February Goals Review

After Rembrandt's Simeon in the Temple
done on the Nintendo

The end of February is here and to keep to my commitments, I should look at how I did compared with the goals I set at the start of the year. (Did you catch the dread in there?)

Composition research
I finished reading Dow's Composition book and reviewed it here. I did a brush and ink drawing inspired by my reading. I didn't get to Greg Albert's book yet, nor did I do all the research or experimentation that I intended.

Rib Cage Anatomy
Sadly this goal was barely begun. I looked at a few drawings one evening and that was it.

Mendelowitz drawing exercises
For the second month in a row, this goal was neglected.

3 starts
Two-thirds of a check, I did two starts this month, these two portraits.

1 Polished Piece
Check, I did these flowers.

Update Website
Check, my online studio has been updated to reflect this month's progress with colored pencils.

Beyond all that, I did some successful experimenting with colored pencils this month. I even tried a portrait copy - several months ago I attempted a CP portrait copy and it was a disaster. So, a little progress.

All in all, not a bad month, considering that lots of "life" things happened this month and my art was on the back burner a fair bit.

Book Review: Composition

Waterman's Pond
reference for this came from the lovely Jeanette Jobson here
9 in x 12 in, brush and ink on bristol board
Thanks to Jeanette for her generosity in sharing this with me and allowing me to post it here!

For my composition research this month I read through Arthur Wesley Dow's Composition: Understanding Line, Notan, and Color. (It made me desperately want to start doing some more brush and ink drawings, I just needed a reference that had flowing lines and a sparse enough landscape for me to be able to simplify it. Then Jeanette posted this and graciously shared it with me.)

Dow's book has been around for a long time and has been reviewed before, so I'll just offer a few brief thoughts.

As a warning...
This isn't a book you read once and master, it's a book you dip into time and again.

As a caveat...
There are exercises scattered throughout that are probably helpful (I did not have time to do them this month.) I intend to make time later to do those exercises. Actually, Robyn has been doing some of them to great effect.

I would never have thought...
to look at textiles and rugs for shape, pattern, or palette inspiration, but Dow constantly encourages this.

Greatest benefit for me...
the emphasis on shape and pattern. Let me elaborate. This week I've been trying to find a reference photo to start a new project and haven't been satisfied with anything I've come across. Why is this? Some how I think that the shape/value/pattern ideas I've been reading about are making an impact. I just couldn't find any photos that spoke to me on a notan sort of level. While this is frustrating in the short term, I do think it is for the betterment of my art in the long run.

As an ender...
As this book was written a long time ago, it does take a bit of effort to get into it. It isn't written in the casual style so common today. That is to say, there aren't bells and whistles here, but if you are willing to put in the effort, there is good stuff to be found in this book.

Digital Playground

The other night I picked up the Nintendo DS again. It's been a while since I played around with it. For my newer readers, I use the gaming device as a pocket sketchbook, see my earlier post on the Nintendo.

At right you can see a few quick portraits. Note that the lines are not for effect, they are part of a known vectoring problem with the Colors! program.

Bob Hope with a Stan Laurel Chin

This is what happens when you do a quick sketch and don't pay much attention, you get Bob Hope's eyes and nose with a Stan Laurel chin stuck on the bottom! Yikes! Ah well, the point of this exercise was to practice with the CPs in a new way and work on skin tones.

OK, you can stop laughing now. Really, I mean it! :D

And, I should say, this was done after Norman Rockwell's portrait of Bob Hope.

After Norman Rockwell

I'm carrying on with the light-touch technique. As the blending works so much better that way, I decided to try a portrait. This is just a quick sketch from a Norman Rockwell portrait of Bob Hope. In the attempt to simplify my choices and focus on this, I used a palette suggested on Wax Bloom by Steve Chipman, so the colors are not that close to Rockwell's original.

Treading Lightly and Carrying a Big Stick

OK, so no points for composition or color scheme on this one, but I was experimenting.

Treading Lightly
Above is a piece I've been playing around on. It was an attempt to use colored pencils in the more traditional, "light-touch" fashion. (And I did manage a light touch, until the end.) I also tried two new things: spraying a fixative for additional layers and spraying with a varnish.

When using a light touch, one needs lots of layers, so the fixative step was very useful!

The Big Stick
Spraying with a varnish was more an experiment in sealing it. Actually, it significantly brightened the colors and blended the strokes a bit, particularly where they were all one color. It was rather heart-stopping at first (although this is just experimental and not destined for anything), but then I decided I rather liked the effect the varnish brought.

So, all in all, a good fun play!

In Memory of David Vitt

David Vitt
1927-2008

Above you see the final pen and ink sketch of my extremely talented Uncle Dave. He was a kind and generous uncle, a faithful correspondent who always remembered birthdays and anniversaries. He was an intelligent man who could have excelled in any field. He chose the banking industry and did well. He painted and took art classes in the evenings. He was a fabulous oil painter and portraitist. His pictures decorate my parents' home and captivated me as a child. I spent many hours looking at his paintings and drawings in wonder.

