Happy Christmas 2018

Happy Christmas 2018

Peace and Happiness for Christmas and the New Year

It's been difficult to find time to draw and paint in 2018, and Elaine and I have just made spare time an even more scarce commodity by welcoming Doris (a 9 week old puppy) into our family. Happy Christmas.

Keys to Drawing with Imagination – Combining

Water
Combining
Keys to Drawing with Imagination
Ink on Paper
29.7cm x 21cm (11.7" x 8.3") 

The instruction for Exercise 7 of Keys to Drawing with Imagination by Bert Dodson is to combine two previous doodles.

The previous section concerned letter-forms, but didn’t have an exercise. I took the opportunity to mess around with some balloon letters and to combine them with the fish motif – which is a recurring theme in my doodles for these exercises.

Keys to Drawing with Imagination – Multiplying

Too Cool (for the School)
Multiplying
Keys to Drawing with Imagination
Ink on Paper
29.7cm x 21cm (11.7" x 8.3") 

The sixth exercise from Keys to Drawing with Imagination by Bert Dodson involves Multiplying a previous doodle.

The first assignment is to arrange multiple copies of a doodle in a radial or otherwise symmetrical pattern

The second assignment is a mirror image drawing. Draw a doodle and then duplicate it upside down, beneath and touching the first drawing.

Alasses
Multiplying
Keys to Drawing with Imagination
Ink on Paper
14.9cm x 10.5cm (5.9" x 4.2")

My response to the first assignment is based on the skull from the Building Blocks exercise.

The drawing at the top of the post is a variation on the second exercise. I drew a few mirror image doodles, but the results didn’t thrill me. The picture at the top is a modification of a Silhouetting  exercise – I’ve used a more symmetrical pattern and less variety in the fish motif.

I'm thinking of using a pattern like this as the basis for a linocut print.

Drink!!!

Elaine's Gin Label

Elaine makes lovely fruit gins that she shares with people in little Kilner bottles. I've made a label for her. It is a little abstract watercolour (intending to evoke soft fruit bushes and trees) that we print on address labels from Microsoft Word. I added the border using Paint 3D - which was a right faff.

Five a Day

From Doodle to Birthday Card

Happy Birthday Elaine

Elaine liked the Gone Fishing doodle I included in the post on Silhouetting, so I made it into a Birthday card for her. I know, it’s not a romantic image, but the card was made with love.

Creating it was relatively simple, I:

• Wrote Happy Birthday on rice paper using a brush pen.
• Used GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program - a free alternative to Photoshop) to colour and combine the images. 
• Uploaded the resulting image onto a Moonpig card. 

This isn’t a cost-effective way of creating cards to sell, but it worked well as a one off. One thing I would do differently next time is to save the images in a higher resolution. I would also consider combining the image and text in a desktop publishing package rather than an image manipulation package.

Happy Birthday Elaine

Expressive Drawing - Repetition

Repetition of a Motif
Expressive Drawing - Chapter 6 - Play 1
Mixed Media on Paper
59.4cm x 84.1cm (23.4" x 33.1")

Chapter 6 of Expressive Drawing by Steven Aimone is about Repetition. Steven defines repetition as the recurring appearance or presence of a visual element such as a line, mark, shape, texture, tone, colour, directionality, etc. He argues that drawings that feature repletion naturally hold together.

Repetition of a Motif
Expressive Drawing - Chapter 6 - Play 1
Charcoal and Graphite on Paper
59.4cm x 84.1cm (23.4" x 33.1")

Repetition is one of the five principles of composition identified by Arthur Wesley Dow in his work on Composition (see Repetition).

Repetition of Multiple Motifs
Expressive Drawing - Chapter 6 - Build 1
Charcoal and Graphite on Paper
59.4cm x 84.1cm (23.4" x 33.1")

The Play and Build exercises in this chapter involve creating drawings with one or more repeating motifs. The exercises employ the approach common to most exercises in the early part of the book: draw, observe, absorb, repeat, (undoing, covering up or veiling as necessary).

