September 30, 2011

     This demands a little explanation! I showed my son a photo where I practically laid on my stomach to take some mushrooms from a low perspective. The tree trunks in the background made an emphatic, dramatic contrast. I commented it was an example of a photo where it was best it be a photo - it would not make a good drawing. He said "Well, if you reversed it so there were big mushrooms in the background and tiny trees in the front it might be interesting."
     That was the original intent of the three mushrooms I drew on September 27, but the idea of filling in between them with more distant, fuzzier mushrooms wasn't quite going the right way. My son wanted me to try it in more of a landscape format. 
     This is somewhat of a story board type trial of the big-mushroom-tiny-trees landscape. It's okay... but not quite up to the imagined concept. For one thing, it needs at least one more out-of-scale thing... and it kind of begs for some creature, doesn't it?

September 29, 2011

    This is one of the first beautiful maple leaves of the Fall. I picked this up in the park today and drew it with colored pencils.

September 28, 2011

    This is a drawing of one of my dogs (a female mountain cur) curled up sleeping.

September 27, 2011

     I drew three mushrooms, using the 2B. We have been having a Great Deal of rain lately, and when it hasn't been raining or at least spitting, it also has not been really sunny enough to dry things up completely. The result is a truly bumper crop of mushrooms. They are like the flowers of this season - after many of the seed flowers and before the autumn leaves take on flower colors. They dot the forest floor with yellows, reds, whites, a few velvety purples, many ochres...

September 26, 2011

     I needed to do a much faster sketch tonight so I decided to draw a black beetle using black ink. Because of it's darkness it becomes a silhouette.

September 25, 2011

    I found a stick covered in pleasant ochre and yellow lichen while poking through a huge stick pile with my nephew looking for pirate treasure. We found the box (er, chest) we were searching for and this stick, too... nice! I used both the 2B and 4B on this.

September 24, 2011

    This is a purple onion I've been saving to draw ever since it began to sprout in the vegetable drawer. I used a 4B the whole way.

September 23, 2011

     For today's drawing I chose to finish the oak leaves and acorn drawing. Since my original leaf cluster had dried out, and the leaves were curling differently, I got fresh leaves and held them up as substitutes to try to see how the shadows would have been laying on the original leaves in those cases where the originals had already been blocked in so I couldn't just completely change them. I also needed to see how they would have thrown shadows.

September 22, 2001

    This is a cicada exoskeleton. There is a split in the back which I elected not to show, since in order to get a side view the slit would have been simply a line down the back. This drawing is very small - about three and a half inches square.

September 21, 2011

    Well, I knew I should have abandoned this start - and my one consolation is that I was right! I worked on it a bit more, and the main positive thing I got out of it was practice experimenting with things that are soft and out of focus. Still, I could tell that no matter what I did to it I wasn't ever going to like it (the true definition of a bad start) so I decided to use it to experiment with oil pastels since I found a box in the basement and I haven't used them before. 
     That was also a bad move, since I discovered that a single mark with even a very pale yellow oil pastel could pick up graphite from a very lightly shaded area and turn it into a black mark! See the bright yellow half way up on the right with the black slash under it? That black slash is actually bright yellow on very pale shading... Ooo! Just what I was looking for! Random black marks! So - I took the oil pastels and squiggled here and there just to see how far I had to stay from the shading to avoid picking some up, how little it took, what happens if I went from clear areas into shaded areas, and so on. I even took a very pale yellow and moved it around some in the shading along the right edge to see if I could wring some effect out of the combination that might be useful in any way. It doesn't seem likely. 
     So - I learned not to use graphite to sketch when I expect to follow with oil pastels, and to listen to myself when I suspect I should just abandon a bad start to the wretched place all bad starts go...

September 20, 2011

    This is a single stem of a Cadillac rose. No carefully blended shading - just about four levels of shading, the way it might be done in an illustration.

September 19, 2011

    This simple line drawing is of a cluster of mushrooms. Although they are all the same type, their different ages gives them different forms and textures. I started way too late on a day that was way too busy. I may decide to do more on this or I may abandon it... if I abandon it I'll probably try the subject again since I do love being up very close on small things. 
 

September 18, 2011

    While I was drawing the magnolia pod I was thinking about the way the pod is formed to protect the beans until they are ripe enough to be released to the earth. The cupping segments reminded me of hands clasped protectively around the beautiful beans - which, after all, really are the next generation of magnolias. I decided to do another magnolia pod drawing, emphasizing that relationship rather than what a pod looks like... although it still looks like a magnolia pod... erm, in a way. 
    By the way, the bean/baby that has been released is dangling by a cord, and the actual magnolia beans really are fastened to the pods by fine white silken lines which sometimes remain attached to dangling beans. 
    Click to enlarge the drawing and check out the faces! The dangling bean baby's face is hidden from us, but the baby looking at him is the only one with open eyes, and is looking surprised - like we would all feel if we could see our future. 

