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Two journal pages from my Figure and Face practice. The nude is the on the last page of my Michaelangelo sonnet recycled book. The Beefeater is sketched from a London photo and was done in my recycled Elizabeth I book.
New York City Brownstones are really red-brown and have wonderful, decorative columns and porches for their front stairs. This sketch was made from a photo that I took in the East 80s during the spring (hence the flowers blooming so nicely).
On Fridays when I take ballet class, I have time to have coffee and sketch before going to pick up my grandson at nursery school. I try to use this time to practice figure drawing of dancers from photos in ads in magazines.
Here is my painting from today.
EDM Challenge #154: Draw a Lemon
I wanted to try to capture the moist cut surface of the lemon and used Masking Fluid to create the appearance of membranes. I need to learn to use even a thinner application tool ! I love lemon flavor and wish I had time to make lemon squares with this lemon before bed!
I had a completely free day on Wednesday - no work or family activities - or required errands. For a full week I've been planning a slow leisurely trip to Pearl Paints on Canal Street in Manhattan. Since I have not carried my recycled NY sketch book with me recently, I brought it and no other paper,
As soon as I got off the subway I decided to sketch a roofline and water tank - one of my favorite NYC icons. Then I browsed all 6 floors of Pearl Paints - picking up art supplies for my grandchildren and small new items for me (they have open stock Albrecht Durer WC pencils I can't resist). I think I was in there more than 3 hours! At lunch at Pain Quotidienne in Soho, I sketched a few of my new supplies and then a wall unit facing me in the restaurant. What a wonderful day - full of inspiration and needed mind clearing relaxation.
The map that is on the edge of each page is a piece of the end paper that I used for this recycled book that I used to cover the gap between the signatures. The two pages were actually sketched on two different types of wc paper - I'm growing to love HP, tolerate CP, and hate rough!
More face sketching practice from magazine advertisement photos. Unfortunately there is a piece of dust on the scanner and visible on two of the faces, but I'm too tired to go back and rescan them!
The scan really shows a difference in the pupils that is not as apparent on the sketch. I will definitely need to work on these.
Four lemon-scented soaps in a clear plastic bag, purchased during our October 2005 visit to Sorrento, Italy:
I need to spend time working with reflections - more now than ever! It took me several days to find something to sketch and paint - and then I could see the reflections on the plastic, but just couldn't make them sparkle. I know that these areas should be bright white, and the next time I try this I will mask the areas and try that.
I'm enjoying drawing figures and faces and hope to upload a few of my practice sketches each week.
Both of these sketches were from photographs and each was done with watercolor pencils. I wet the figure and left the face dry.
We keep salted white pistachio nuts in a hand blown glass bowl on our coffee table (when the grandchildren aren't there) or on the fireplace mantle (when they are). There is no relationship between the size of the nuts on the napkin and those in the bowl - I just wanted to sketch some bigger.
One of my Goals for 2008 is to learn how to draw faces. In preparation, I purchased two complementary books which I read and now will use as references as I work myself through a series of photos to understand the basics.
Carrie Stuart Parks. Secrets to Drawing Realistic Faces: The is portrait drawing as taught by a forensic artist and she covers every part of the face individually.
John Raynes. Drawing and Painting People: This is a more complex book, covering drawing and painting faces, facial expressions, and poses.
Here are a few of my first practice pieces. I really do need to learn how to sketch with pencil without smudging it all over the page! I wanted to have a reasonable number of baseline sketches so I can redo them at the end of 2008 to see if my concentrated effort will improve my skills.
I came down with a head cold at work on Thursday and in the evening this photo for a spa advertisement looked very tempting and soothing. So I sketched it.
Two years ago today I started my blog with an entry about the 3rd silk wedding chuppah that I made for one of our children's weddings. Since then "paper," not "threads," has dominated my blog entries. So for the birthday celebration today I selected my favorite threads project from this December - a pillow I made for my grand daughter Sydney. Sydney's 3rd birthday was December 20th (her baby brother's is Dec 19th!), so I wanted to make one of our birthday presents something special. This is the same pillow that I made for my daughter, Syd's Mom, when she was a similar age. My daughter's reaction, when the present was opened, was more than I could have asked for. Sydney's favorite color is orange and her new bedroom will be pale pink and pale orange.
Here is the only photo that I have of the pillow that I made for our daughter in the late 1970s:
Although I was skeptical about creating a blog and sharing my "naive sketches," every minute of it has been a wonderful adventure.
Tomorrow I will post "faces" that I've sketched the last few days to convince myself that I'm serious about this 2008 Goal.