February « 2009 « Jeff’s Blog

Archive for February, 2009

Eggs Revisited

Friday, February 27th, 2009

I don’t know what it is about food-related subjects, but I seem to have an obsession with them. Here’s another rendition of the eggs I sketched in pen & ink last week. I think this one came out quite a bit nicer.

Ever since I got my watercolor kit, I’ve been disappointed by the quality of the color — they just don’t seem as vibrant as I want them to be. I’ve been wondering if that is because (a) they are dried pan colors, (b) they are student-grade paints (the Cotman line from Winsor & Newton), (c) I don’t know what I’m doing, or (d) all of the above. So I decided I would try artist-grade watercolor from a tube.

Because artist-grade watercolors are not cheap, and because I didn’t know how much of my problem was related to the paint, I didn’t want to break the bank on a whole pallet full of new colors. One tube would be enough to experiment with.

I chose lamp black. Yeah, yeah, I know… you aren’t supposed to use black from a tube. But it was a color that I didn’t already have in my pallet, and it seemed like a good color to play with while I decide whether I’m going to splurge on some “real” colors.

Here’s what I found:

First, while it is true that I don’t quite know what I’m doing, it turns out that the consistency of paint from a tube is very different from the consistency of reconstituted pan paint. Again, this might be due to the difference in artist-grade paint vs. student-grade paint; but the difference is akin to the difference between basketballs and bellybuttons.

Second, the paint from the tube is vibrant. It is easy to get good variations from the lightest light to darkest dark. I’ve never had this kind of positive experience with my pan paints.

Third, even though it seems like you are spending a fortune on paint ($7 for a tiny 5ml tube), you use a surprisingly small amount of paint. This egg painting is 5.5 x 8.5 inches, and the amount of paint I used would fit comfortably on the head of a roofing nail.

As excited as I am about what I’ve learned from this little experiment, I won’t be racing out to replace all my paints just yet. Now that I’ve seen what the consistency of my paint should be like, I’ve got a lot more experimenting to do to see if I can get that same consistency out of my pans (if you’ve got any tips, post ‘em in the comments).

Posted in Food, Watercolor | 15 Comments »

A Taste of the Islands

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009

What better way to beat the cold than to “Think Warm”? In this case, I’m thinking Jamaica, mon.

I gave myself a couple of days off. I desperately needed the break. Tonight’s effort was not exactly a triumphant comeback (it is almost bedtime after all), but I kinda like it.

I was thinking about adding a pen-and-ink outline; but given the amount of color, I think it may actually distract. I just wish I could get a little more contrast out of my watercolors. I wonder how much of this has to do with using the back side of the watercolor paper (yes, I know I’m being a cheapskate!)?

Media: Cotman watercolors and B pencil.

Posted in Food, Watercolor | 1 Comment »

Just When I Was Feeling Good About My Progress

Sunday, February 22nd, 2009

I thought my sketching was coming along nicely. I was gaining some confidence. I was thinking, Hey, this is getting easier all the time! And then TODAY happened.

I’ve been a fan of racing for a long time. Cars, trucks, boats, motorcycles, lawnmowers… you name it. If it’s got an engine, I’ll watch to see who can drive it fastest. And I marvel at the artists who capture these vehicles on paper. So I thought I’d try to capture one of my favorite stock cars. I thought it would be fun to get out my new colored pencils and try them out.

About halfway through it though, I realized that I really didn’t like how the drawing was progressing. Frustrated, I decided to put away the colored pencils and go back to basics: black and white. Without color to worry about, I reasoned, I can just focus on getting the lines and the shading right.

Less complexity… should be easier to get something decent, right? Well, not tonight.

I closed up the sketchbook and went off to surf the web. Of course, I wound up looking at the work of some brilliant sketch artists online, and that only served to create further angst about my bad sketch day.