Repetition of a Motif
Expressive Drawing - Chapter 6 - Play 1
Mixed Media on Paper
28cm x 38cm (11" x 15")

I haven’t been doing much painting recently, and it’s years since I’ve painted in acrylics. As an experiment I painted over some of the drawings from these exercises.

Shape Motif Repetition
Expressive Drawing - Chapter 6 - Build 2
Charcoal on Paper
59.4cm x 84.1cm (23.4" x 33.1")

Work has been really busy recently, but I am beginning to get back into the habit of (and enjoying) more regular drawing and painting.

Keys to Drawing with Imagination – Shading

Coastal Path Trees - Six Years Ago
Shading
Keys to Drawing with Imagination
Ink on Paper
21cm x 29.7cm (8.3" x 11.7")

Exercise 5 from Keys to Drawing with Imagination by Bert Dodson is about shading. The instructions are to copy or trace some doodles from the Building Blocks exercise (see Keys to Drawing with Imagination – Building Blocks), then to add light, shade and cast shadows. I started from scratch because my doodles from the previous exercise didn't seem very suitable.

Interestine
Shading
Keys to Drawing with Imagination
Ink on Paper
21cm x 29.7cm (8.3" x 11.7")

I’ve never been a great fan of crosshatching, so I used this opportunity to embrace it by trying to emulate some artists whose crosshatching I enjoy. In the drawing at the top of the post, I tried to channel the style of Ian Sidaway (Ian Sidaway Fine Line and Ian Sidaway Studio). These trees have appeared before when I painted them from the same photo 6 years ago (see Fast and Loose).

Tommy Kane's Lemon
Shading
Keys to Drawing with Imagination
Ink on Paper
29.7cm x 21cm (11.7" x 8.3")

The sketch of the lemon is based on a video by Tommy Kane - Tommy Kane on How to KrossHatch. While I was drawing it, I realised I’m not getting on with my new fountain pen as well as I would like -  Elaine gave it to me last Christmas. My old pen happily glides across the paper applying ink evenly, but this new one is scratchy and doesn't deliver the ink smoothly. This might be because of the different ink I use in it, but I think it is because the nib is not properly worn in. I’m trying to remedy this by pressing down too hard when I use it - which will hopefully speed up the wearing in process.

Keys to Drawing with Imagination – Silhouetting

Kiss Me Quick
Silhouetting
Keys to Drawing with Imagination
Ink on Paper
21cm x 29.7cm (8.3" x 11.7")

Exercise four in Keys to Drawing with Imagination by Bert Dodson is another 2 parter. Both assignments start by drawing a cluster of shapes. In the first exercise you keep a uniform(ish) distance between the shapes and fill them in with black. In the second exercise you make all the shapes touch in at least one place and then fill in around them.

Gone Fishing
Silhouetting
Keys to Drawing with Imagination
Ink on Paper
21cm x 29.7cm (8.3" x 11.7")

Both designs remind me of souvenir tea towels from seaside towns.

Keys to Drawing with Imagination – Building Blocks

Alas
Building Blocks
Keys to Drawing with Imagination
Ink on Paper

The third exercise in Keys to Drawing with Imagination by Bert Dodson is about Building Blocks. The first assignment is to create doodles using marker dots, stubble (short dashes) and stipple (dots). The second is to draw improbable structures made of bricks, stones or blocks.

Eiffel Tower
Building Blocks
Keys to Drawing with Imagination
Ink on Paper

I wasn’t enthusiastic about my drawings, but they led to a deeper understanding that doodling can mean different things at different times. Sometimes it’s a diversion, sometimes it’s focused more on experimentation than results, and sometimes the same techniques can be used in a more controlled way to refine a doodle into art.

