On Tip Toe

During this crazy time my posts to The GC will be a bit...sporadic. Sorry guys. I will post as much as I can but like so many of us around the world, things are a bit hectic. In the mean time, here is a figure drawing done on gray toned paper. It was the first time that I've ever tried drawing on toned paper and I think I might kinda love it. Next time, I will need to get a white colored pencil to make the highlights really pop but for now I'm happy with the results. I hope you like it too. I hope all of you are well and staying safe.

Materials Used: Graphite Pencils, Gray Toned Sketchbook Paper, Kneaded eraser

Getting Back Into Art During Stressful Times

I hope that all of you are safe and well during this terrible Covid-19 pandemic. For the past month, like most of you, my daily routine has changed dramatically and my unbelievably stressful days have catapulted into an all new level of crazy. Because of the high stress and anxiety I have been letting my drawing and this blog sit on the back burner for a while. The above drawing was done right before everything went a bit nutty in my area…so around the end of the first week of March.

I haven’t picked up my drawing kit since this was made. That is until last night when one more stressful straw piled onto the camel’s back. I found myself unable to sleep and at four in the morning I decided to grab a pen and a Post-It note to write out my to-do list for the day. Even though I was exhausted, I suddenly decided to sketch the figurine on my bookshelf at the bottom of that list. But without worrying about proportions…because it is 4 am and I am tired. It took about 5 minutes to quickly sketch out the face. Sure, it looked like The Thing from The Fantastic Four…if he were melted a bit by standing too close to a volcano…but that’s not the point. I actually felt better! I felt like I could finally go to sleep…and I did! My ugly little Post-It did the unexpected. Not only that, It actually got me to schedule in time today to get out my paper and pencils and get back into the swing of things art-wise. Not with the goal of producing something visually pleasing…though that would be great too…but just to be immersed in the process of making something just because I can. Have you ever noticed that while you’re concentrating on creating something (without being pressured to make something perfect), your mind is completely immersed in that activity. Your heartbeat slows. Your breathing deepens. You walk away feeling a little less crazy than you did before you started. It’s like a meditation. It’s wonderful.

So what do you do to feel better when you are sad, scared, angry or maybe feeling all three at once and you are about ready to bust? Literally. Spontaneously pop like a balloon filled with too much air.
Maybe in high school you used to idly paint with a crayola watercolor set. Maybe doodling little characters along the edges of your shopping lists always alleviated some boredom and stress. Or maybe you liked to blast The Best of Aerosmith while flinging paint at a canvas Jackson Pollack style while drinking grape juice from a wine glass and dancing wildly…all the while avoiding your cat’s judgemental stare. I mean, what’s his problem anyway?

Whatever your creative de-stresser of choice is, now is a really good time to keep that habit going. If you haven’t done it in a while, what’s stopping you from taking it up again? Even if all that you have on hand is a Post-It and a ballpoint pen. Swipe your kid’s watercolors (I mean borrow) and dedicate five or ten minutes out of your day to just playfully swirl some colors onto a piece of paper and watch the colors as they meld together and puddle on the page. It’s not going to be hung in the MoMA but at least it may make your day feel a little lighter. I’m wishing you and your loved ones all the best.
Stay healthy and stay safe.

Materials Used: Graphite Pencils, Strathmore 300 Series Drawing Paper, Kneaded eraser

The Beauty of Garlic?

While grocery shopping, I came across this interesting bulb of garlic. It was a bit tattered and the outer paper was split so that you could peak in and see just the tops of the little cloves inside. There was also a tougher hollow protrusion at the top which made me think of a hollowed tree stump.

I decided immediately that I wanted to draw it. But there is one small problem with garlic. No it’s not the smell. It’s the fact that its outer paper wrapper is extremely delicate. One small shift of the shopping cart or carelessly tossing it into a shopping bag could completely obliterate its paper wrapper. That’s no good when you’re using it for your latest art project. So here I am, cradling a bulb of garlic as though it were a precious gem while grabbing the rest of my groceries. Then I have to explain to the cashier why I’m being so weird about my garlic. And ‘No, no, no! Please don’ put it in the bag with the carton of milk. I’ll hold on to it, if you don’t mind. Thank you so much.” I ignore the weird smirk she’s now giving me and push my cart out to the car with one hand while cradling my delicate garlic bulb in the other like it was a newborn baby that I don’t want to drop. I will spare you the details of my “car seat garlic harness” that I engineered out of paper towel and a cereal bowl…

All this just to tell the world that “Garlic is beautiful!” Yeah, I’m strange. But the world really needed to know about the beauty of garlic. You’re welcome world.