I didn’t want to go to bed without having created something that I could be happy about. And I decided that maybe today was just not a good day to draw from a photograph. I should draw something from life. I usually have more success with drawing from life anyway.

I’ve been thinking about draw our spinning cycle for a while, and tonight seemed like the perfect night to tackle it. It’s a simple shape, really… just a couple of straight, flat bars connected at an oblique angle, and a big circle at the bottom. Well, wouldn’t you know that I couldn’t even get the bars to cross straight?!

I used to run. A lot. And one thing you learn when you run that much is that running every day is actually counterproductive. The rest days are as important as the running days. I’ve been on a ‘draw every day’ kick recently, and I’m beginning to wonder if a rest day might be helpful.

On the other hand, I certainly see the merit of periods of quantity over quality. The act of pushing through the days when you’re just not at your best; the days when all you can think of is, “who am I kidding? I’m no artist”; the days when you consider chucking it all and returning to the couch to watch reruns of The Office because at least you can’t fail at that… that’s got to have some merit, right?

I considered not posting these sketches. I am honestly embarrassed to show them in public. And yet, they are what they are. A reflection of a less than perfect day. We all have days like this — at least, I hope I’m not the only one. And I want this blog to reflect the reality of what I’m learning.

I know that I’m going to have ups and downs. If I don’t share the downs, I believe it will somehow diminish the triumph of the ups. So I post even the things that don’t work out quite the way I’d like them to.

Posted in Colored Pencil, Graphite, Planes, Trains and Automobiles | 3 Comments »

Coats

Friday, February 20th, 2009

Winter isn’t done yet — we’re supposed to get a bunch of snow overnight. I’ll be glad when we can stop opening this closet every day.

Posted in Everyday Matters, Ink, Watercolor | No Comments »

Just Playing With My New Toys

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

My parents sent me a gift certificate to the Dick Blick art supply store, so today I went shopping. I went there with the intention of buying a set of good colored pencils and few black permanent markers in varying thicknesses (including a brush tip, which I’ve never used before).

As I perused the aisles lusting after much of what I saw, I came across a Niji waterbrush. I’ve read several blogs that espouse the wonderfulness of these things, so I grabbed one. I wasn’t sure how well I would like it, but I figured for six bucks, how wrong could I go?

Promptly after I finished my shopping, someone in my stomach decided to stage a minor uprising — no doubt in protest over being fed a spicy burrito instead of a salad. I was certain that I wouldn’t have a chance to play with my new toys. But no matter how badly I feel, I couldn’t resist spending even just a few minutes playing.

This is my entry for Everyday Matters Challenge #39 — Draw your toothbrush. I’m beginning to notice a preponderance of mouth-related subjects recently; I wonder if I should speak to someone about that.

Since I’m not feeling 100%, I didn’t spend much time at all on this. The perspective is way off, the line is sketchy and weak, the colors are wildly inaccurate; but that wasn’t the point tonight. Tonight was all about playing with my brush-tipped marker and my waterbrush.

I’m not sure how I feel about the brush-tipped marker yet. Since I wasn’t fully engaged in the drawing process, I probably shouldn’t rush to judgment on the merits of this new tool.

However, I am absolutely in love with the waterbrush. I know my work has not been particularly colorful up to this point. That’s in large part due to me just not being able to work quickly with my watercolor set. This little wonder is a plastic miracle. There will still be a lot of black & white work coming from me (the foundation of a good painting is a good drawing, and I still need to develop the basics), but I guarantee you will be seeing a lot more color work in the near future.

The colored pencils are still in their tin. They require sharpening before I can use them, and that seems like entirely too much work at the moment. Maybe tomorrow night I’ll feel a little more energetic and will be able to do something with them.

Posted in Everyday Matters, Watercolor | 7 Comments »

Midnight Snack

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

Cookies would have been better. But at least this was healthy. And since it was a piece of fruit, it qualifies as my entry for Everyday Matters Challenge #24.