L'Elephant
Building Blocks
Keys to Drawing with Imagination
Ink on Paper

Peter Draws creates excellent doodle art and has an entertaining on-line presence. Shortly after finishing these exercises I watched one of his videos - Dots for Days ... Intricate Stippling Art - which includes the advice:

Don’t do stippling if you are in a hurry. Place each dot as its own little dot, intentionally, slowly. It’s its own thing. Its own little drawing.

Since this revelation I’ve been creating much more satisfying doodles. I’ve a bit of a backlog to post over the next few weeks. Work continues to eat into my art time and this blog is suffering as a result.

Keys to Drawing with Imagination – Doodling Algorithms

Atomium
Doodling Algorithms
Keys to Drawing with Imagination
Ink on Paper
21cm x 29.7cm (8.3" x 11.7")

In Keys to Drawing with Imagination, Bert Dodson introduces the idea of Doodling Algorithms – take a simple rule or motif and repeat it multiple times with slight variations to fill a page.

Bert presents different types of doodle: geometrical patterns, waves, tangles and shape clusters. The second exercise in the book is to pick one of the categories (I chose tangle) and draw a series of doodles using the algorithm.

Pipework
Doodling Algorithms
Keys to Drawing with Imagination
Ink on Paper
21cm x 29.7cm (8.3" x 11.7")

Most of my tangles came out looking like puzzles – Find your way through the maze. How many loops? Which shot was fired first?

Who Shot First?
Doodling Algorithms
Keys to Drawing with Imagination
Ink on Paper
21cm x 29.7cm (8.3" x 11.7")

The Atomium doodle is based on a doodle I used to draw during maths lessons - to aid my concentration, obviously.

Paper Loop?
Doodling Algorithms
Keys to Drawing with Imagination
Ink on Paper
21cm x 29.7cm (8.3" x 11.7")

I'm enjoying working through Bert’s book. Currently, I don’t have much time for drawing and painting, but it is pretty easy to find time for a bit of doodling and it is helping to improve my hand control and sense for composition/design.

Expressive Drawing – Composite Drawing from a Sampler

Composite Drawing from a Sampler
Expressive Drawing - Chapter 5 - Build 1
Charcoal and Graphite on Paper
59.4cm x 84.1cm (23.4" x 33.1")

Chapter 5 of Expressive Drawing by Steven Aimone concerns Texture. The build exercise  involves creating a Composite Drawing from a Sampler. It is a two-part exercise. The first step is to create a sampler of the different textures in a subject. The second part is to create a drawing without reference to the subject, using the sampler as a reference with little or no regard to how the textures are arranged in the real subject.

I created a drawing based on the view from our garden. I was pleased Elaine found the picure reminiscent of the local landscape without knowing my choice of subject. I suppose I cheated really because there are parts of the drawing that are obviously supposed to look like a landscape.

Emulating – Chris Forsey

April Colour and Light
Copied from Chris Forsey
Mixed Media On Paper
26cm x 18cm (10" x 7")

Copying paintings is a good way to learn about the thought processes and techniques of other artists. Traditionally, you copy the works of the old masters, but I chose a painting by Chris Forsey because I have a few of his DVDs which gave me a head start towards understanding his approach.

I didn’t want to make a slavish copy, so I picked one of his acrylic paintings which is much bigger and a different format to the paper I am working on. You can see the original here:

http://www.claremontantiques.com/chris-forsey/2414-chris-forsey.html

Elaine and I spent last week walking around Brecon and Abergavenny and staying in some lovely hotels – this view could almost pass as a view of the river Usk.

I started by making a tonal sketch – which wasn’t very accurate and which I didn’t use much in my preparations.

April Colour and Light - Tonal Sketch

What really helped was breaking the scene into shapes and layers and working out how to paint each element.

April Colour and Light - Shapes and Layers

I enjoyed this exercise and learnt a lot from it, so I will repeat it with more pictures by some of the older and contemporary masters of watercolour and mixed media.