Materials Used: Graphite Pencils, 140lb 100% Cotton Hot Pressed Watercolor Paper, Kneaded eraser

Drawing From Nature

One day, about a year ago, I was walking out of a bank and came across this dried fallen leaf. It was curled up and mottled with yellows and burgundy. I thought it was so fascinating that it made me stop in my tracks and study it. It had become official. I was the crazy lady standing outside of the bank giddily staring and smiling at something that no one else could see. I decided to continue on my merry way to the car all the while still thinking of the colors and patterns in that little leaf. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I should go grab it while I could. It may be kind of weird but that leaf was just so fascinating and I knew that I would never find another one quite like it. So I found a little box in my car and went back to collect my prize. I’ve since kept it in a little keepsake box with a few other random things I find in nature. While looking through that box I decided to draw my little leaf in graphite to study its various patterns. One day I plan to do another version of this in color to really show all of the subtle shifts in color but for now I’m really happy seeing it in black and white. I hope you like it too.

Materials Used: Graphite Pencils, 140lb 100% Cotton Hot Pressed Watercolor Paper, Kneaded eraser

You Can't Go Wrong With Raspberry And Chocolate

Raspberry filled cupcakes, drizzled with dark chocolate and topped with white chocolate curls.
Doesn’t that sound like heaven? Unless you’re allergic to raspberries…or chocolate. Then that would be an anaphylactic nightmare. In which case, stay away from that cupcake.

It took every fiber of my being not to eat this little beauty in two bites straight but I persevered. I fought the good fight, did some yogic breathing and I ignored that gluten filled temptress. Instead of eating it, I chose to draw it. I then gave it to my mom and stared daggers at her as she enjoyed my cupcake. It did not help that she had the biggest grin on her face and exclaimed how delicious it was whilst eating it. She did let me steal the dark chocolate shell that was topping the cupcake so that shut me up and made me pretty darned happy.

Materials Used: Graphite Pencils, 140lb 100% Cotton Hot Pressed Watercolor Paper, Kneaded eraser

Everything's Better With Tom Hanks - No Tracing Required

This drawing started out in a fit of rage. Like many of you, I am constantly trying to improve my artwork. Usually I do this on my own through a lot of practice and trial and error. But this past Christmas, I decided to treat myself by signing up for a local three part portrait drawing class. Through researching the instructor’s work I thought there would be quite a few things they could help me improve on in my work.

In the first class, we spent a long time partnered up and drawing each other in a blind contour warm up. Followed by drawing a gesture sketch of just the head shape and eye-line. We still haven’t been told how to draw the basic head shape. But we were told that the human head is generally 2/3rds wide as it is long. We were then told to draw each other with no instructions what so ever as to how. No demonstrations were given. Nothing. This is not what I paid for but I hung in there with the hopes that in the next class, I would get some golden nugget of information that would make it all worth while. For the next class we were told to bring in a photo of someone to draw. It could be on a tablet or printed but we shouldn’t rely on photos on our phones as the screens are so small.

The following week, I walk into the classroom to see half of my fellow students missing. It was then explained to me that they were trying to print out their photos. I didn’t think much of it as I was already in a less than cheerful mood. Ten minutes later, the instructor decides that we shouldn’t wait any longer for the rest of the class and we should start with the lesson. Several minutes were spent showing us examples of the instructor’s commissioned portraits along side the client’s reference photo for that piece. I marveled at how the finished drawing looked so much like the reference photo and wondered what the secret was. Several more minutes were spent giving us random information on features of the face. Random things like “The eye is not a perfect almond shape…don’t forget to draw in the lower eyelid…remember to shade that little divot above the upper lip.” That’s when the instructor whips out a packet of graphite paper and explains that they would like us to take our printed image and copy aka TRACE our photos onto our good drawing paper. “Wait. Excuse me? We’re copying the image?!” and if you think I didn’t say this out loud then you would be wrong. Yeah, the mental filter than runs from my brain to my mouth officially broke at that moment.

