Get Ready, Get Set, Make Art

I’ve prepared the following post to be added as this week’s contribution to the new collaborative blog Studio Shots – Tuesday.  The topic this week is artists’ tools and materials.  Anyone with an interest in art can participate.  Visit the blog to see various artists’ studios that were added during the blog’s first week of existence, tools and materials added this week, and the easy instructions for joining the fun.

Portable Art Studio

This is my portable art studio – an art journal and a box of art supplies.  I can pick it up in a moment and be ready to go with it, to a park bench, on  trip, or just to my living room chair.  It contains: the prepared art journal, a ROYGBIV assortment of Prismacolor pencils plus black, white and gray, a plastic eraser, an electric eraser with spare inserts, a pencil sharpener, a burnisher, a set of Derwent sketching pencils and charcoals, a set of micron archival and waterproof sketching pens ini sizes 005 to 08, a 2B pencil, a mechanical pencil, a fat sketching pencil and some “magic pencils” that contain variegated colors in one lead.  Pretty minimal, but I’ve never needed anything for sketching yet that wasn’t in my portable art studio.

Sketching subject deteriorates before my eyes

This is my current sketching project, or, rather, a picture of the sad remains. A few days ago, I thought this bouquet was too pretty not to be preserved in a sketch. Today, it’s going to take all my imagination to record its former glory, in spite of the blocking in I did when it was still in fairly good shape. An example of the peril of procrastination!

Art journal with blocked in bouquet sketch and blank page

My notebook, like my box of drawing materials, is always ready to go. When I get a new journal, I paint each page with acrylic paint (or watercolor, or whatever) to prepare a background for sketching later on. The background on the right hand page above is similar to the one on the left , which I chose for my vase of flowers. I love this stage because it is so free-form.  Sometimes I tear paper pieces and paint them onto the surface, or paint over paper pieces and then remove them. I might add some metallic paint, interference powder, or paint a page with many layers of glaze, diluting the paint and holding the journal upright while it  drips down the page. Nothing can happen that can’t be used as a background at some time or other.

Finished colored pencil sketch

This is the finished colored pencil sketch. Pencil was heavily applied on the flowers and vase, then burnished so the waxy pigment would fill in the paper texture.

The paper in this journal is an unnamed, general variety, not the best for colored pencil work. I enjoy working with pencils in my portable studio, because they’re light, there is no mess, minimal smearing on other pages in the journal, and no set-up time. Oh, and I love the bright colors, too. I think I can find some paper more suited to colored pencil work.  There will be a web search coming in the near future. Maybe this afternoon.

Tripping Along

Early in the morning on New Year’s Day my husband and I packed the car and took off for Ann Arbor to see my mother who is unable to travel anymore. There were very few cars on the road, and no construction in Dayton, so a nine hour trip turned into an eight hour trip, which  is still plenty of time to think about the promise of the New Year.  After the economic shenanigans of 2008, one can only hope there is promise in 2009! I did not make any resolutions, preferring to use the more mature term, ‘Plan.’

It is my Plan for 2009 to make steady creative progress.  The progress part will take care of itself if you just steadily make art, so I intend to sketch, take pictures, work in pastel, oil, acrylic, or whatever else is within reach, every day of 2009, if possible.  To ensure that I got off to a good start in my 2009 Plan, I packed my sketchbook and colored pencils along with my boots and warmest coat and gloves for a January trip to the Winter Wonderland.

Mom's Azalea

We arrived at dinner time, ordered Chinese take-out, and then while we sat and talked, I sketched the flowers that were on the table next to my chair. All my sketchbook pages are already filled with color, so I picked a page with a color that would look good behind the Azaleas. I applied the pencil heavily and then burnished it to make the colors smooth and intense.  This technique needs a smoother paper, like Bristol, to look really good.  My sketchbook paper is porous, so the color doesn’t fill in all the holes. No matter. A sketchbook is not meant to be seen by anybody. It is there to provide an easy place to make art, to make mistakes, to draw things that let you know how to do it better the next time.

