Paper and Threads

I am currently working my way through 2 art workbooks, one on watercolor skills and one on figure drawing.  Both authors are currently exploring "light and shade" in the lessons.  For my journal page(s) on May 10th, I moved my basic shapes around and redrew them.  Then I put in the hard shadows using watercolor pencils.  Finally I looked at the shapes to add the shading and was horrified to notice that I didn't really have a light and dark side that corresponded to the shadows.  I have two overhead track lights and two wall lights above my desk in my studio which really confused the lighting.  And I decided not to use the strong sidelighting that I used the first time I sketched these shapes because I needed to turn all of the other lights off and then couldn't see my sketch journal well enough to draw.  So I added some of the subtle shading that I saw, but it really doesn't correspond well with the true, actual hard shadows.  I will rearrange these shapes again one more time and use watercolor paints - not pencils.

I sketched a figure from my figure drawing book and then added watercolor to shade the figure.  I'm still having problems with proportions This is the rough WC paper that I added to my Michaelangelo Sonnet recycled book (along with several other types) and I hate it.  It is hard to use a pen on it and worse than that, it scans really poorly! 

Posted by Shirley at 11:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

 Another long work day - and a quick sketch and painting from one of my photos of Montecatini Alta, Tuscany, Italy.  I love rooftop sketches and started to look for photos in my archive that I can use for practice.

Posted by Shirley at 9:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

 Time to start Lesson 4 in my Watercolor Skills Workbook: 3-Dimensional Form-The Art of Illusion.  The first exercise is "Drawing the Basics: cylinder, cube, cone, and sphere."  I set up the forms, put a light across the still life and sketched the shapes.  Next I may try to do them with watercolor shading - but not tonight. 

Posted by Shirley at 7:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Late day at work - so I decided to try PoseManiacs 90 second images for my daily sketch.  Wow, the figures were in tortured positions and 90 minutes went by very fast.  I did 3 of the images and then added my grand daughter's hands and feet to the page for more human figure practice.

Posted by Shirley at 10:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The is a recycled book in which I inserted signatures of 140 and 90 lb watercolor paper.  I used a bone folder to press the paper and a coptic stitch, pulling the linen thread as much as I could.  I didn't use tape or glue paper or cloth over the spine.  I wanted to make sure that glue didn't get between pages - preventing each page from opening flat.

The book was made from a 50+ year old book of Micahelangelo Sonnets and his drawings were scattered throughout the book.  I incorporated many of the original pages in my book which is intended for figure drawing practice.  What better inspiration could I have?  Here is the first mixed page layout.

I decided to cover the two gaps between signatures with a piece of Michaelangelo's drawings - one page was divided in half and glued in place with PVA glue. 

Posted by Shirley at 7:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)