To save face, the instructor explained that if we were to draw the line work of the portrait then we wouldn’t have time to learn the shading technique. Um…I’m not buying that excuse. Well, I guess I actually did as I’ve already given this person my money to tell me to trace my reference photo. The instructor quickly said that I could email my photo to their laptop in order to print it out…so that I could trace it…since I had my reference photo on my tablet placed in front of me. Or I could do the line work by hand if I really wanted to. But if I wanted “a bit of a cheat” to make it a little faster and easier, I could trace like everyone else.
Yeah, I don’t trace.

After a few minutes of seething at this situation…and wishing that I had stayed home to watch the second to last episode of The Good Place I decided to scrap my original portrait choice and go with someone that never fails to make me smile. Tom Hanks. Who can not be cheered up by this man? You show me someone who does not like Tom Hanks and I’ll show you someone without a soul. It’s like asking who doesn’t love a basket full of puppies sitting on top of a rainbow which is being magically transported around town by a baby unicorn on a unicycle. Come on. It’s Tom frickin’ Hanks.
I digress…

So I decide to draw Tom Hanks using a photo taken by Jay L. Clendenin because frankly, I need cheering up and I think that it’s probably a lost cause anyway because when I am that upset (to the point where I’m almost shaking) usually my artwork is less than stellar. I finish my line work in the same time that it takes the people on either side of me to trace. Hmmmm…interesting. This is when the teacher interrupts us in order to give a less than five minute demo on their shading technique. I’m watching this person randomly shade in three small patches of an image that they traced while also glancing at the clock and thinking about just walking out. But then the instructor announces that we are not allowed to blend…at all. Not with a stump, not with a tissue, nothing.
It is a no-no. So blending is the ultimate sin but tracing a photograph and passing it off as your own work is OK to do? I start thinking of the ethical ramifications of this scenario which again makes me really wish that I had stayed home to watch The Good Place which in turn makes me even more angry.

But I had good old Tom Hanks waiting for me at the drawing board and he made everything right as rain. The remainder of the class was spent working on our plagiarized images…I mean our drawings…while the instructor walks around the room and gives pointers on what needs improving. We leave the class with the instruction to bring in another printed image for next week’s class to copy…I mean draw. Needless to say I didn’t attend the final class but I finished my Tom Hanks portrait at my leisure over the span of a few days. Does it look like an exact duplicate of the photo? Nope. Is there still room for improvement? Yes. And I’m proud of it. It is not perfect but at least I can say that it is my work from start to finish. Can you say it’s your artwork if you traced it all and then shaded in the rest of the information? If that’s the case then anyone can take a page from a coloring book, color it in beautifully and pass the entire thing off as their artwork. Something is seriously wrong with that. Copying is not the same as drawing.

Dear Diary

For this portrait I used a reference photo from Croquis Cafe. The model’s name is Saturn. This time around I drew at my usual size of roughly 8x10 inches. I must say it was much more enjoyable than the last portrait that I drew on January 8, 2020 which was only 5x5 inches in size. While drawing larger takes longer to execute, I think it is much more fun and you can add more detail than in a smaller drawing. When I first started the drawing, I found myself feeling very stiff and unsure of where to place my lines. But after about 20 minutes of guessing and second guessing myself, I was able to relax and just have fun with the process of it. Before I knew it, the pressure to create something worthy of posting online melted away and I was able to get into the flow of just making something that I’m happy to keep in my sketchbook. The thing that makes it a special part of my sketchbook is that it makes me smile when look at it. I remember feeling the flow of creating it and how relaxed I felt during that time. I have a few drawings like that. Some others I look at and remember the frustration or disappointment I felt when I drew it. These drawings serve as a reminder of things that I was doing in my artwork that yielded unsatisfactory results. So when I flip through my book, instead of seeing horrible drawings, I see messages within the drawings like “Don’t rush through the drawing”; “Don’t worry so much about the end result”; “Take time to get measurements and angles right next time ”. In this way my sketchbook has turned into both a learning tool and a diary without needing any words.

