YEAH!!!!!! Yesterday I got my official artist card: my “Artistic License” for completing the 75-Day Sketch Challenge. Thank you so much to talented artist and author Brenda Swenson, who started up this challenge.
My Artistic License for completing the 75-Day Sketch Challenge.
Filed under 75 Day Sketch Challenge, Drawings, This Is On My Mind
On Monday I took a private watercolor lesson with talented artist Christine Lashley. I brought in some paintings that I liked, and a few I was not happy with. Christine gave me some wonderful feedback on my paintings and we did some exercises together to practice seeing different values in a scene.
I have been having a particular challenge with this scene of gnarly trees along the Guadalupe River in central Texas:
Photograph of cypress trees along the Guadalupe River.
I had already painted the scene three times, attempting to put onto paper what I saw in my mind.
Christine asked me, “What do see in this picture that you want to convey?”
It was an “Aha” moment. I thought, I didn’t really know and I was flailing about, trying to figure it out. Now as I paint the scene again, I am trying to answer that question as I experiment with the paint in hand. Here is the painting I worked on in class.
Cyprus No. 4, Watercolor, 7×9″
In class we decided to work on just the two trees on the left. This is not what I really wanted to say about the picture, but I’m still asking myself, “What is the message?” I have done three more paintings since this one and I’m still searching.
Click here to learn more about Christine Lashley.
Filed under Texas, This Is On My Mind, Watercolors
It’s been raining steadily since yesterday and they say we’ll have the worst of our part of the storm this afternoon at around 4:00 PM, through the night until tomorrow. The constant media coverage, the gray skies, and hearing my sump pump running has got me a little scared.
Thinking about all this, I realized that people who grew up where they don’t have basements might not realize the importance of the lowly sump pump. Here’s the bottom line: When you have a basement, the sump pump runs automatically to keep water from flooding your basement. They build a pit and the water from around the house foundation all goes in the pit instead of onto your basement floor, and the sump pump pumps it out. The catch is, if your power goes out, the sump pump doesn’t work. And if it keeps raining, the pit fills with water, overflows, and floods your basement. It’s a mess.
We are expecting power outages all over the city with this storm. We still have power and I can hear the pump running about every five minutes. Yikes!
Here’s Drawing #65, Sump Pump. Ugly hole in the basement floor, emitting mysterious motor noises.
Day 65. What’s in that ugly hole in the basement floor? The sump pump, protector of the basement.
Filed under 75 Day Sketch Challenge, Drawings, This Is On My Mind
Progress. Inexplicably, I’m on Day 60 of the challenge. The days have flown by and I’ve done some drawings I’m proud of and some that are more “experimental.”
THEN AND NOW.
THEN: Missed the pencil and eraser.
NOW: Don’t even think about them.
THEN: Worried about reproducing the subject exactly.
NOW: Relaxing, allowing the drawing to evolve.
THEN: Erased mistakes.
NOW: Incorporate mistakes.
THEN: Agonized over drawing, erasing, re-drawing.
NOW: Drawing.
THEN: Drew plants and flowers.
NOW: Drawing plants, flowers, buildings, man-made objects, even people!
Sketch 52. Walmart Shopper.
Filed under 75 Day Sketch Challenge, Drawings, This Is On My Mind
I admit I have not been drawing…I miss the interaction with the Every Day in May/June people, but they have all gone off to other projects.
I read somewhere that freedom is almost too much for some people: left to their own devices they bumble around, not knowing what to do or how to act. Perhaps I’m having a bit of that trouble — allowed to draw or paint “anything,” I’m stuck, and create nothing!
Time to create something — here’s a little pencil sketch I made when I was sitting on my porch yesterday afternoon. The idea was, relax. Draw. Don’t erase. Simple.
Hummingbird feeder and wine glass, graphite, 6×9″
Filed under Drawings, This Is On My Mind