September 17, 2011

     This magnolia pod ended up going through stages... At first, I drew this with 2B and 4B mechanical pencils. As I was drawing I kept thinking what a shame it was not to color in those wonderful red beans, but unfortunately the graphite would smear and dull the colors of just about any other medium I used. 
     I ended up coloring in the beans with colored pencils, but when I tried barely touching in some of the rest of the colors the graphite interfered and muddied the color while the colors smudged the graphite. Disagreeable. 
     The rest of the pod is all very softly colored, so I ended up touching in the rest of the body with very thin water colors so the graphite drawing showed through, but then having to go back in with graphite to touch up where even that thin application frosted over and obscured the details. 

September 16, 2011

     I picked up this twig with attached acorn and leaves and drew it until I was heartily ready for a change. I am likely to revisit it, but intend to first draw a magnolia seed pod I picked up at the same time - for the  change!

September 15, 2011

    This is a milkweed pod - I guess I'm on a seed series! It's Fall, after all, and this is when plants are getting their next generation out there in case they don't make it through the coming winter.

September 14, 2011

    I added three more seed types. You can see the bottom of the beech pod at the top, so counter clockwise from the left but skipping the beech, there is a button bush seed ball broken in half (with two seeds loose), three sections of a broken open marsh hibiscus pod, and a bitter melon seed, drawn somewhat larger than it would be compared to the others. 
     Again, I used only the 4B for the graphite and used touches of black liquid ink pen. The combined seed drawing looks like this now: 

September 13, 2011

    My kitchen window sill has a double row of treasures lined up along it:  Tiny shells, a couple of feathers, small stones and dried seed pods. These three seed pods, to be exact. Clockwise from the left, they are an empty day lily pod, an unknown pod that's still closed and a beech nut pod with the two tricorn beech nuts still in the centre. 
    This is a really tiny drawing, done on half of a sheet of an 8.5" x 5.5" sketch pad. The plan is to do some of the other things on the window sill on the other half so I have six or seven "natural treasures" depicted on the same sheet. 
    I used number 4B lead in a mechanical pencil, and a black liquid ink pen to partially hit the outlines and dark spots here and there. The interesting thing was how much of the ink sank into the paper where there was already graphite; more than sank into the paper where it was unmarked. Perhaps the graphite didn't coat the paper quite as much as it roughed up the surface.

September 12, 2011

    I was extremely tired by this evening, so I did a pen contour of an oblong resin (intended to look like ivory I think) pot belonging to my son.

September 11, 2011

    I've been at my parents' home since yesterday and this is a hand turned and hand embellished cut-away pot they have on their mantel. I spent almost as much time getting an image of the drawing as I did doing it... and it was alot more trouble! People who never use a computer to handle images may only have the very first version of paint, and it didn't seem to think there would ever be a need to crop... just for example! 
    I've managed to put a wierd twist on the top of this pot, which I assure you is not really there, but to heck with it! On to the next one!

September 10, 2011

    I filled in the left side of the creek scene a bit, although not completely. Perhaps I should have done that and erased some of the worked area on the left so there was some white left there too... I simply worked right up to the edge on the right and then allowed the plain paper to weave in and out on the left (partly due to the spiral pad spine), but which I liked better since it echoes the creek shape. 
   I also added a tiny muskrat way at the bottom. I cannot say why I put him right in front of the vertical log when I should have put him off to the left one body width... hind sight. 
    While I was touching up, I also tried having the dragon fly and the mushroom's tongue cast some shadow on the mushroom in the "dangerous mushroom" drawing, but I don't think it added as much as I had thought it might. I also added the bit of forest floor I mentioned thinking it needed. 

September 9, 2011

    I hadn't done a landscape in awhile, so I did a view up a creek at the Prince William Forest Park. I notice I could/should have done a bit more along the left edge to make the placement a bit less odd... I was reacting to the spiral along the spine being uncomfortable on my hand. Perhaps I'll address the issue tomorrow...

September 8, 2011

     Well, why not? Following the request of my son and sister, I've "fixed" the problem with yesterday's drawing by giving the mushroom a tongue so it is capturing the dragon fly. I toyed with the idea of adding the stem of a larger mushroom of the same variety in the space to the right, for the drama of the implication:  "...and they come larger, too".
     I decided against it for now based on, hmmm, laziness maybe. I should fill in a bit more forest floor duff there in that case...

