Preliminary Sketches of Cecilia DeBearvoire Permanent Ink Click to enlarge

My apologies for not posting the preliminary sketches of Cecilia in the last post here. Her face is actually much more accurate in these sketches than in the painting. She looks a bit, ummm, grouchy. Or maybe she's just mad. Either way, her face is not a "happy face."

Something else I was having trouble with was her body proportions. She doesn't really have shoulders and her arm are longer than her legs. Working out proportions on this page gave me a better chance for succeeding in my painting.

I've got a few more critters in my collection that I think I'll be using for practice as well. They're light and small if I want to carry them with and they usually have such endearing faces that they're fun to sketch!

When I get more sketching done in my "junk journal" (see prior post), I'll post them here!

Happy drawing!

Cecilia DeBearvoire Watercolor and ink 5 x 5 inches Pineapple Journal

How often do you draw?

I'm talking about a piece of paper and pen* for the purpose of JUST drawing rather than drawing something to plop paint on top of later. Once a week? Once a month? Ever? Never?

If you answered hardly ever, you're in good company. The majority of artists I know only draw when they want to create a finished piece of art, be it a painting, sketch or plein air work.

Can you image what the NFL or pro golf would look like if the players didn't practice the very basics every day, for long hours?

A very unorganized circus flits through my mind. Maybe the Keystone Cops.

So why do we, as artists, think we shouldn't have to practice our basic skills? Regularly?

Let's face it...drawing is the foundation of most art. Values, shadows, form shapes, proportions and use of line are some of the very things that trip us up if we don't practice them.

Does the mere mention of these things make you cringe and want to flip to the next blog? I understand. It doesn't sound like much fun. But when I realized that my lack of knowledge and how to create values, shadows and use line was what stood between me and enjoying the creation of my art, I decide to learn.

And it wasn't hard. It just took being willing to try and acknowledging that I was gonna look bad some of the time. I had to keep putting marks on the paper. It took willing to do a really lousy job. Again and again until I finally got to something I liked. Did that mean it was perfect? Nope! Far from it. It just meant I could live with it.

Working in a junk journal** took all the pressure off from me. Since the paper was lousy, I wasn't expecting a masterpiece before I ever put pen to paper. Using pen made me look more closely at what I was drawing because I only had one shot at getting it down accurately.

I'm often asked "how do I learn?" or "where should I start?" and here is my very best advice:

Grab a junk journal and a pen. Doesn't matter what kind of pen or what color. Sit down anywhere and begin to draw what is in front of you. Doesn't matter what it is. Draw. Draw badly. Draw for 15 minutes. It is your choice whether you stop for the day or if you go for another 15 minutes. Come back the next day and do it again. And again. And again. Once you start getting the hang of your chosen scene, move to a new one.
Too intimidating?
Start with a cup, a box, a glass, a vase or some other simple structure. Draw it for 15 minutes every day. Change your perspective by looking up to the item, down into the item and then turn it on its side or at an angle. Once you've mastered that item, add another. Play with lighting to give you shadows. Draw. Every day. Draw, draw, draw.

These drawings are not for creating finished art though there may be some good candidates. They're to help you learn to see, to help you develop eye/hand coordination and to help you demystify drawing.

We're talking 15 minutes a day here. Surely, you have 15 minutes a day?

Classes help, but you don't have to wait to start with a class. Start where you are, use what you have.

Agree to do it badly so that you can improve. Be honest, but not brutal, when you look at your work. This is right, this is not. Done. Turn the page and do it again.

Look through some drawing books at your local library. Look at children's color books and draw what the artist has drawn. Not to steal their idea, but to learn how they created the image using just lines.

There is no magic pen, pencil, brush nor paper that I know of to make us morph instantly into the artist we all want to be. Just some practice learning the basics.

Now, how often do you draw?

*When we use a pen, we eliminate the possibility of erasing/correcting and so therefore we learn faster because we observe more closely. Without that eraser, we give up our safety nets. Our observation skills improve much faster.
**A junk journal is a cheap journal/sketchbook of blank pages. The paper is cheap junk. It's not good for much more than pen and ink. It may bleed through to the other side. It doesn't matter. It doesn't take color, washes or anything else. That's okay. It's simply a tool for learning. Once you're skills start improving, using the "good stuff" (read that the "expensive stuff") won't be nearly so intimidating.

