Today’s drawing is a minimal one. Alison and her crew are about to arrive and today is Ed’s birthday so I’m up to my elbows in pecan pie, candied orange peels and boeuf bourguignon (for tonight). This is my little plastic farmer guy with his axe. I only have a plastic chicken so had to use a not-very-helpful photo of a turkey instead. Anyway, it’s done and now to the pumpkin pie…..Happy Thanksgiving in case I don’t get to post tomorrow.
Two paintings are off to the local arts center today for the annual Christmas show.
Persimmon and Grapes 11.5 x 11.5 oil on birch panel $350
I tried a new approach with this one–massing in the forms and not using a line at all. It was exciting to work that way, without the safety net of a drawing underneath. I’m pleased with it.
Nothing Gold Can Stay 11.5 x 24 oil on birch panel $450
I started this landscape, intending just to wash it in and glaze over it. But the gesso on the board showed too much of a pattern so I wound up only using that approach for the trees. I dashed in the clouds vigorously and thickly and like the look. Dark clouds against bright foliage are so beautiful. I thought the line from the Frost poem made a good title.
I just brought the paperwhites into the light since they’re starting to shoot up. I hope I’ve timed it right; at this point they look pretty washed out. This drawing is an experiment with sepia ink, an old-fashioned dip pen and an ink wash. I love the forms of the bulbs. When you pay really close attention to natural forms the intricacy of the detail is mind-boggling.
A quick sketch of Ed but not quite right. I’m trying ink more and enjoying it but find it frustrating not to be able to erase. Getting a likeness is hard for me–even with a face so familiar and covered in whiskers!
Here’s a self portrait–very formidable woman. I always concentrate so hard when I’m drawing or painting myself I usually wind up looking pretty grim. But I do like having a patient model who knows how to hold still!
This is a very quick sketch of a persimmon I was using for a still life painting. It got riper and riper as I painted and by the time I finished I was sure it would be good. Alas, it turned my mouth inside out; one bite was all I could stand.
Even though I’ve been drawing every day for the DrawMo! project I still paint every day as well; it just takes longer. Here’s a landscape completely from my imagination, using very thin paint diluted with lots of turp. I just dripped it on, mixing wet colors together and let the painting tell me where to go next. I’m pleased with it. I realized that the tree trunks look like Roman numerals, hence the title of the painting.
Two and Six Oil on Birch Panel 16 x 16 $350
Through DrawMo! I heard about Illustration Friday, an online group that assigns a drawing topic every Friday. The topic for this week was “scale” so here’s my response. I thought it would be easier to draw the figures on an actual piece of music but it wound being a headache, working at that tiny tiny scale. I used the Muybridge photos of a guy walking up stairs and another photo for the figure playing the trumpet.
I subscribe to an online art instruction newsletter www.artacademy.com. The tutorial this week was “Drawing Drapery” so I pinned a cloth to the wall and spent way too much time drawing the “pipe” folds in it. It was a useful exercise but the result really looks like “Drawing 101.”
Now that it’s colder and we don’t have to worry about the bears getting into it Ed has put up the bird feeder. (Oh the joys of country living!) Last year it took a while for the birds to find it but I guess some of them remembered this time around. We have lots of traffic–mostly black-capped chickadees, some nuthatches and occasionally goldfinches. Drawing the chickadees was frustrating because they only light for a millisecond to grab a seed and go. It took me forever to get the first two and then I just grabbed a camera for the ones in the background. The bag holds tiny thistle seeds for the goldfinches.
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