Paging Special Agent Skully

Today I decided to do a simple skull study. For this I employed my little four-inch human skull replica that I’ve lovingly named Special Agent Skully or Skully for short. This is the skull that I like to take with me when I travel or want something to throw into my bag so that I can practice anatomical drawing away from home. I also have a life-sized replica of a human skull that I named Dennis but I seem to draw from this one more often. It’s a lot easier to carry and you’ll get far fewer strange looks using a tiny skull than you would if you were to plunk down a full sized realistic human skull onto the cafe table to draw while enjoying tea and a brownie. Just trust me on this. I know.

Getting Back On The Horse

Happy New Year Everyone! I hope that 2020 is off to a great start for you!

Here is a small 5 inch square portrait. The original photo, taken by Ayo Ogunseinde was downloaded from Unsplash.com. I tried drawing small in the hopes that drawing each day would take a little less time without sacrificing detail. I find that lately, in order to have work to post online daily, I rush through the drawing process which I feel hurts the quality of my artwork and frankly it takes away the fun of making it. So, I’m trying to find the balance where I can draw daily and post my drawings here but still feel relaxed and happy with the process. This drawing was still a bit rushed even though it is much smaller than what I usually produce. I think I will try drawing at this scale a few more times but ultimately I think I prefer drawing portraits at double this size. I may have to slow down like I used to which would mean taking a few days to draw a detailed drawing and posting here 2 to 3 times a week. But I would be able to post more consistently than I have lately and with results that I am more happy with instead of taking long stints where I don’t post because I’m too unhappy with the day’s drawing that I rushed to complete. I’ve have become too worried about producing finished artwork quickly when I need to concentrate on developing accurate drawings more consistently. Until I find my stride, My posting here may be a bit sporadic. I do apologize but I hope you’ll stick with me while I figure things out.

I hope all of you have a fantastic day! Thanks for stopping by. :)

Bunny Therapy

We had a snow storm yesterday and it would seem that while I was outside shoveling snow last night that I managed to catch a cold. Yay. Since I’m feeling a bit under the weather (no pun intended) I’m afraid I have nothing very witty to say to you today. But if you stare at this bunny picture long enough maybe you’ll feel so warm and cuddly inside that you won’t care. If that doesn’t work, let me know and maybe I’ll draw you a puppy next week. :)

This drawing was done using a stock image that I found online. I’m sorry that I didn’t look for information on the photographer but I wasn’t planning on sharing this drawing initially. I hope that you enjoy it just the same. Have a great day everyone.

The Bowtruckles Are Coming!

I am a HUGE Harry Potter Fan. So when I spotted a Bowtruckle figurine in my local bookstore I just had to sketch it out. I loved the attitude of Pickett in the first Fantastic Beasts movie. Of course, the figurine captured the sass that he had by posing him with his tongue sticking out and one hand on his hip, which was great. Unfortunately for me, I ran out of time and could not finish rendering it but I still like the results.

Bust Studies and A Cure For The Blues

We all have bad days and sometimes those bad days turn out to last an entire week. Last week was like that for me. It was just several days where I felt like doing nothing but sitting in sweatpants on the couch and eating whipped cream straight from the can with reckless abandon. The only problem was, I was out of whipped cream. Of course. This weekend I tried to raise my spirits by going to a yoga class but at the end of it instead of feeling refreshed, I had the semi-violent urge to smash all of the salt lamps in the room with my new 6 pound eco-friendly natural rubber mat. Maybe it was the instructor rapidly telling us to change from one position to another while walking around the room…thereby not physically showing what pose she wanted us to twist ourselves into. Maybe it was the lady five feet to my left breathing in a very x-rated way every time she went into Adho Mukha Shvanasana. Maybe it was the fact that I now smelled like a rubber tire after 45 minutes of stretching on my new stupid heavier than lead rubber yoga mat that I paid way too much for. I don’t know.

So after trying to stretch myself to a blissful state of mind and failing at that I decided to go to the cafe down the street for tea and a cookie. A very, non-gluten-free tummy busting cookie. My stomach swelled out like I was six months pregnant and I was wearing brightly colored tight yoga pants. So…I had that going for me. And I was still in a lousy mood.

