The purpose of a sketch a day is just to do it - sketch! It doesn't matter if it is an involved sketch or if it is a simple contour or gesture drawing. There are no rules except to sketch each day.

Life parameters can dictate the time investment, but a sketch a day commitment is designed to elevate the personal priority of sketching ... to enforce sketching. Making it into a "resolution" validates the activity (invests it with a bit of a challenge even!) and defends against competing demands. The sketch a day is designed for practice - to reinforce basic skills, and to provide daily contemplation on the issues of two dimensional representation.

Several of us are doing a sketch a day, and I would enjoy hearing from anyone else who decides to join in. We share our efforts, support each other, keep each other honest and... hopefully we'll have some fun doing this!

Click on any of the sketches to enlarge...
and don't forget to check out older posts!

Sunday, June 19, 2011

June 18, 2011

    I 1) didn't feel like drawing today, and 2) felt like trying some color, but not high effort color. We had just been to the farmers' market, so I had three bunches of beets (among many other things) and decided to try one of the beet bunches in crayon.          
    Some people do wonderful things with plain children's crayons, but the one time I'd cracked this box before, I hadn't liked them at all. Not the child-like delight I'd anticipated! So... I gave them a second try, and . . .  I still didn't like them! 
    At the risk of sounding inane, they were too waxy. Not in a reasonable, can-be-burnished waxy kind of way, but in a too-soft, won't-hold-a-point at all and builds-up-On the "hills" of the paper (is there a technical name for those?) and can't be pressed into the "valleys" kind of way... in a can't-be-layered because it won't stick kind of way and sometimes a pushes-around-instead-of-adhering kind of way. Some of the colors were all wax and almost no pigment, and since the color selection in the box obviously hadn't been chosen for artist use, one needed to be able to layer. Wait! I checked the brand again, and it's some off-brand called Color Zone. I guess I picked them up impulsively, thinking I'd give them a try... at least they aren't Rose Art!
    I felt these beets were pretty awful, but then again I had picked a handicapping medium so maybe I just wanted permission or an excuse for turning out something awful! I played around with these (below), and although they seem to give some interesting effects, their (in)abilities make it doubtful they'd be worth the effort to memorise which ones layer okay over which other ones, and so on. I would, however, think it would be worth-while to try out some good old Crayolas instead... they might work much better!
      You can clearly see in the scribbles above that some colors would go over certain others, and some were horrible hosts. The only thing that promised any degree of control was to use pencil (pen wouldn't work) to actually incise into the wax as well as lay down graphite. It would not allow for shading - apart from hatching - however.
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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousJune 20, 2011 at 6:51 AM

    I've been very disappointed with modern Crayolas, too, the same too waxy, not enough pigment beef. Would think it was my imagination except that I unearthed a stash of probably 25 year old Crayolas and they are much better. If you don't mind 2" stumps with no identifying paper, that is.

    So, officially an old crank here, things (crayons) have gone to hell in a handbasket.

    cp

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  2. Amy MannJune 20, 2011 at 10:18 AM

    Crayons are not good, although you did get some interesting effects in your second experiments. Try oil pastels, you can get some very cheap ones at Michael's. You need to use a smooth paper for those as well, but at least there is more pigment, and the binder isn't waxy, but oily. Worth a try.

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