Posts Tagged: drawing
6337 N. Hermitage Street
For my walk today I went to the post office. The PO is 1.7 miles from the house, that makes it almost 3.5 miles there and back, not a bad exercise. I always drive there, and as a result of driving the only thing I see is traffic. And that is usually depressing in Chicago.
Walking you see a lot of interesting things. Squirrels were screeching like mad, street were being cleaned and repaired, kitty cats were looking out of the window, kids running in the parks. I enjoyed near empty streets and some wonderful houses in the neighborhood. Here’s one of them – 6337 N. Hermitage, with a lovely round front porch. Micron pen and watercolor pencils.
6337 N. Hermitage St.
“Now what?!”
Happy apples and honey to everyone who celebrates New Year today! Interestingly enough this year Jewish New Year coincides with the “Talk like a pirate” day. So if you are a pirate of Jewish persuasion or a Jew aspiring to be a pirate here are some pointers: Shana Tova, matey!
I finished another study portrait. At least I think it is finished because at my current level of skills I am not sure what else I can do. A little over 6×6 inches in size, graphite on Bristol Smooth, it took about 25 hours. The original photo is by a French photographer Christine Lebrasseur.
Now what?!
Houses on Wayne Street
I was walking with my husband around the neighborhood, we came upon this quaint old street with colorful houses that looked like something out of a fairytale. I am still shy to sketch in public, but I had a little camera with me (thanks, Shelly!), so I took a snap shot. I didn’t think anything would come out of it, but the houses looked so vibrant and lively that I had to sketch them. This was a very quick one, maybe I’ll make a more detailed drawing from it later. Micron pen and watercolor pencils.
Houses on Wayne Street
I am working on a tonal graphite portrait at the moment, I have eyes down (most important, IMO) and general face tones, but it is not anywhere near posting yet. It will come… Unless I’ll mess it up!
And I found this interesting link: 100 Best Scholarly Art Blogs – interesting resource.
Watercolor pencils story
I’ve been playing with WC pencils.
My WC pencils are unique, one-of-the-kind set. They have traveled around the world, well… almost. Several years ago I bought a set of 60 Stabilo Aquatico pencils as a present for my dad. They flew with me on a Boing 777 over the ocean to get to him. He admired them greatly, never had WC pencils before. A few years passed. My dad never touched the pencils. He paints in acrylic. The little WC brush from the set disappeared, must have migrated to dad’s jar of brushes. “Do you want them?” – he asked when I came to visit this summer. – “They must be fun…” I wanted them. They boarded another Boing 777 with me and came back to US. Thanks, dad!
I finally decided to try them. Having no idea what I was doing, I made two sketches. Both on a totally inappropriate paper that buckled, with a totally inappropriate brush.
A generic landscape to try colors… Sharpie and WC pencils, 30 minutes.
And Wall-E! A little pick-me-up for my daughter, who just had her wisdom teeth removed, poor thing. New Micron pen and WC pencils, 30 minutes.
Go west, young man, go west
Go west, young man, go west!
I am undecided about this sketch. On a positive side I got the likeness in under 3 hours, that’s good. On the other hand nose needs work, and there are other problems. I can go back and spend some time working on the nose. But my goal was to do quick portrait sketches to practice features, not perfecting them. I got the likeness and I got the facial expression, perhaps I should stop while I am ahead.
New sketchbook
I’ve got a new sketchbook, a real nice one, sewn and bound in cloth. It has lovely 130 gsm paper, off-white with just the right tooth. I was looking at Moleskines for a long time, would pick them up and put them back down… Beautiful and desirable as they are, the paper in them is too smooth for me. One day, when I will get over my fear of pen and ink, I will get a Moleskine.
In the meantime two sketches in my new Artist’s HandBook from Blick. Did I mention that the paper in it is lovely?
teapot personalities
2 of my collection of Asian teapots. Don’t they look just like a man and a woman going to the market, she dragging him along? 3B pencil.
Are you talking to me?
This was actually a disaster. I was trying to practice drawing eyes and a mouth from a photo of a baby I found. When I was done the eyes looked much older than baby’s eyes, so I had to adjust the mouth to look older as well because I couldn’t change the eyes. This girl obviously wanted to come out, and she did. Somewhat Manga like I guess.
3B pencil in Artist Handbook.
Hello
This whole idea of keeping a blog came to being because people I love live too far away for comfort. It is not right that you need to cross an ocean to see someone you love. But at least you can keep in touch, by keeping a blog. Since you always want to know what I am doing, here it is: I have sketched a cat.
This sketch, an exercise really, a cat’s face, is graphite on sketch pad, 4×4 inches.