The colours in the picture at the top of the post are not completely true to the original. Our scanner seems to be having problems with red and cyan. I’ve corrected it as well as I can, but I’m wondering if a scanner can develop colour blindness and what I can do to cure it.

Keys to Drawing with Imagination - Take a Line on a Walk

Groovy
Take a Line on a Walk
Keys to Drawing with Imagination
Ink on Paper
21cm x 29.7cm (8.3" x 11.7")

Keys to Drawing with Imagination by Bert Dodson has the subtitle “strategies and exercises for gaining confidence and enhancing your creativity”.

I am reading the book and working through the exercises because I enjoyed Bert’s  Keys to Drawing (see earlier posts on Keys to Drawing) and I am hoping the book delivers on its subtitle. It is part of the plan to increase the confidence and variety in my mark making and to incorporate more emotion and spontaneity into my drawings.

Marquetry
Take a Line on a Walk
Keys to Drawing with Imagination
Ink on Paper
21cm x 29.7cm (8.3" x 11.7")

The first chapter is about Doodling and Noodling:

• Doodling is … doodling – “A drawing made while a person's attention is otherwise occupied. Doodles are simple drawings that can have concrete representational meaning or may just be composed of random and abstract lines, generally without ever lifting the drawing device from the paper, in which case it is usually called a scribble”. Thank you Wikipedia.
• Noodling is the process of decorating a doodle in a deliberate and controlled way. Bert talks about noodling processes – such as covering the doodle with dots or pinwheel patterns.

Apron
Take a Line on a Walk
Keys to Drawing with Imagination
Ink on Paper
21cm x 29.7cm (8.3" x 11.7")

Bert differentiates between the two activities:

Doodling is typically free, loose, spontaneous, vigorous and fragmentary. The noodling stage is often controlled, patient, mechanical, repetitive and complete.

Concentric Lines
Take a Line on a Walk
Keys to Drawing with Imagination
Ink on Paper
21cm x 29.7cm (8.3" x 11.7")

The first exercise is Take A Line on a Walk. You begin with a large doodle. Letting your pen go in any direction it wants, but making sure it ends up back where it started, so you create an enclosed shape. You then decorate the doodle with a noodling operation.

Territories
Take a Line on a Walk
Keys to Drawing with Imagination
Ink on Paper
21cm x 29.7cm (8.3" x 11.7")

The exercise was more fun than I anticipated - time consuming, repetitive noodling isn’t really me, but I quite enjoyed it. Some of the results surprise me – if I hadn’t drawn them, I wouldn’t guess they started out by taking a line for a walk.

Nachos
Take a Line on a Walk
Keys to Drawing with Imagination
Ink on Paper
21cm x 29.7cm (8.3" x 11.7")

I made a mistake in the pattern in almost every one of the drawings, but that is one of the joys of working in ink – you just have to smile (or sigh) and live with it.

March 2018 Sketches

Two Kinds of Tulips
29 March 2018
Watercolour
Stillman & Birn Alpha Series Sketchbook
14.0cm x 20.3cm (5.5" x 8.0")

March has been another quite month for sketching. There have been a lot of distractions. Work has been hectic and when I’ve had a few spare minutes, it is easier to pick up a doodle for exercise 1 of Keys to Drawing with Imagination than to start a sketch. I’ve also been doing some painting.

Mindful Leaf
25 March 2018
Watercolour Pencil
Stillman & Birn Alpha Series Sketchbook
20.3cm x 14.0cm (8.0" x 5.5")

The sketch at the top of the post is my favourite from the month. The other two sketches are based on practices from Mindfulness & the Art of Drawing by Wendy Ann Greenhalgh.

Mindful Mushrooms
18 March 2018
Graphite Pencil
Stillman & Birn Alpha Series Sketchbook
20.3cm x 14.0cm (8.0" x 5.5")

I am planning to get back into sketching during April by restarting Liz Steele's SketchingNow Edges course (see SketchingNow Edges for my previous experience with the course).

