Strange Little Girl cont.
January 29, 2011 7:39 am
Did some different treatments of Strange Little Girl. Not sure how I will do the final pastel but I’m leaning towards the first one. Will think it over why I work on something else for a spell.
Drawing
Strange Little Girl
January 28, 2011 3:36 pm
I have been working on this sketch on and off for a couple of years now. Think its finally to a point I’m happy with. I’ll do a few shaded treatments and if all goes well I will start on it as my next large pastel work sometime next week.
Maribelle and My Lazy Sundays cont.
January 27, 2011 4:16 pm
Maribelle and My Lazy Sundays
January 26, 2011 3:48 pm
Did some more work today on Maribelle. Like this one. Going to start shading it and see how it finishes out.
Mexican Angel Study
January 4, 2011 2:15 pm
Was adding this older sketch I did of my “Mexican Angel” painting to my portfolio and thought I’d throw up the image and some detail shots. It was one of the most fun drawings I have ever done. Its 48″ x 68″ graphite on paper. It flowed out effortlessly and has prompted me to do larger drawings more often.
First You Have to Learn to Draw Well
December 18, 2010 11:37 am
I was probably around 12 years old. One weekend while in K-Mart with my father we passed by the craft supplies. I was checking out a set of paints I really liked. I begged my father to buy them for me. My father said “If you want to paint well, first you have to learn to draw well” I was young and at the time thought of drawing as much less fun
than painting.
I probably had such fun memories of art classes in school where we would have the paints all out in those little plastic dishes. Such beautiful bright colors all at your disposal. We would have so much fun just recklessly applying them to large sheets of paper, getting paint all over the smocks we were forced to wear, the tables, and on our hands. Few school activities were more fun for me.
My father didn’t buy me the paint set I wanted that day. Instead he bought me a pencil set. A very nice one as I remember. Graphite pencils, colored pencils, pencils of different softness’s, big pencils, small pencils, sharpeners, erasers. A real deluxe set. I can say, I wasn’t very happy about not getting the paints but the pencil set was so nice I got over it pretty quickly and became very fond of those pencils.
My father, a talented artist who set aside his pursuit of arts for the honorable task of raising 3 children, knew more than a few things about art at that time. He told me that painting was just drawing with color and different materials. He told me that I should first learn the basics of drawing. He gave me simple drawing exercises. Shade a cube, shade it from different angles, shade cones, spheres, try blending, cross-hatching, 2 & 3 point perspective etc. At the time I didn’t see the value of these but I valued my fathers opinion and his art that I saw around the house, so I listened to him and did the exercises over and over.
As I grew older I heard phrases like “Drawing is the foundation for all art” As I explored other area’s of art I began to see the value of drawing and the principles which it taught me. I found Composition and lighting were essential tools in my exploration of photography, shape and mass were necessary concepts when I tried sculpting. I saw perspective in architecture, light color and composition in cinematography. I began to see the principles I learned in drawing everywhere.
Today I am very much in love with drawing. It is the starting point and foundation for all of my work. I realize I still have much to learn from it and many area’s in which I can improve my drawing and I work at it constantly. I can now see though, improvements in my ability to draw produce direct results in my ability to paint and I firmly believe “If you want to paint well, first you have to learn to draw well” I have my father to thank for this.
Drawings of Rembrant
December 5, 2010 4:07 pm
I can easily say one of the biggest influences on my passion for drawing was the time I spent in the library of the local community college pouring over the pages of these 2 books Drawings of Rembrant vols 1 & 2. I was fascinated by the skill that Rembrandt displayed in his drawings. I found in his drawings something I didn’t in his paintings. While I marveled at his paintings, his drawings were much looser, much more expressive, freer. His drawings showed an ability to express so much with just the right lines. Lines that seemed to flow effortlessly into each other. Studying these drawings was a catalyst for my own drawing, inspiring me to loosen up my sketching hand and becoming far more expressive than I had previously ever been.
A Pencil That Dances
November 27, 2010 12:23 pm
I probably tried my first woodless graphite pencil somewhere around 12 years ago. It had a very different feel in my hand than traditional pencils. It was pure graphite encased in a very thin plastic liner. The woodless pencil had a very smooth natural feel in my hand. It was also slightly heavier in weight. With no wood the usable tip of the pencil was exposed and more variety in stroke was also possible. They also came as soft as pencils come, 9B. I really liked them.
Over the years I have fallen in love with these pencils. I have learned that using a 9B with just the right pressure I can get the lightest or the darkest of strokes with 1 pencil. I have learned that the subtle difference in weight and the velvet like texture of the pencil make it my perfect dance partner. At times starting slowly and building to an intense feverish frenzy as we move across the paper like lovers across a ballroom floor. Other times just a gentle slow dance moving slowly to the soft sounds of Patti Page or Jane Russel. There are times we playfully hop and skip singing along, times we move along intently, times we tango and times we waltz. Tori Amos, George Winston, Miles Davis, African drums, techno and many others we dance to. My fondest moments are spent with these pencils hand in hand dancing late into the nights.
There are subtle differences between the few manufacturers that make these slim graphite beauties. Some use more of, or a different bonding agent in the graphite. Some are thicker, some lighter, some have a different plastic sheath. My favorites are usually softer, slightly thicker and heavier. The best I have used was the M. Grumbacher. In 2006 when the company was acquired by Chartpak they stopped making them. I was forced to use Creatacolor brand woodless pencils. They were thinner, not as soft and lighter. I was devastated. Shortly after I was able to obtain woodless graphite pencils made by Faber-Castel. They are my current favorites.
Make no mistake there is a high cost to pay for such beauty, they generally run around $2 a piece and I can run through them very fast. I have found buying them in bulk helps bring down the cost some. They also tend to wear and tear pencil sharpeners because of the plastic sheath. I have gone through quite a few. Most pencil modern sharpeners don’t work well with them. They are cheaply made. I currently use an older Boston electric. Its made sturdy.
Our dances and our love affair continues…
Agave – First Line Studies
November 20, 2010 4:56 pm
I think I first fell in love with and truly began to understand the beauty of line when I was younger and studied Matisse’s and Rembrandt’s drawings. I sat in the library of my local community college for hours on end and just poured over page after page of drawings by these two artists. Others as well but I think it was those two that best communicated to me the power of line in art.
I began to realize that the most subtle of differences in a line could greatly alter the appearance of a work of art. I learned that line weight could also be used to convey different things. I also learned the absence of line could be used as a tool in art. These concepts were further reinforced in my own work by drawing the same drawing over and over and studying the different ways they looked and understanding why they looked different by understanding the differences in their lines.
Most times, though not all, my work is very process orientated. I start with a fairly basic sketch while working with a model. After the model has left I draw those sketches over and over trying different things. There are pieces I have sketched literally hundreds of times before moving them to canvas or pastel. There have been times though when I do get a sketch I love first off. There are some that are drawn a hundred times and none making it as a final piece.
These are some of my first line studies for my newest work titled “Agave”. Nothing here I am wild about so I’ll keep doing line studies before I move on to things like tone, overall composition etc.
Majestic
November 10, 2010 3:22 pm
New sketch. Just trying to get warmed up again.
