Propel water sketch

People sketching

These aren't as loose as I was striving for, but I think that's a work in process. I'm so detail oriented that I really have to consciously force myself to draw looser.

Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils
Micron pens

Gollum - my ultimate achievement

This is my favorite and what I believe to be my best work of art. I made it in high school, working on it everyday for a month and a half. When my dad moved this down to Portland it got a little wrinkled at the bottom and Gollum now has a small hole on the tip of his nose, but I still love this piece. It's in charcoal.

Flashback - Oasis

A charcoal oasis in the desert. I made this my sophomore year of high school.

Flashback - Escher-alike

I love this Escher piece, so I was going to do it in charcoal. This is a very light outline of it in graphite that has been waiting years for me to do something with it.

Flashback - oil pastel

Just a disclaimer: this image is a reworking of a classic piece by a famous dead artist. It was an assignment during high school to pick a famous artist and one of their pieces and try to recreate it. Unfortunately, I can't remember who it was.

Much needed laughter

I had a much needed laugh at my own expense today. The last few days have been really hard for me; I have a lot of financial and other deadlines approaching that I don't have an answer for and I've had to quit both my jobs in order to try to find an off campus job that will give me 20 hrs a week.

Due to my new interest in watercolor pencils, I thought I would take a look at the Colored Pencil forum. This made me wonder what brand of color pencils I had. I knew they were most likely student quality. I bought these over two years ago, and they've been sitting in my art supplies relatively unused for quite a while. I pull them out, and the title catches my eye.

Karat Aquarell. Wait, isn't that...?



Yes indeed. Folks, these are Watercolor Pencils.

My supply of watercolor pencils has suddenly increased by 24.

Flowers

This is my first watercolor with normal watercolors rather than the watercolor pencils. I used acrylic for the center of the flowers and the white parts. I like how the main flowers came out, but I'm not sure if I just should have left out the out of focus flowers. I put them in because I thought I would be able to do more justice to their out of focus-ness, and because otherwise it left a lot of negative space that I didn't like. This is also the first painting I'm actually giving to someone. It's my mom's birthday on Friday, and since she used to do quite a bit of drawing and painting and she's the one who gave me the watercolors, I though this would be a great gift. She's my mother, so hopefully she'll be okay with the fact that it isn't a Matisse. I really hope she likes it; I thought it would be a lot better than just giving her a card (she lives in Arizona).

I loved painting this, I did lots of layers and ended up recruiting the paintbrushes I had originally bought (but never used) for acrylic over to watercolor. The photo doesn't quite show all the variation in the petals, but I don't have my USB cord for my camera and I didn't want to smoosh it on the scanner.

I've already observed that at least for my style right now, I definitely like the harder brushes rather than the softer ones, if that makes any sense. Ironically, the harder ones feel more fluid to me. I'm going to need to go brush shopping soon. I'll just add that to my ever expanding list.

I'd love a friendly critique, if anyone is willing to give one. I'm very, very new at this and would appreciate any advice on how to improve. (Other than practicing, which given how much fun I had doing this one, I don't think I'll have a problem with that)

Reeves watercolors (student grade)
Windsor and Newton Acrylic paints (yellow and white)
Arches 140# HP Br. White
6 hours (with dinner and other breaks included)

Rainbow quilt

I like how the side of the quilt hanging off the bed came out. I paid more attention to the details in this drawing more than the others I've been doing lately. In otherwords, it was a drawing, not a sketch. I'm not sure what I could improve about the top of the quilt, but the perspective is a bit off. I think it'll just take more practice. Surprisingly, it was the perspective in the headboard and footboard that gave me the most trouble, as you can probably see. The quilt actually has a lot more color in it than is indicated here, but I only have 8 Albrecht Durer pencils, and there's only so many combinations one can do in a reasonable amount of time. When I add to my collection, I am definitely picking up a purple. The quilt has lots of red purple, pink, red, normal purple, and bluish purple that I wasn't quite able to pull off with my limited expertise and palette.

Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils
Moleskine sketchbook

The Nameless Cheetah - 2/27/08

I bought this cute stuffed animal at the Vienna Zoo. I like how his spots came out noncircular, and instead are more realistic looking. I'm happy with his muzzle even though the brown shading is a bit drastic and his head is a bit messed up. His right (the closest one) ear gave me incredible difficulty. Do you see the white that outlines the black on the left? That's not supposed to be there. That resulted from be drawing and redrawing his ear over and over in pen. I'm trying to not be as obsessive about perfect positioning and proportion, which is why I started in pen. Pen is permanent; I will not be obsessively erasing over and over in order to get the perfect line. I need to have better results on the first try, and look for the whole general shape rather than get nitpicky, and pen is the perfect medium to force me to do this. When I want to do a more serious drawing/painting, the kind that takes you more than an hour, I will sketch it out in pencil first.

His right front paw appears to be incredibly big and out of proportion. The problem was that it was laying on it's side, and what needed to be drawn was the entire bottom, where the other paws got a bit obscured by the surface they were resting on. It's actually the right size, it just doesn't look like it. It's a bit like drawing a person's hands in front of their face; they always look very large.