Mom's chair

I got up early the next morning and sketched the chair my mother sits in.  It hurts her to walk, so her chair is command central, with everything she could possibly need within arms reach.  I elected to sketch only the chair since we would only be there for two days! The perspective is off, as though the back of the chair is twisted too far to the front to match the seat part. Next time I’ll try to do better.

Coffee Table Book Box

We had a nice lunch at Zingerman’s Roadhouse, and took my mother to the grocery store in the afternoon.  After supper we put Casablanca in the DVD player and I sketched the little book shaped box that has been around the house forever. I like the reflection in the wood table. It was hard to make myself rub the brown pencil all over the reflected books after I had drawn them in fair detail. The perspective is OK this time, a little easier to do than the rocking chair.  Drawing is all about seeing.  ”Here’s looking at you, Kid.”

Mom's Teacups

Up early again Saturday, and while I waited for everyone else to wake up, I pulled two pretty little teacups out of the china cupboard to sketch.  I should have warmed up with some contour drawing, because I really gave the erasure a workout while I got the proportions right.  I finished just in time for a field trip with my husband and brother to Angelo’s on campus for lunch and then to Barton Pond to take some pictures of the dam and trees covered with icy spray from the water rushing through the sluices.

Reindeer Contour Drawings

My mother had put the reindeer out on a table as a Christmas decoration.  I decided I wanted this drawing to be quick and looser than the others, so I started the reindeer on the left as a modified contour drawing, where I sketched without looking at the paper.  He turned out to be cute in a Cubist kind of way.  I looked more often as I sketched deer two and three.  The evergreen turned out to be an undesirable addition.  Maybe I’ll paint over it with some acrylic sometime.  Maybe not.  This is a sketchbook.  It ’s not intended to be perfect.

This was my last sketch before returning home.  The wintry scene was appropriate as we left in a forecast of freezing rain.  Nine hours later we were home with temperatures in the sixties.  Not that I don’t think Michigan isn’t beautiful.  We’ve always had a beautiful relationship.

Cardio for the brain – the art journal

I draw in an art journal.  I would say I do this every day, but new babies, elections and some photography commissions have taken precedence in the last few weeks.  No excuses.  I could at least have done a five minute contour drawing.

If a blind contour drawing is the artist’s warm-up exercise (November 16, 2008), then drawing regularly and consistently is the cardiovascular component to keeping the right brain in shape.  A painting session gets started faster and progresses more efficiently if the brain has worked a little bit everyday.

Art journal page- Watercolor background

This picture of an art journal page with a watercolor background shows one of the ways I make it easy for myself to make drawing a habit.  I take a new journal to my kitchen counter along with a tray of watercolors, a plastic container of water and a few brushes, and I leave it there until I have added color to every shiny, white page.  The whole book is then ready for me to do a contour drawing or sketch every day for weeks until it is filled.  The space it takes up on the counter is never a problem, since more art than food prep takes place in my kitchen anyway.

 Journal page – Feb. 28, 2008

I drew three apples and pasted a magazine picture of something I liked on my journal page for February 28, 2008.  Sometimes I make lists, jot down ideas that come to me for art projects,  or record book titles, songs, poetry or quotations I like.

 

Journal page - Sept. 22, 2008 ©3DogStudio

I raid my kitchen for items to sketch while I watch TV.  A kitchen is most useful when it is providing art props.  I admit it, I buy plates and serving utensils at T.J. Maxx, not to use to serve a meal, but as props for my drawings.  Sometimes these items inspire me to think about fixing something for dinner.  I think we had taco salad on September 22.  This drum table, in front of the couch where I usually sit, appears on many of the pages in my journals.  I use colored pencils for these drawings because they can fall into the cushions without making a mess.  A plastic storage container contains an assortment of colored pencils, drawing pens, pencil sharpener and an eraser that I can easily take with me if I go out of town, or meet a friend somewhere to sketch.