Animal #4

30 Animals in January

6x6", watercolor pencils, from a Sktchy App photo.

Animal #3

30 Animal Paintings in January

The planes of this cat's face pleased me. Such an attitude! Is she annoyed or disgusted or just fed up? The blue background added a little serenity to this piece.

Done in watercolor pencils, 6x6", from a photo found on the Sktchy App.

Animal #2

30 Animal Paintings in January

The jazzy green background seems to energize this pup's portrait. I used loose is lines to express his energy and that wiry coat. The paper is 6x6".

Animal #2

I have a set of 12 Derwent Watercolors Pencils and 24 Staedtler Watercolor Crayons that I used interchangeably, though for the most part this was done with the pencils. His bright eye pleases me most. 

30 Animals In January 2018--Animal #1

Too long away from regularly painting, in January 2018 I decided to paint 30 Animal Paintings in a month. I needed to challenge myself because I would be teaching a class that involved painting animals and needed to warm up. I chose many animal photos from a wide variety of sources, including ones from a great app called Sktchy (it's an iOS app only at present), and from friends who allowed me to use their pet pictures. I decided not to force anything except the act of drawing/painting. I wanted these to be fun, exploratory, and playful.

Animal #1

This little guy is 6x6", done in a sketchpad I had on hand. I used some watercolor pencils, exploring them anew after not having touched them in years. I like his jaunty, relaxed look. A little cartoonish, I decided not to judge myself too harshly, but to enjoy what there was to like about it.

It was a good start to a month long challenge, with room for growth and a little bit of fun.

Musing on Drawing Portraits

I've been doing some drawings lately, focusing on eyes (pun intended) right now. It's a good exercise, examining the details of the eye, but it's in service to a greater goal. I'm enjoying life sized, detailed eyes, but extremely realistic drawing isn't really my goal.

A friend linked me to some pencil drawings that show every hair and pore, which honestly didn't appeal to me, as much as the skill was astounding, but it got me thinking about what kind of drawing I'd like to produce. What is my goal? I asked myself how I would like to draw. Could I find some samples of the sort of thing I'd like to do?

That set me on the trail looking for pencil portraits that I admire. Emulation is the sincerest form of flattery, you know. (Notice I didn't say imitation.) If a Google search on the topic is any indicator, those hair and pore portraits are most admired and in vogue, but I have something different in mind. It's a visual thought, and not one I can express very well at the moment, so I'm looking for things that bear a certain aspect that inspires me. Below I've placed a few examples that provoke my thoughts.

(By the way, you can do a right-click Google image search on any of these to find the source, if you happen to be using Chrome, as I am. They're all easily found.)

Raphael

Britta Noresten

Britta Noresten

Slmdanc3r

Let's start with Raphael. Whether this example is pencil, graphite, or silverpoint really matters little to me. I admire the soft shading and varied tones. The line work is in service to the values. There is such a delicacy to the touch, even in the boldest areas.

Both of the Britta Noresten portraits utilize value to make form. There's mark making in each, letting me know an artist's hand touched these.

And the last one, by an artist who only identified himself as Slmdanc3r, pleases me for all these same reasons. I notice he's added white into the mix. The background is what pleases me here, especially where he lets the arm merge into it.

All of the backgrounds interest me, for they're often the place where the hand of the artist shows most. From the face outward, there's a looser and looser touch. I like that. Yet the ground is not incidental or unconsidered.

After looking at these and analyzing things, I see that value, texture, mark making, and touch matter to me.

Artwork in April

Sometimes life just gets so full of mundane needs that it drives out creative time. Mine isn't entirely devoid of art, just thinly applied and sparsely done.

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First, here's a small painting I did one Saturday. It was fun to revisit this familiar scene of the mountains in my old hometown, Albuquerque. I can see that it's becoming a softer memory now, but that's how it has to be. We've been away for 20 months.

It was painted in my little 3.5" x 5.5" Moleskine, using gouache, of course.

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More typical of Amherst, NY, where I now live, is this gouache painting, done in my 5" x 7" sketchbook. During the first couple of months we lived here we walked at Amherst State Park. It was lush, late summer, with so much greenery and mysterious (to me) flowers layered on top of one another. I took a lot of photos, but this is the first one I've even tried to paint. I should do some more.

Sometimes you just have to splash around and see how it looks.

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I could use a bit more real practice with my gouache, but most of the time drawing wins since I don't have to monopolize our dining room table to do it. At Easter I made some illustrations of Psalm 23, using sheep an online acquaintance shows in his videos. (Enjoy the Shepherd - Ray Carman, on Facebook.)

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And recently I posted a video in my Facebook group called How to Draw Eyes - Structure by Proko. I decided to practice drawing eyes myself, since they are fun to do. In the 5" x 7" sketchbook using a 0.7 Bic mechanical pencil and my kneaded eraser.

I know eyes come in pairs, but it's easier to do one than both. All that matchy-matchy stuff is such a problem. (grin)

Oh, and if you want to be encouraged, check out our Facebook group, ENCOURAGING ART, and see if you want to join in. There are only a few of us there and we post art and ideas and share and encourage one another, without critiquing, unless someone wants it.

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I'll try to post a few things here from time to time, but there isn't a lot of art going on right now. God is good, and I know what I'm called to do is more important than painting. That satisfies me, but every once in a while it is really relaxing to just move paint or pencil around, you know?

Fresh Paint App Information

I've had some questions about this paint app I'm using, so I thought I'd try to explain a bit more about it. It's a free Windows App. Viewing it in the App Store a serious artist might ignore it since it looks like it's entirely for kids, but don't be fooled. It's actually pretty interesting to use.

I'm working on a touchscreen laptop in Windows 10, using my finger to paint on the monitor. Sometimes I use my mouse if I want a long straight line, or to get into tiny corners with a very small brush, when my own fingertip gets in the way.  But most of the time my finger is my brush.

A few details about the app:

Surfaces

You're given a choice of a custom canvas in various sizes, with the option of rotating it from landscape to portrait. 

Custom canvas selection palette

You're also able to choose to work on canvas or paper, using six different textural options in each one. 

Canvas/paper textural choices

I've played around with the brushes and found the look of the strokes is very different on different textured surfaces. Sometimes I want the heavily textured canvas look, sometimes the softer-edged paper, and sometimes a tighter edge achieved on slick paper. You can change textures in mid-painting, which gives you even more options. 

Different paper textures:
1.  rough textured canvas
2. middle-textured paper
3. smooth textured paper

Brushes

You have different kinds of media (watercolor- oil- drawing media), along with different kinds of brushes/pens/pencils. I use oil most of all. 

Oil brushes palette, largest brush, largest width selected

Oil brushes, using the largest width for each brush:
fan brush
filbert
flat
large round
small round

Watercolor brushes palette, smallest brush, largest width selected

Watercolor brush selection, using the largest width  for each one:
wide bright
fan
flat
large round
small round

(I haven't shown the drawing options, but you'll find different pencils, pen, oil pastels and soft pastels.)

All this is just to show you how many different options you have. It's quite a bit of fun to play around with all the brushes to see what they do, but if you're like me, it's the painting that's really the most fun of all. I'm not interested in funny brushes or effects brushes, or any other computer program style options, so for me the number of choices and sizes here is  optimal. It allows me to find and use what I need.

Okay, just to show you how much crazy fun you can have, here's an abstract that began as a demonstration of strokes and took off on its own! 

It's all just for fun and relaxation!