Chris and I managed to get away this weekend and we headed down to Venice Beach because it was a rainy, windy, overcast kinda day—our kind of day at the beach! In another lifetime, I would have wanted the sun to shine so I could tan, but I've learned there is a certain beauty at the beach that can only be found on days like this.
Unless, we're having hurricane force winds, the Gulf of Mexico seldom gets in an uproar. The waves were stronger than normal, but certainly not ferocious. The rocks are placed at strategic points on the beach to limit beach erosion.
We weren't really prepared to go as it was a spur-of-the-moment kind of decision. We didn't have any dry clothes, towels, chairs or any of the other usual beach paraphernalia. Just us, my little point-n-shoot camera and a strong desire to feel the wind blowing across the water.

An Imaginary Trip to Paris will begin on Tuesday, September 6th. You can find more information by clicking here.
An Imaginary Trip to New Orleans will start on Monday, September 12th! It will be a whole lot of fun in that great city. Please click here for info on this trip!
Also starting on Monday, September 12th, is Artful Journaling: Foundations class! For more information on getting started with watercolor journaling, please click here!

Please let me know of any questions you may have.

Thanks!

Windy Day Cachet Watercolor Journal 7 x 10 inches Watercolor & Coptic Ink Click to enlarge

You'd think I would have more sense than to go out the day after Hurricane Irene passed through and try to paint on location. You'd be wrong. I wanted to test out a new stool I'd purchased the weekend before. So off I went on Saturday morning.

The winds were stripping the crape myrtle blossoms off the trees and cascading them through the air onto the surface of this very dirty pond. At times, it looked like pink froth!

The winds were steady with periodic gusts up to 40-45 mph.

Did I have a clip to hold the pages? No, but I had my new stool.

Did I have a band to hold the pages? No, but I had my new stool.

Did I have a grand time juggling my pages and my palette in high winds? No, but I did get to test out my new stool!

The new stool is a Byer Tri-Lite Stool. I'm testing out various stools for the upcoming trip to New Orleans! Click here for more information.
I don't recommend this stool for sketching. It is a bit unstable even with the additional leg support and twice, I thought I was going to tip over! The weather really played no role in this tipping nonsense. Both times I was either stretching or reaching for something.

Too bad it didn't work out as it's quite light and folds up to 13 inches! Not bad! I have a new stool on order, so I'll let you know how that one works out.

A couple of weekends ago, hubby and I headed up to Ocala where they have two stores that Tampa does not—a Gander Mountain and a Hobby Lobby! Something for everyone! It turned out to be a nice day away as Ocala is horse country with lots of rolling hills and gorgeous oak trees. We managed to get "lost" once and didn't even bother to turn around because we were enjoying the views so much.

Anyway, while wandering the aisles of Hobby Lobby, I stumbled across a Sharpie® Liquid Pencil. Hmmm, I thought. I gotta give this a whirl. I mean liquid pencil—would it smear like regular pencil? Would this eliminate the problem of broken leads let alone having a sharpener? I could see potential here so I chucked one into my basket.

A few aisles over, I stumbled across the Chatterbox Journaling Genie which is a fancy name for a stencil. A stencil used to draw lines quickly on the journal page so that your text will be straight! These have apparently been around for the last 10 years, but I just found out about them.

I liked the idea of a quick way to get lines on the page without having to get a ruler and measure each line, especially for when I'm traveling. What I wasn't liking was the full page of stencils. So, I did a little surgery.
I even rounded some of the corners so they wouldn't scratch me and I could use the shape of the stencil as a  template to draw boxes on my journal page. The last thing I did was to glue an envelope in the back of my sketchbook so I could stow the templates and take them out as needed.
As for the Sharpie Liquid Pencil? Don't bother! It looks and writes more like a pen than a pencil. It leaves an indention in the paper with even the lightest of touches and it requires an even amount of pressure to get the liquid "lead" to come out.
The stuffed puppy on the right is a baby toy and he barks when you squeeze his tummy. For some reason, he reminds me of my sweet cinnamon girl, Gatlin, that I lost to cancer a few years ago. You can see the stenciled lines in action over on the left with a Copic® gray marker.

The one thing I will say for the liquid pencil was that I was able to erase most of the lead after the watercolor was complete. I tried some more tests with it on other types of paper and different paints, but did not have similar results. Oh well! You don't know if you don't try!!