He traveled the world and once told me the only place he would like to see again was the Taj Mahal. He loved opera and the theater. He will be dearly missed by his family.

A Break in Our Regularly Scheduled Program

My parents are arriving for a visit - yeah! We plan to do lots of laughing, sitting, shopping, donut and chocolate eating. So, I'll be taking a blog break for a week or two. I'll be back at the end of the month, hopefully with sketches and thoughts on notan.

Here you see some quick studies in two values based on some of Winslow Homer's watercolors.

Book Review: Seeing and Painting the Colors of Nature

Flowers for Lisa
8in x 10in, colored pencil on vellum

At the library I recently picked up Seeing and Painting the Colors of Nature by Joseph and Gloria Dawley. I've really wanted to find a book to help learn how to see colors, so I had high hopes for this one.

To be honest, I think it is rather misnamed, but on to that in a moment. It's an inspiring story, Mr. Dawley was a realist painter who when diagnosed with Parkinson's disease became an impressionist painter (after his wife's urging him to paint.) His work is lovely in either stage and there are lots of examples in this book. It has made me think about what I would do if my body could no longer function as I wanted it to, would I give up art all together or find a way to make it work? What would you do?

He has many standard sections on painting, composition, improving photographs, brush strokes, figures, creating depth etc. However, he doesn't seem to really cover how to see colors. There is a blurb on the back that says you should take what's there and then play around to find what works. That may be the best way to learn, but if so, why write the whole book?

So, I'd say it's an interesting take on painting, with a bit of inspiration thrown in, however, it is not really about learning to see color. The Amazon reviewers both liked it, but I'd say two or three pencils out of five.

They Knew What They Were Talking About...

Flowers for Lisa, work in progress
8in x 10in, colored pencils on vellum

Lately I've been rather discouraged with my work, I see more problems than successes I suppose. There are days when I think, I just don't know enough about CPs to make them really work. Then there are days when I think, I just don't know enough about color to do anything but monochromatic work. Then there are times when I think it's my drawing skills that are lacking. I'm sure that all three of these are true. But to actually admit that all three areas (and a few more that I can't even recognize yet) need work is more overwhelming than productive!

However, tonight, I read a great post by Vivien Blackburn, some of her favorite quotes. Go read her post, it's very good. I'll just put a few here that appealed to me.

There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun. -- Pablo Picasso

A man paints with his brains and not with his hands. --Michelangelo

If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all. --Michelangelo

One must really love to paint, to be driven as it were, to put in the time necessary to really get proficient.... Many people would like to paint, but not enough to paint those endless failures necessary to get to the good work. If it were otherwise, we'd be overrun with painters. --William Whittaker

Picasso gives me the direction, I want to turn a yellow spot into the sun, and Whittaker and Michelangelo tell me how: work hard, think hard, and then keep hard at working and thinking.

A couple of links

Hey gang! Sorry I've been absent recently, things have just been crazy and I can't seem to get in the art time. But, today I found a few posts by someone else that I thought were worth shouting out.

Check out Sixty Minute Artist on values (with a great exercise). And then his follow-up on reference photos and painting.

It Helps Me, It Doesn't Help Me...

My Pitcher and Jo's Peppers
8 in x 10 in colored pencil on drafting film

Yesterday Katherine posed the question, "What increases your artistic productivity?" She also asked for ideas on what doesn't work. I love to read about other people's work habits, so I thought I'd throw in my two cents.

Helps Me
Having a specific list of goals really helps me. I need to know each day exactly what the art time is supposed to accomplish. Without that, I either fail to fight the battle with the kids over "quiet time" or I spend the whole time wondering what I should do. I get all distracted with how valuable the time is, how small it is, how I really need to be productive, and then I just fret, make no decisions, and surf around blogs and sites and get discouraged that I can't do what they can do.

Doesn't Help Me
Thinking that I need to think like an artist, that I need to "just let it flow." There was an interesting poll over on Empty Easel a few weeks ago about whether you are a planner or more intuitive when creating. I think that the "emotionally driven" camp won, but I was encouraged by how many "logically-driven" artists there are. I almost treat it more like a science than an art, if you know what I mean. I find planning it all out - making lists of what pencils to use where, considering what strokes to use where, etc - fascinating, fun, and freeing. I even make lists to remember what I planned in certain areas so I don't forget.

Oh dear, I suppose I'm a compulsive list-maker!

Above you see my pretty-close-to-finished Pay It Forward piece for Jo Castillo. As per yesterday, I'm going to consider this my finished piece of the month. Jo, when you said your kitchen was red, white and blue, I knew exactly what to do. My kitchen is decorated with blue and white pottery. This pitcher normally stands above the cabinets in a corner of my kitchen.