drawing – Page 5 – Ink, Yarn & Beer

New Challenges

One thing I find interesting is my need to “drop bombs” on my daily life. What this means is simply that getting into a rut is not a good thing, and shaking up the patterns and routines are necessary to keep life interesting. For example, I have settled into this pattern: coffee, breakfast, clean up myself and the house, figure out evening meals, and then paint and draw. Much as I like the last, I find myself getting stuck in a rut. The other things I like doing don’t get done. And, I get really bored; worse, I feel like I am not “accomplishing” anything! That’s the problem with having a lot of interests and an impatient, restless personality. I irritate myself as well as others.

The other day, I finally got around to buying a new laptop computer. My old ones were worthless except as boat anchors. Poor graphics and connectivity. Slow. I have one, a Windows XP machine dedicated to my film scanner. Another was not forward compatible with Windows – can you believe that??? Anyway, as a result, I had to clean up the bloat ware on the new laptop and install software I use. With everything internet-based, it’s interesting to now own a laptop with only a few external connections and no DVD drive. The result was I finally broke down and decided to enroll in Lightroom CC for photography.

I really like LR as a jump-off point for other software to edit photographs. The catalog system is great. However, the Creative Cloud version has some things I need to learn! I have never been a cloud-based person, preferring to keep stuff on my own hardware rather than rely on others to take care of me. As times change, though, so must we, even if I am not sure this is always for the best. What I know I will like is being able to access my photos from either my laptop or my home computer without having to use sneaker net anymore. That is also what I like about Google and being able to sync across computers.

The challenge here is making sure I do what I like. It’s actually very hard to find time to do all the things I want to do. Poor weather has kept me in the house a lot – who wants to go out in pouring rain? – but that is like house arrest after a bit. The LR is going to be a challenge, and fun. The bigger challenge is to find the time to do so many other things!

I have made one promise to myself, though: I will draw or paint every day, no matter what else is on the agenda.

Temple Sunrise

This is a rather eclectic picture as far as technique. Pencil drawing, ink, watercolor, more ink, more water, and so on. Paper is Arches cold press 140#, 9×12 inches. I thought I would use a better quality paper this morning because I knew I would be using a lot of water. It paid off. A picture of a Japanese temple was the inspiration for this mish-mash, as well as the fact I felt like drawing more than anything else.

This Morning’s Disaster

This morning I set out to do a couple of things. First was to do another ink / pen drawing. I used the same sketchbook as I did yesterday, one with lightweight paper that worked very well yesterday. Second, the attempt to stretch myself a bit and do a beach scene. I find waves incredibly difficult.

The sketch itself was okay – nothing particularly challenging in and of itself. I rather liked the composition. However, if you look at the sketch above, do you see those little greyish streaks in the lower left and center? That should have clued me in then and there – the paper is very thin. Water? What was I thinking of?

And here we are, with washes applied with a lot of water. Even though you cannot see it, the paper became mottled in appearance, buckled and crumpled. Ugh! But, what the hell, I may as well try something. And thus, I picked up my box of Caran D’Arche’s Neocolor II crayons, and carried on . . .

Having never really used the Neocolor crayons before, I will say I liked them. I scribbled in colors which I thought might work, and then laid other colors on top of them to blend before using water. And then with a waterbrush – not a laden brush – I smoothed and shaded.

I am not pleased with this picture at all, but I still learned something about a medium I haven’t really explored – the watercolor crayons. On a heavier paper designed to take water, there is a lot of potential here. I love coloring, so I can see myself moving into this area, perhaps more so than with watercolor pencils, which seem more delicate to me in their color rendering, but perhaps that is wrong as I have limited experience with them as well.

Oh, well. The picture was a disaster, but the potential far outweighs it.

A Sunny Day in the Garden

A few miles up the road from me is the local botanical garden. It’s located on a series of hills that cover several acres. Trails wander through oak groves and chaparral. Specific areas are planted for butterflies and birds, sage plants, California natives, rare fruit, cacti. It’s always a pleasure to meander around in it as it changes with seasons. Different times of day bring out different animals; as well, the light shifts and changes. Early morning, sunset, high noon. Benches line the paths throughout the garden. For a wilder walk, there are the trails along the creek. I’ve seen squirrels, road runners, coyotes and hawks. Critters like it as much as I do. It’s even better when you are the only one there except the wildlife!

I went out to take pictures and to draw – it’s been several weeks since I was last there. Rain and cold as well as being ill kept me home for a bit. With today’s 70 F, it was hard to stay indoors. I took a couple of cameras – one film, one digital – some paper and a pen. I wanted to see the flowers in particular, especially the spring bulbs which come up at this time of year. I wasn’t disappointed.The outing was soul-satisfying on a personal and artistic level. I’ll be back sooner rather than later! There is little more satisfying than time spent in solitary and quiet appreciation of nature.

The Days of Inktober 2018

October is “Inktober” to many artists – a time when, around the world, artists focus on ink drawing, from a suggested list of words, or just because you can. Drawing in ink can be done spontaneously, over a preliminary drawing, with pen or brush, with black or colored inks. Ink is ink. And the experience is great.

I’ve been focusing on the list, which you can see below.

When you think about it, it can be really hard to be inspired by the topics. How do you depict “precious”? “Chicken” can be pretty obvious – until you pursue the more obscure meanings of “chicken” – as in cowardly or yellow.

Below are my Inktober drawings through the 11th day. For the last one, the mushrooms just have to have that glorious red – so watercolors were added. And, to be honest, I needed something beyond the black and grey and whites of ink.

I hope you enjoy them!