Expressive Drawing – Multi-Shape Drawing

Multi-Shape Drawing
Expressive Drawing - Chapter 4 - Build 3
Acrylic Ink and Paint on Paper
59.4cm x 84.1cm (23.4" x 33.1")

Chapter 4 of Expressive Drawing by Steven Aimone concerns Shape. I’ve posted drawings from the earlier exercises in this chapter on a previous post (see Expressive Drawing - Shape Compositions).

The third and final “Build” exercise in the chapter is a more open-ended examination of shape and shape relationships – you are even allowed to use more than one colour. I began the with some automatic drawing (aka mindless doodling, see Expressive Drawing - The Drawing Process). This evolved into an exploration of organic and geometric shapes.

I used acrylic paint and old brushes for the exercise. This choice of materials raised questions about the difference between drawing and painting. I’m not sure this is an important differentiation, but I covered over some expressive lines which I was disappointed to lose. For the next few exercises, I’m going to focus on line work with more traditional drawing materials such as charcoal and graphite.

February 2018 Sketches

Stained Glass Puffin
28 February 2018
Ink and Watercolour
Stillman & Birn Alpha Series Sketchbook
20.3cm x 14.0cm (8.0" x 5.5")

February was not a productive month for sketching. These are the scant highlights.

The puffin was a birthday/housewarming present from Elaine in June of last year. It's taken me a while to get around to painting it. I'm not sure why because I enjoyed the experience. Perhaps it's because the apparent simplicity is a challenge - simple objects can highlight our mistakes.

Tulips and Hyacinths
12 February 2018
Watercolour
Stillman & Birn Alpha Series Sketchbook
14.0cm x 20.3cm (5.5" x 8.0")

It's wonderful to have spring flowers in the house. Even if it's too cold for them to thrive outdoors - perhaps because of this. There is a lot of watercolour pencil in this sketch. I never used to be a fan of watercolour pencils, but I am coming to love them. They are a versatile tool  because you can use them for the initial setup drawing and then for quickly adding colour and texture.

Pears
15 February 2018
Ink and Watercolour
Stillman & Birn Alpha Series Sketchbook
20.3cm x 14.0cm (8.0" x 5.5")

The pears were an experiment in trying to build up the modelling of their form in a single watercolour wash. This is a technique I will work on again in March.

Be Mine
Watercolour and Ink On Paper
10cm x 10cm (4" x 4")

The last picture is not really a sketch. It is my Valentine's Day card to Elaine. It is based on a pattern I've been experimenting with in exercise 1 of Keys to Drawing with Imagination by Bert Dodson. This is one of the things that has being distracting me from sketching. I will write more about it later in the month.

Expressive Drawing – Shape Compositions

Angular and Curvilinear
Expressive Drawing - Chapter 4 - Build 1 - Part 1
Acrylic on Paper
59.4cm x 84.1cm (23.4" x 33.1")

I am continuing to work with Expressive Drawing  by Steven Aimone. Chapter 4 is about Shape. Steven identifies the ability of shapes to act as a metaphor for personality, emotion, psych and spirit as one of their most important attributes. He also observes that the relationships between shapes can act as metaphors for relationships between people, concepts and things.

The chapter explores some of the different characteristics of  shapes in contrasting pairs:

• Geometric v Organic
• Static v Directional
• Simple v Complex
• Angular v Curvilinear

The exercises focus on the same concepts. Shape Compositions is the first "Build" exercise. Part 1 explores angular and curvilinear shapes. Part 2 examines organic and geometric shapes.

Geometric and Organic
Expressive Drawing - Chapter 4 - Build 1 - Part 1
Charcoal and Graphite on Paper
59.4cm x 84.1cm (23.4" x 33.1")

I'm enjoying the book, but my progress has been frustratingly slow. I'm hoping to devote more time to it over the next few weeks.

