinations are just gorgeous! At this point I'm leaning toward Winsor Blue and Burnt Sienna (on the left, second from the bottom in the photo below), both from Winsor & Newton. They mix to become a beautiful neutral grey.

And here's the still life I put together. I was going to paint that vacuum tube radio that I drew for my graphite project, but I think it might be too detailed for me for watercolor.

I think this is going to be fun! We'll see...

Wishing you a beautiful Friday!!

My latest drawing

Well, my drawing is not yet done (now begins the fine tuning), but it's done enough to show you. Plus we are moving on to our watercolor drawing and most of us will continue to work on our graphite pieces on the side.

It's a slow going process, that's for sure, but also very satisfying. Now I have to push my values and as I do that, everything seems to be changing in other places. I could call it done, but I want to learn as much as I can while in this class and detailed drawings are one of my professor's specialties!

Already it's way beyond what I thought I could ever do, so I am beyond pleased! I'll be sure to show you how it changes over the next few weeks.

For the watercolor drawing I'll be using the same still life - that old radio and I have bonded... Tonight I'm going in to do a watercolor sketch of it before I make any marks on the "real" paper!

Wishing you a great evening and a good night!!

Old Typewriters, Radios and Toads

Good monday morning, everyone! I can't believe it's been almost a week since I last blogged. A week filled with drawing, reading, spending time with Daniel, going to the movies, the theater, dinner with friends and much more!

Now, Daniel's summer break is over and he's teaching again. And I am on to my next drawing project - a very detailed graphite drawing. At first I thought I wanted to draw parts of that great old typewriter in the picture above, but somehow the typewriter and I never really clicked...

So, when my professor brought this old vacuum tube radio, I knew that this was the still life for me!

I've already worked on this drawing for quite a few hours and there's so much more to do! Just look at all that detail and texture. This morning I'm going to spend some time sketching out the power chord with those four twisting wires. I have a feeling they might give me some trouble...

In other news, we've had some regular visitors in our yard.

Two toads who haven't taken up residence in the toad houses Daniel put in our backyard,

but in the flower pots we have next to our porch.

The little one hasn't been back in a few days (we figure he was a male that moved on), but the big toad in the schefflera plant seems to have made that her semi-permanent home. For some reason that makes us both quite happy...

I hope you are all doing well and I hope to visit your blogs again soon... Until then I wish you a wonderful week!!

And moving right along...

Sooooo, this project was completely different from the first one. We used different charcoal: Nitram Fine Art Charcoal vs. vine and pencil charcoal. And the paper (Roma Paper, made by Fabriano) had a beautiful laid surface and therefore lots of texture, which was both frustrating and really fun to work on.

Additive Charcoal Drawing
11 x 14 inch on Roma laid paper

Our professor had shown us (among other artists) the drawings of Georges Seurat, three of which I have uploaded here:

Charcoal drawing
Georges Seurat (1859 - 1891)

It really spoke to me how he left out most detail and concentrated on values and shapes. Sometimes you can't even tell what he was drawing until you step back and look at it from a distance. Then it makes perfect sense! (I can't believe he was only 31 when he died - what a mark he left on the world!)

Charcoal drawing
Georges Seurat (1859 - 1891)

So, that's what I tried to do with my drawing of the lamp above. Instead of focusing on details like in my previous drawing, I focused on values and shapes and allowed the charcoal and the paper to add their texture. As frustrated as I was with it in the beginning, I really liked it at the end.

Charcoal drawing
Georges Seurat (1859 - 1891)

And already we are on to the next project - a super detailed graphite drawing. My subject? An old rusty beautiful Underwood typewriter! I have the feeling that I'll be spending many, many hours in the classroom... 

I hope you are all doing well! Wishing you a beautiful and creative day!! 

Homework

First of all, thank you, thank you, thank you for your great comments on my last drawing for class. I appreciate you all so much!! My current drawing is proving more difficult and just a tad frustrating. I'm going in again in a little while to draw on it some more. It has to be done on Tuesday, so you'll see the result soon. I sure hope it improves between now and then...

These two photos are of the homework we have to do, which are value studies in watercolor of still life paintings done by the old masters. It's actually quite relaxing to do, although I've only done very few of them. By the end of class we'll need to have 25 total! I might want to get busy...

We print out or copy the image in black and white and then trace it onto the paper. Then we figure out where our whitest whites are and leave those white while we work on everything else with many layers of thin watercolor washes.

Part of this exercises is to get us used to watercolor as a medium - our last two projects are going to be done in watercolor, which will be so different from charcoal and pencil!

Can I just say that I am loving this class! At first I was a little worried about having to go in every night to draw (I am so not a night owl!), but that has turned out to be so much fun! I love listening to the younger students talk - they are in such a great place in their lives with everything still in front of them.

And then I realize that I am in a better place in my life still - I can just totally relax and enjoy this experience. And that's exactly what I'm doing...

Wishing you an excellent weekend! I'm off to get my hands dirty with charcoal once again...

Drawing Finished!