September 7, 2011

    Argh... well, a screw up - but I spent my sketch time on it, so posted it will be! I started off with a dragonfly I liked fine, done from a photo from the nearby park, then decided to have it sitting on a mushroom from a photo from another park - not entirely unlikely although mushrooms aren't quite the sunshine plant dragonflies usually choose. 
    The problem came in when I failed to Think about how dragonflies land on things. It seems pretty obvious now, but while it had it's feet on opposite sides of the original twig, it wouldn't do that on a thick round object like a mushroom! It wouldn't land on the side without facing the surface, either. Darn. I started to put a smaller mushroom in front, which would have stunk, before I decided to quit for tonight and reconsider whether I can fix it, should abandon it, or whatever... My son says to turn the small mushroom erasure mark into a mouth and have the mushroom about to gulp the dragonfly. Considering the hostility I feel toward the drawing at the moment it's tempting!
   

September 6, 2011

    Four (one opened) persimmons on a plate. Persimmons are another native fruit. They leave the inside of your mouth furry feeling until after the first frost, and I don't know if freezing them has the same de-fuzzi-feeling effect. They are usually used in preserves and cooked foods since they're mushy by the time they've frozen, but they are sweet and rich eaten raw. I'm going to try to sprout these.

September 5, 2011

    Here is an ear of corn from the Farmers' Market. I drew it with a number 2B mechanical pencil. 
    Most of the corn is perfect; beautiful and sweet but more interesting to eat than to draw... 

September 4, 2011

    This is an ear of corn from the Farmers' Market. Here, I drew parts of it with a sharp outline which gives it a more commercial feel, rather like the way art nouveau posters used to do things - usually ladies and grapes and so on, not corn, but hey...

September 3, 2011

    First I had been running a day behind on my sketches, then I didn't get in early enough (and with enough vim) to post, and then I got on to post last night and just then we lost the inter-net connection! 
    Perhaps it wasn't meant to be... but apparently it's okay today (in every way) so here is a pair of quickly done peppers from the Farmers' Market. 
    Still with a 2B mechanical pencil, these were done with almost no erasing and with a much faster, deliberately coarser shading. I wasn't timing or carefully staying conscious of the no erasures "rule" so it wasn't a rule per se, but this is pretty much as it's first laid down, and laid down rapidly.

September 2, 2011

     There was a period of time when I was fascinated by repouse cuff bracelets... the older ones. To keep them straight I stack them on the necks of a few tall bottles, so I used ink to draw two of them. 
     I never stack any on top of the silver fish clamp cuff shown on top here. It was a gift from my father to my mother... or so the story went for Years.
     One night my mother was telling my daughter and I about it - uncharacteristically imbuing the story with a bit of a romantic air - when my father became puzzled and couldn't remember buying it or giving it to her! In indignation (and to my daughter's delight) my sparky little mom decided to change the story on the spot and declare that in that case it must have been a gift from an earlier boyfriend. Ouch! 

September 1, 2011

    This started out as an exercise in speed - I was going to see how far I got in fifteen minutes, with no measurement (I often don't measure... I guess I'm lazy that way) and no erasing (I often erase the consequent mistakes I make as well as erasing for texture). I was using a light (HB) woodless graphite... I'm not sure why... 
     I really felt I was almost done, with five minutes to go, when the dogs had to go for a walk... urgently. I was optimistic that another five minutes would do it, and I would have done a respectable sketch within fifteen minutes; not a "highly finished" drawing, but a sketch, and it would be done.
    When I got back I forgot to watch the time closely so I believe this took closer to twenty five minutes in total time. The last ten minutes were really just doing things like adding details and darkening shadows. In other words, I could have called it "done" in fifteen minutes, but the last ten minutes finished it up. All in all, it was still a practice in drawing quickly, although a different type of practice than doing gesture drawings. 

August 31, 2011

    This is a whole paw-paw and a half of a paw paw with the seeds showing. There were two rows of seeds in this one, but I don't remember if there generally are. This one was extra large - over four inches long, over 2.25 inches wide and over seven ounces. That's big for a paw-paw or "custard apple". They grow wild in Virginia and elsewhere along the east coast and are just getting ripe and falling from the trees. They taste a bit like a mango but with a little touch of something else - persimmon? I believe they are what is known as "an acquired taste" but we had these with ice cream tonight and I'll make a milk, egg and cinnamon custard with some tomorrow. 
     You have to click on this one - even doing it twice helps - to blow it up to see what's going on with the shadow near the end of the left paw-paw. I have an unfortunate alignment of the shadow on the fruit and the shadow under the fruit... It's the kind of thing I somehow see so much better after I've scanned and posted a sketch. I can probably fix this one, but it's instructive to note (once again) just how much it helps to see something in a different way.

August 30, 2011

    Here is the drawing of Patch, finished. I'm rather pleased with this one, and it's nice to feel pleased... a very rewarding feeling, it turns out. I still see things I'd tweak, but I think I'd tweak things forever if I didn't have to post... so probably it's a good thing to have to draw the line! (Hmm... another pun?)