Paper and Threads

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!

Posted by Shirley at 7:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (19)

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.

Posted by Shirley at 10:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

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. 

Posted by Shirley at 7:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

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. 

Posted by Shirley at 9:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

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. 

Posted by Shirley at 9:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)