After that I decided something had to give. So this morning I decided to put on my Happy music playlist as loud as I could stand it while working on a classical bust study. And I must say that I am in a fantastic mood after doing this.

For anyone unfamiliar with the term “bust study” it’s a drawing or painting of a sculpture, usually of the head and upper chest only. Artists have been using busts to practice drawing the human head for a very very long time. It’s helpful to be able to study the features of the face and head from different angles without the distraction of color or the flatness that can come from studying a photograph. So if you can get your hands on a bust sculpture to practice drawing portraits with, I highly recommend you grab one. You can often find them cheaply online, at flea markets, and occasionally big box stores will have them in the home decor section. Just make sure that the features are well defined.

This sketch is of a little resin bust that I keep on my work desk but I modified it a bit. The bust that I have actually is an anatomical model that shows the muscles, veins, and cartilage of the face. So I decided to take artistic liberty and draw it as though it had a layer of skin covering everything. It was so much fun that I wasn’t even concerned if it came out perfectly or not.

So the next time you are in a funk, try putting on music that makes you want to get up and dance. Half of the time while drawing this I was dancing in my seat and mouthing the words to songs like Uptown Funk. It was the best…until an unsuspecting family member walked in and caught me busting a move while I worked. That part was awkward.

Antique Inspirations Part Deux

This is another treasure that I found at an antique show just before Thanksgiving. It is a little paper box filled with chalk pastels. They were only $2.00 which is insane. I wasn’t able to find out too much about them but there was a little piece of paper with the original owner’s name and the year 1955 written in cursive. The seller was able to tell me that the box of pastels was considered old back in 1955 but that was all. All of the pastels are in the box. Some have been broken but all of the pieces are there. The design on the cover is embossed into the paper and I find myself constantly going back to study the design just because it is so intricate and (in my humble opinion) beautiful.

Half-way through drawing this I was cursing myself for attempting to draw something with so many small details that requires precise lines and angles. After I had been working on it for about three hours at the cafe, I decided to pack up my supplies for the day. In my mind I started yelling a bunch of inappropriate words at my drawing but a very nice woman interrupted my mental tirade. While walking past me as I worked, she had spotted my drawing and took that moment to compliment me on my drawing. Her kind words made all of the measuring, erasing, re-measuring, and neck cramps that I had endured during my work day worth it…Well, her compliment and the soy hot chocolate I had as an excuse to keep warm as I worked made it totally worth it!

It's All About the Little Things

Sometimes it’s hard to find time to draw. Life gets overwhelming and I feel like I can’t even think straight let alone find something picture-worthy to record in my sketchbook. That’s how my day was going when I drew the picture above. I was visiting my Aunt in the hospital when she fell asleep during my visit. The only problem is if I were to step out of the room to find something interesting to draw and she happened to wake up alone in the hospital room, she would have gotten extremely upset. So I stayed glued to my seat, waiting for her to wake from her nap. In the mean time, I became mind numbingly bored. Thankfully I had my sketchbook and pencils so I dug through my bag to find something interesting to draw. I found a tube of lip balm, nail clippers, and my keys…so the clippers won the drawing subject show down. As it turned out, they were incredibly fun to draw and I became a little obsessed with the way the florescent light over my Aunt’s bed glinted off of the metal. Even though it looks like a simple drawing of nail clippers to the rest of the world, to me it’s the perfect reminder of a day where my Aunt kept falling asleep on me and leaving me to my own devices with reality TV blaring in the background. She’s OK by the way, it turned out that there was nothing seriously wrong.

Have a great weekend everyone. I hope to see you back soon. :)

Life in Magenta

This 20 minute life drawing was done late last night. On a whim, I decided to grab one of the two colored pencils I keep stashed in my pencil case. I enjoyed sketching with this pencil so much that I can’t remember why I stopped using it in the first place. It’s a Faber-Castell Goldfaber #133 Magenta pencil if you are interested in trying it out for yourself. I picked up both pencils from a local craft store for $1.49 each. It is erasable and the pigment in this pencil lifts off of the page better than the blue pencil I have from the same product line. My only wish is that the pencil were just a little bit more pigmented. It’s not really a problem though. I’m happy with the way it looks in person, the color just photographs a little paler. If it had a bit more pigment, I think the color values would look lovely on the page as well as on camera.