Let me start this post out with a big thanks for all the kind comments and thoughts on the previous post with regard to my total backslide into deep water filled with piranhas (also known as insecurites)—your words meant the world to me! I have begun sketching on some of the wedding photos again, but so far, have not completed anything. I'll post when/if I get something together. Thanks also for the compliments of the wedding and for the well wishes for the lovely couple!

M. Graham Gouache and Copic Marker on recovered paper

The sunflower above is gouache and Copic marker. It's the first time since art school that I've done a complete painting with gouache. I remember why too. As much as I love the effects you can get with the opacity of gouache, I absolutely LOVE seeing the transparency of watercolors more!

This is done on a piece of paper I salvage from the retreat package I received at Christine Kane's event last month. Hard to believe it's been a month already!

As for gouache, I think there's room in my world for this medium, I just don't think I'll be doing to many full paintings with it. This went quickly. It was complete in just one evening and it was fun to change gears from my usual medium to the gouache.

I love the creamy consistency of the M. Graham watercolors as well as the ability to mix just about any color you want from just the triad. The sunflower was painted with Hansa Yellow, Cadmium Orange, Ultramarine Blue and white.

If nothing else, switching to a new/different medium helps to remind you what it is that you love about your "regular" medium. For me, it usually knocks a little rust and sediment out of the crevices as well. Primes the pump for further adventures and creative pursuits.

Not sure what I'll try painting next, but I do want to play with the gouache a little more to see where it may be useful to me.

What new or different mediums have you tried lately?

This past Saturday, my niece Amanda was married at an outdoor wedding.....in August.....in Florida. Yes, you read that correctly. In the photo, the flower girl is spraying Amanda's face with a water mister/fan thingie that helped to keep the girls cool before the ceremony.

I had started to put together a sketch of some of these images. I wanted to do a more personal representation of the day and I was struggling with my sketch to make it look like Amanda and her new husband, Dustin.

When Chris came in from work and saw the sketch, we started to talk about it. I was not happy with it at all. Since it was family, I definitely wanted the people in the sketch to look like who it was suppose to be and not the Asian folks that had shown up on the page.

Amanda & Dustin

I wasn't good enough.

Mind you, that's not what he said at all. It's what I heard. My insecurities were already raging, nipping at my heels and chewing on my toes. (I tend to think of my insecurities as piranhas...they move in at the first scent of insecurity and work into a feeding frenzy.)

I took my sketchbook back to the studio and erased the whole page......

I shouldn't have listened.

Not to my insecurities. Nor to my fears that I couldn't complete the sketch to my satisfaction. And I shouldn't have erased the damn thing.

Cheesecake and Cupcakes!

 What did I learn?

1. The next time my insecurities are that raw, it's probably best not to enter into a conversation about the art no matter how well-meaning the person may be.

2. Wait before erasing. Nothing would have changed if I would have waited until this morning and still decided to erase.

3. I shouldn't have listened to the fear. I know better. Fear is not a good leader.

4. I would have learned something if I had gone ahead with the sketch, even if I had not done the work satisfactorily or to my satisfaction (two different things).

5. Nobody but me would have seen it anyway. Especially if I didn't think it was good enough.

Congratulations to Mr. & Mrs. Watkins!

Two posts back (here), I laid out clear goals for the new sketchbook...keep it LOOSE and leave lots of WHITE SPACE. So what did I do? I promptly blew one of the goals!

Spot Watercolor on Handmade Paper in bound journal Art size - 5.5 x 5 inches

I knew I was in trouble shortly after I started this. The vision of this art in my head was much, much looser with just some detail around his eyes and nose.

I did not take into account the paper. Or all those wonderful little details just begging to be painted with patience and precision!

So. Fail. At least with regard to the goals.

The dog belongs to "superheroine" Lani Harmon, whom I recently met (in person) at the Uplevel Your Purpose retreat. She said that Spot was so exhausted after they came home that all he wanted to do was sleep—he couldn't even be bothered to follow them around the house! Lani is a very talented photographer—check out her fabulous work here!

Full page view of Spot Page size 8 x 8 inches

Two things really surprised me about this....one, this was quite enjoyable to paint. I s..l..o..w..e..d down and consciously chose to get lost in the details. Second, the paper is proving to be a lot of fun to paint on! Who knew!

I've looked all over the book and its packaging for some idea of who made it because I'm gonna want another one now and there is NOT the first clue as to who made it! Drats!

Still, I'm sure I'll find it or something similar when I go looking.

Now, what "mistakes" or "epic failures" have you been creating?!!