Materials
moleskine sketchbook
Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils

Parched - 1/18/08

My first watercolor since... I don't know, probably third grade. For Christmas I picked up some very cheap watercolor pencils by Staedler. When I say cheap, I mean cheap. I got 12 pencils for $3; these are definitely student quality, or a quality worse than student quality. Anyways, I bought these pencils simply because I had never heard of water color pencils and because I had started messing around with pen and ink and had seen the gorgeous pen and watercolor combos. This painting is horrible, one that I would be embarrassed to show anyone in person, but the internet lends me that lovely bit of anonymity. I'm proud to show off my horrible work, as long as I don't have to see people's reactions.

Doing this painting (is it a painting or is watercolor still referred to as a drawing? I'm going with painting, after all, I used a brush.) brought home to me that:
1) I don't like the pencils, but I really like the medium
2) I remember now why I never drew in pencil during high school

Frankly, my pencil drawing abilities are horrible. I like charcoal for it's smudginess, it's messiness, and above all, the ability to blend with my fingers. Colored pencils are so refined, so non-blendable with hands. Don't get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for those who can draw well in pencil, probably because I can't at all. I ooh and ahh over the pretty drawings. With watercolor, I think I'm going to have to force myself to get over my aversion to pencils. I love seeing the crisp lines blur and transform into rivets of color.

To this end, yesterday I went to ArtMedia and purchased 8 of the Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils. I've heard great things about these pencils on the EDM boards, so I thought I'd give them a try. I was thinking about buying the 12 pack, but I didn't want to spend $18 and bought separately they're nearly the exact same price as the kit. I did pick my 8 colors from those offered in the 12-pack, and the next 4 will be the colors offered there as well. I'll just add 2 - 6 pencils every time I get paid, which works out to once a month.

I do like how the sand dunes/hills in this drawing have a good color variation in them. The sky was good until it went to white rather than lighter blue. That's just a matter of putting more color in that area. The one thing I really don't like is how the tree turned out, or more specifically the tree's shadow I tried to do. It just made it look like the tree had black tree branch like smoke rising from it's topmost branches.

Materials
Canson Watercolor 140lb CP
Staedtler Watercolor pencils

Clean - 2/26/08

The counterpart to Messy. I spent more time on the chair frame this time, and like how it came out although I would add a bit more consistency (ie. make it more of a line) to the dark spots on the frame on the right side. I spent less time on the cushion this time, and it shows. It was about 3 a.m. so I was really tired, and just wanted to go to bed. It was more of a 12 minute sketch than a 20 minute one, so I'm creating a separate category for those. Hopefully, when I get better at sketching I can do most of my sketches in 10 minutes as I would love to do some plein air drawings.

Messy - 2/25/08

My messy papasan chair. This was one of my 2o minute sketches, very minimal shading. I like how the chair frame came out, but I don't like the corner of the blanket seemingly floating in midair, nor how when I tried to minimize a bit of the back it only made it stand out more. It detracts from the front and erases nearly all the depth. I definitely need to sharpen my charcoal skills. Get back to where I was when I made Gollum (which I will get a picture of sometime when I'm in Seattle)

EDM Challenge 37: Keys

I couldn't get the ink to scan dark enough, so I ended up turning up the shading which made the paper appear a bit more yellow than it is.

January 6, 2007

I couldn't sleep, so I sketched this little thing. I'm not quite happy with the way it scanned, so I may rescan it. I was going to add watercolor to it, but it was 4 in the morning and by the time I finished this I just wanted to sleep.

Work sketches (prt 2)

Another chair, this time in ink. This was the first drawing I did using Micron pens, or any pens at all. It definitely illustrated how different pens were in comparison to pencils and charcoal, which I'm a bit more comfortable using. However, I love the end effect that pens have, especially in combination with watercolor, so my sketchbook will have lots of pen and ink drawings. My crosshatching and everything definitely has room for improvement, but I think I captured the essence of the chair nonetheless. With many of my drawings, especially ones I struggled with, I often write a bit of commentary about what I learned to do/not to do. It may be a bit cheesy, but I figure that my sketchbook is for me and is for me to learn so it doesn't have to all be archival quality. I really agree with the idea that your sketchbook should be somewhere you feel safe to experiment, to go crazy, and try and fail without feelings of shame.

Work sketches (prt 1)

Sketches/drawings I did during my break. Both are chairs as I couldn't find anything else I wanted to draw. This is the only sketch I've done so far in pencil. In order to encourage myself and to see improvement, I pick at least one thing with each drawing that I liked. In this drawing, I'm really happy how the the front corner of the footrest is suggested but not outlined.

High school art (prt 2)

More art I did a few years ago during high school. This was my first stippling project, something I'd like to do more of.

High school art (prt 1)

My first scratchboard attempt during a high school drawing class. I'm still really pleased with it.

Yet another blog

This will function as a place to archive all my art randomness. This will include everything from acrylics to pen and ink to charcoal and watercolor.

I'll write a bit more when it's not 3 in the morning. :D