Subtractive Charcoal Drawing
on 22 x 30 inch Arches Cover Paper

I can't believe my drawing is finished!! And it looks beautiful, even if I say so myself. My very first charcoal drawing. All in all I spent probably about 35 hours on this - all of it quite enjoyable. You should have seen all the other students' drawings in the class - all of them fantastic!!

Today, I did the sketch for my next drawing. This time we'll be doing an additive charcoal drawing, which takes a bit more planning and is less forgiving. With the previous drawing, if you needed to correct something, you could just add more charcoal or erase and all was well. Not so with this next one. I'll let you know how it progresses - we only have one week for this one. Which means I'm going in to work on it a lot this week!

I know that updating my blog and visiting yours has taken a back seat this summer, and I am so happy you still visit and leave me comments. I hope you are having a great summer as well!!

Drawing Project - Work in Progress

I thought I'd show you a little detail of the drawing I am working on for class, which is the reason I've been so absent from blogland lately! I've been in the classroom every day drawing on this and I'm still not finished. 

At first, I was daunted by the fact that in order to get a really good drawing, I'd have to go into the classroom almost every evening, but it's turning out to be great fun. It feels like I'm in art camp. Our professor is there to help, we have great conversations and good music playing. And I am learning sooooo much!!

We also had good friends visit us over the weekend and got to do a little sightseeing and lots of good eating! It was hot and humid, but everyone still had a great time.  And Winslow loved having the house full with new friends, including a sweet eight-year-old girl Winslow was totally smitten with... and she with him!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!!

The Simple Joy of Observation

All the still lifes in this post are by Pieter Claesz (1596/97 - 1660)

I had a sort of epiphany yesterday as I was in the class room, getting messy with charcoal and working for two hours on my drawing, just sketching in the objects and blocking lights and darks. The two hours felt like five minutes and while I was working, the whole world sort of fell away.

There was no room in my mind for anything else - only looking and observing and translating that to my paper. The objects I was drawing (an old bar stool, paint cans, rope and an old car tire) ceased to be those objects and simply became shapes to draw. I never once considered how I liked them or how exciting they were, they just were and I was drawing them and getting lost in that process.

And for the first time I understood the allure of still life paintings. I had never quite gotten that, always standing in front of those paintings in museum and wondering why the artist would do something so boring. Why paint a wine glass? Or a tea pot? Or an apple?

I'm starting to understand that it's not about those objects (although many still lifes have special meanings to the painter), but more about the composition, the lighting and the overall harmony of the piece. And then it's about painting or drawing it.

All the still lifes here are by the Dutch painter Pieter Claesz. We are going to do watercolor value studies with pieces from the old masters to learn how they worked. I'll show you some of these once I do them.

For now, I don't have anything to show you yet from class, except me covered with charcoal, but unfortunately I was by myself and nobody there to take a picture...

My New Drawing Class

Drawing II is going to be amazing!! Very different from Drawing I, which I also loved, but that is good. I like to learn new things and I like to be challenged in different ways and this class is going to do it! 

My professor is John Rise (click here if you are interested in seeing his website). Daniel and I actually became friends with him and his wife when we all still lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  Never in a million years did I think I'd be taking a drawing class from him in Savannah!

The drawings you see on these Strathmore paper pads (and there are more) are all from his student from the same class I am taking. And this kind of quality is not the exception - impressive!!

We are going to be working on five projects: subtractive charcoal, additive charcoal, graphite, and two watercolor drawings. And we'll be working from the same huge still life John has constructed in the classroom. Some of you (I'm thinking of Anne and Elena particularly) would love it - it has all kinds of old, rusted, frayed things like lots of rope, old bicycle wheels, stools, old wooden trunks, window panes, fabric, wooden ladders, and much, much more!

For this first project, we had to do quite a few thumbnail sketches, decide on one, and then prep our paper with and soft pastel in an earth tone (I chose burnt sienna) and powdered charcoal to create a mid-tone value. To that we'll add the darker values and lift out the highlights.

I have a feeling that I'm going to be spending many hours in this classroom and I am looking forward to it all!!

Sketches

There's one component from my now past drawing class that I hadn't shown you yet - sketches from my sketchbook. As part of our homework, we had to turn in 20 sketches every week for 8 weeks.

160 sketches total!

Each one was supposed to be drawn with ink (no erasing) and not take longer than 30 seconds to one minute.

Some weeks I enjoyed it and others not so much,

but I could definitely tell that my sketches were getting better as the weeks went on.

One thing it is teaching me is to see the essence of what I want to draw in just a few seconds.

No details, just the feel of it.

And if it doesn't look right (like Ramses who looks like a fox in the sketch below), that's fine. There was no grade for this so it really gave us great freedom to just dive right in. 

Today I am practicing my art in the kitchen as I am planning to bake quite a few things to have on hand in the freezer. Two loaves of my favorite bread (click here to view a past post I did on it) are already in the oven.

Tonight, we'll have fresh bread with boursin cheese and ripe tomatoes from the garden for dinner. And a salad to go with it. It's one of my favorite summer meals...