Posted in Everyday Matters, Graphite | No Comments »

Lunch with a Red-head

Tuesday, February 17th, 2009

For the second time in just over a week, having my sketchbook with me at lunchtime paid off. If I had left it at home, I doubt very much that I would have seeked out paper and pencil. But, since I had the stuff with me and a few extra minutes at my disposal, it worked out.

I’ve mentioned my aversion to lettering in the past. And as I started to draw this, my first thoughts were, “how can I fake the sign?” And then I almost immediately forgot all about that, and the next thing I knew, I had the whole thing sketched out; and not too badly if I do say so.

In fact, the signage and the roof are my favorite parts of this sketch. They aren’t perfect, but for what this is–a small post-lunch sketch–I’m quite happy with them. If I had to guess why, I would point to 3 things:

Practice: I’ve been drawing more days than not for the past 10 weeks (Wow! When was the last time I was able to say THAT?!).
Confidence: With all that practice comes a certain level of trust that I can make a decent line when I need to.
I don’t know if I can put this into a word or two, but: A willingness to bind and gag my inner critic until the work is done. Sometimes you just have to convince yourself to shut up and draw. The more I do it, the easier it is to beat my inner critic into submission.

One thing I think I’m starting to convince myself of is that no matter how difficult the subject matter, it’s all just shapes and areas of shade/color. Some are a little more complex than others, but that just means you have to spend a little more time looking at them.

Interesting. This was not my best work; but I feel like it pointed out a lot of really important things. Oh American fast food… is there no problem you can’t solve? I mean, besides obesity.

Posted in Graphite, Urban Sketching | 6 Comments »

Eggs

Monday, February 16th, 2009

This was a real quickie… like, under 10 minutes.

I spent most of my evening setting up and photographing still-lifes. Over the weekend, I built a frame for a backdrop (I’ll be writing a post about that at some point in the near future, so you can build one yourself), and I was anxious to try it out. Unfortunately, I spent the bulk of my time trying to figure out how to get my camera to behave correctly — white balance is really important when you’re taking pictures of eggs on a white background.

Long story, short: I was too tired to start a proper drawing, but I was feeling bad about not having drawn anything in the past three days. I think spending so much time on the Manet drawing allowed a certain amount of inertia to set in. So I decided to knock out a really quick sketch before I call it a night.

This composition will be reworked into something of a more finished piece later in the week — probably in pencil, but I haven’t ruled out making an attempt at this in watercolor; it would make for an interesting monochromatic study, especially since I have such trouble getting really dark darks out of my paints.

I ran out of paper on the right, which is why the rest of the whisk is missing; but for 10 minutes worth of work, I’m not going to complain.

Posted in Food, Ink | No Comments »

Fed Up With Mallarme

Friday, February 13th, 2009

I’m just bored with this guy. And it shows. His face lacks the character and depth of the original painting, in particular when compared with the jacket (which I am really happy with, by the way). I’ve lost focus and just can’t seem to concentrate on getting the values to match any more. So you know what? I’m moving on to other subjects. Maybe I’ll come back to it someday and finish it (don’t hold your breath), but this has taken way too many hours and I’m just not that into it.

Posted in Graphite, Interpretations | No Comments »

More Mallarme

Thursday, February 12th, 2009

I had plans outside the house tonight; so I was only able to spend about 45 minutes.

I like the way this is coming together, but there is a war going on in my head. On one side is an army of perfectionists who want the outcome to be beautiful and accurate no matter how long it takes. They are highly skilled, disciplined and precise. On the other side is a rag-tag crew of militant anti-perfectionists (is there really no English word that means the opposite of ‘perfectionist’!?). They are poorly trained, but hell-bent on swift and decisive action so they can move on to the next battle before they have a chance to think too much about it.

I just wish I could achieve this kind of result without all the time investment. I have other things I want to draw. And I want to draw them all NOW. The thought of spending 4 or 5 more nights on this is not appealing.