January 2018 Sketches

Plants From Dr. Sarah
31 January 2018
Ink and Watercolour
Stillman & Birn Alpha Series Sketchbook
20.3cm x 14.0cm (8.0" x 5.5")

I'm refining a sketching approach to use outdoors when the weather gets better. It is basically Mark Taro Holmes' (Citizen Sketcher) Three-Pass Sketch from The Urban Sketcher with some tweaks based on Liz Steele's SketchingNow courses.

My intention is to model most of the forms with ink, so I can add colour with a single pass of watercolour – which removes the need to wait for multiple layers of paint to dry. I’m also making more use of watercolour pencil to add texture.

Joan's Shell Box
10 January 2018
Ink and Watercolour
Stillman & Birn Alpha Series Sketchbook
20.3cm x 14.0cm (8.0" x 5.5")

The little shell covered box belonged to Elaine's mother. Julie bought it for her from Mevagissey.

Elephant and Mahout
13 January 2018
Ink and Watercolour
Stillman & Birn Alpha Series Sketchbook
20.3cm x 14.0cm (8.0" x 5.5")

The little wooden carving is about 12 cm/4.5" high.

Lauhala Sea Turtle
15 January 2018
Ink and Watercolour
Stillman & Birn Alpha Series Sketchbook
20.3cm x 14.0cm (8.0" x 5.5")

Over the summer, a lady from Hawaii sat by me on a flight from Phoenix to Boston. She spent the 5 hours weaving a variety of ornaments from leaves and pan scouring pads from coloured plastic. We chatted and when we arrived in Boston she gave me this little turtle. Its about 6cm/ 2.5” long.

Alessi Parrot
17 January 2018
Ink and Watercolour
Stillman & Birn Alpha Series Sketchbook
14.0cm x 20.3cm (5.5" x 8.0")

Corkscrews are tricky things. The winged ones are probably the easiest to use, but you usually end up with bits of cork in your wine. This is my tool of choice. It’s called a parrot, but hasn’t got wings.

SketchingNow Edges

Mixed Baby Tomatoes
4 December 2017
Ink and Watercolour
Stillman & Birn Alpha Series Sketchbook
20.3cm x 14.0cm (8.0" x 5.5")

Liz Steele's SketchingNow Edges course explains how to create sketches with a strong focus and a great sense of depth by understanding the importance of edges. It is intended for people with some drawing and painting experiences.

The first part of the curriculum explores different types of edges. It differentiates between edges that are changes in plane and edges that are changes in colour or texture. It also considers whether edges are hard or soft and strong or weak. The second part of the course examines how to prioritise edges to create focus and depth.

There are 4 lessons with indoor and outdoor exercises. The winter weather isn't conducive to working outdoors, so, I've studied the course material, completed the indoor exercises and will return to it in the late spring. This approach will work well because the concepts are thought-provoking and worth studying at least twice.

This post contains my favourite sketches from the indoor exercises.

Not Mine
4 December 2017
Ink and Watercolour Pencil
Stillman & Birn Alpha Series Sketchbook
20.3cm x 14.0cm (8.0" x 5.5")

The shoes were an exercise in identifying edges that indicate a change in colour.

Desk Lamp
23 December 2017
Ink and Watercolour
Stillman & Birn Alpha Series Sketchbook
14.0cm x 20.3cm (5.5" x 8.0")

The sketch of the lamp was an exercise in losing lines. It is not particularly successful, but I enjoyed it and it is a reasonable representation of the lamp.

Honeybuns
29 December 2017
Watercolour
Stillman & Birn Alpha Series Sketchbook
20.3cm x 14.0cm (8.0" x 5.5")

Elaine bought the Honeybuns cake tin as a Valentine’s day gift in 2016. The contents aren't the original cakes – she refreshed the tin before Christmas. This was an exercise in simplifying and prioritising changes in colour. The result is unlike anything I’ve painted before. I kind of like it, but it raises more questions than answers. I am looking forward to returning to the course later in the year.