Some other artists who were sketching with me were using really interesting mediums. There was a man who used neon chalk pastels that had some wild results. The artist next to me even sketched with acrylic paints. This impressed me because had I used acrylics, I’m sure I would have ended up with more paint on me than on my paper. Messy mediums like that are better left at home in my case. Maybe sometime in the future I’ll take my watercolors or gouache paints out with me…I’ll probably end up wearing the gouache and the resulting artwork may be questionable though. :)

Disclaimer: All products that I use were bought with my own money and and no one asked for my views on this or any other products. Everything stated here is my honest opinion.

Wishin' and Hopin' and Thinkin' and Prayin'...

This sketch was done while I had a little free time in between running errands. I used an image of the rooftop of Notre-Dame de Paris as a reference. I like this gargoyle because he looks more like he’s bored and in deep thought rather than a ferocious creature protecting the cathedral. I think every time I flip back to this particular page of my sketchbook the Dusty Springfield song Wishin and Hopin’ will pop into my head. If you decide to Google it, be advised: That song will most likely get stuck in your head too!

Antique Inspiration

Hi guys! I hope that you all had a great holiday weekend. Today I have a drawing that I was planning on doing last week but I just didn’t have the time with all of the holiday preparations. The weekend before Thanksgiving me, my mom, and a friend headed to a local antique show. It was a lot of fun and there was a lot of exciting things to see. Since I forgot my camera that day, I decided that I might draw some of the things that I found there. My mom was sweet enough to buy me a ceramic Beatrix Potter figurine from 1950. I am a big Beatrix Potter fan so this was a big deal for me. I decided to draw my little figurine. I hope you like it. I will try to include another antique show inspired drawing later this week. Have a great day everyone. :)

There's Always Time To Draw...Right?!

I was planning on posting every week day this week even though Thanksgiving is Thursday. I figured that I can still post in between writing out a menu, going grocery shopping, and basically being glued to my stove for two days. And that’s on top of the normal daily stuff that I have to take care of. That idea apparently wasn’t based in reality. So this may be my only post for this week.

I leave you with a quick sketch of Boris Karloff dressed as Frankenstein’s Monster. It is unfinished because I ran out of time to work on it but I think I like it better this way than if I were to finish it. This probably took about 30 minutes to draw but I wasn’t looking at the clock, so can’t be sure. I hope you like it.
For those of you who are in the U.S. like me, “Happy Thanksgiving!” or “Happy Turkey Liberation Day!” for the non-meat eating crowd. Have a great week everybody. I hope to see you back here soon. :)

Attack of the Killer Cupcakes

These cupcakes are cute, they’re cuddly but don’t be fooled because they also kill your wallet as well as your waistline…

This drawing was done from reference. I used a couple of different pictures of cupcakes that I baked for my birthday. Because I have to eat gluten-free, I thought it would be great to make raspberry lemonade cupcakes for my birthday. I was going to top these delightful morsels with a raspberry buttercream frosting. It was going to be sheer perfection on a plate.

But alas, things never work out the way I plan them. Because I was out of town on my birthday, I was forced to grab boxed gluten-free cake mix and a tub of Duncan Hines frosting from a supermarket. So instead of raspberry lemonade perfection, we had cupcakes that tasted a bit like banana bread topped with chocolate fudge frosting. Very strange combination but they were edible. They also cost an embarrassing amount of money and leaked butter straight through the cupcake wrapper.
Healthy, I know.

But the nice thing is that I found monster candles in the baking isle when I picked up all of the ingredients. This enabled me to play with my food as if I were five. Let’s just say that I may have envisioned my cupcake as an alien invading a small town built out of paper cups and sugar packets. Don’t worry, it was captured and eaten alive while its eleven other cupcake friends looked on in horror. They had to be taught a lesson, you see. No one invades Papersugarville and lives to tell
about it.

Say Hello To My Little Friend!

Tiny Burro, you’re the one…You make art time lots of fun. Tiny Burro I’m awfully fond of you…