Holiday doodle

Happy Holidays!

Holidoodle
graphite
small leather sketchbook

Posting will resume on Monday, December 29th.  Merry Christmas Eve!

A Shaggy Pony

"Technicolor Shetland"
pen
small leather sketchbook

I honestly did not feel like doing anything today.  Eat healthy after a week of relying on take-out because of my busy schedule?  Irresistible sugar cookies at work.  (But I ate the salad I made this morning, too, and resisted ordering a sandwich from Jimmy John's).

This feeling of wanting to obtain and/or conserve energy as much as possible during the holiday madness also extended to my desire to maintain my blog schedule.  With the aid of a couple of cups of tea, I scraped the dregs of my creative impulse into this drawing of probably a Shetland pony.  My inspiration was a particularly fat and fuzzy Shetland seen while driving around in the area of Columbia, NJ, for my family's annual Christmas Bird Count.  I got the picture from this blog: Misanthropology 101.

Anyway, I started drawing the pony, got as far as the contours and face, and stopped for a couple of hours to Reddit for a while.  Like I said, my motivation was not quite there.  It took the second cup of (now caffeinated) tea for me to leave the drawing where it stands.  Simulating fur can be tedious, but it also is sort of like playing in a Zen garden.  Stroke of the pen, stroke of the pen, stroke of the pen.  Mark, mark, mark.  Slowly the animal comes into being.  I was playing with some of the filters on my HTC1 and liked the look of this bluish saturated one, so I left it as is.  

Gesture drawing with horses

I had ten minutes, and I decided to draw some horses from real life using my skills from drawing a human model.  There's a few pastures near my workplace.  These Standardbred geldings were munching down on some hay in a hay rack.  They also are not so cooperative as a human model, who you can tell to just stand there.  Because they were eating, their body movement was minimal, but their heads and necks were constantly in motion.  It was an exhilarating challenge that mentally put me totally in the moment.  The goal of gesture drawing is to capture your subject in as little time as possible, and is ideal both for your developing eye and for capturing subjects prone to sudden movement.

Gesture Drawing 1
pen
small leather sketchbook

Gesture Drawing 2
pen
small leather sketchbook

Gesture Drawing 3
pen
small leather sketchbook

Later, I had a little more time and worked from one of my old photos, paying close attention to the details of and around the eye.  This took much longer than ten minutes.  I got very much into the swing of laying down graphite line after graphite line.  A few areas should be darker, but I will need something harder than #2 to properly finish it out.

Equine Eye and Face- study
graphite
small leather sketchbook

Black-capped chickadees and working from photographs

Black-capped Chickadee
pen and pencil
small leather sketchbook
Original Photo

Most of my work lately has been from photographs, and often not my own photographs.

This is for a number of reasons.  I do not yet have the financial luxury of being a full time artist, and while I do consider myself a decent photographer (I promise that I'll get some photographs of my own up here eventually), I simply have not had the time to go out and take a lot of new pictures.  As I work towards developing my technical skills as a professional artist on a very limited time budget, and I find myself curious about different breeds of horses, different poses, and different species, this means I go to the almighty Google and see what the world has to offer me.  I would really, really rather be going out into the world itself, sketchbook and camera in hand.

As an art school graduate, I know that I'm capable of creating from my own personal observation.  This alleviates some of the sting.  The photograph undergoes some transformation under my pen and pencil, and so it is not like the original; I omit scenery or other details, or imagine what's under an overexposed highlight, or simply do not have the ability to create a photo realistic image.  I am supremely thankful to those people whose photographs have helped me to create new drawings.

I do encourage artists to use photographs.  They can help you see what you might have missed in a real life observation, or solve a drawing problem.  Some subjects are difficult to capture in real life, such as birds, horses and (awake) cats.  Franz Marc and other great artists used to go to slaughter houses or literally kill birds so that they could better observe their subject.  That's not always feasible in today's age.  Hence, photographs.  Drawing from a photograph does help to learn the subject and hone your observation skills.  I am working on not "being a slave to the reference," however.

Ideally, I would work from life and from my own reference photos, and I am working on putting myself in a place where I can do just that (i.e., not commuting 2+ hours every day on top of the eight hour work day and not relying on takeout).  I want to be a full time professional artist; this blog partially details that journey.  It may be as simple (and complicated) a matter of just taking the plunge and leaving the traditional work force.  I hope to build a large enough client/fan base to be able to do just that within the next five years, or to be able to find a different job that is not so restrictive or far from home (sorry bosses).  There's always tomorrow, I tell myself comfortingly.  But the other part of me says, "The time is now!"  For the present, I do my daily sketches, write my blog, and formulate my plans and dreams.

Anyway, black-capped chickadees are one of my favorite bird species, and are prevalent in my area at this time of year.  They are vivacious, curious little creatures, and sound so cute when they say, "Chick-a-dee-dee-dee!"  Seeing them takes me away to quiet, snow-covered fields and forests, walking through the cold beauty of winter.  Even with all of the gray and cloudy weather recently, a chickadee will reliably make me smile.

Chickadee Sketch- no reference
pen
small leather sketchbook

"Chickadee Study"
pen and pencil
small leather sketchbook

A Poodle, a Newfoundland, and a Shih Tzu

I have a coworker who also grooms dogs on the side and hopes one day to have her own grooming business.  I decided that for her birthday, I was going to draw her favorite breed of dog.  Except, she has three favorite breeds of dog, so it became a drawing of three breeds of dogs.  None of which, incidentally, I had ever drawn before (the previous post notwithstanding- I couldn't ruin the surprise, now could I?).  I found some reference photos and went to work on a graphite sketch.

Three Dogs- sketch
graphite
small leather sketchbook

Newfoundland dogs are very furry and take a long time.  Because they have so much fur, it's easy to lose sight of the underlying body structure.  I spent a while squinting at my reference photo trying to ascertain where neck met body and shoulders deviated from the body.  Poodles, needless to say, have wild haircuts, which again can make the artist lose sight of the animal's anatomy.  While drawing the the Shih Tzu, I found it was easy to distinguish the four main parts of the body (head, shoulders, body, hindquarters) despite its fluffiness  I ended up going with a slightly different composition from different photographs for the final version.  Using a gel pen resulted in a very appealing drawing with a crisp, illustrative look.

Three Dogs
pen
5.5x8.5

Sketch Friday

After reading an article about what differentiates a professional artist from the amateur, I decided that I would get out my sketchbook and draw, even if what I really wanted to do was pass out, face down, on my desk.  But, the professional artist does not wait for inspiration to strike.  Instead, she works at something every day.

The first drawing was so-so.  I drew this Newfoundland's face quickly, focusing on how large different patches of fur were and the lighting of each to determine my proportions.  As you can see, I ended up drawing over the original sketch.  For a little bit, I had a lopsided, four-eyed dog staring back at me from the page.  It was pretty trippy.  Now the dog is only slightly lop-sided, and because I did everything in pen, you can see that the dog's face was just a little too wide at first.  Okay, a lot too wide.  It doesn't have to be perfect, I chanted to myself as I slogged away at it.

Why do you do this to me.

It may be much less than perfect, but that dog is looking at you exactly the way that I wanted to look at everyone yesterday.

Ugh.  Feed me and tuck me in someplace cozy already.

That took roughly an hour and a half, and I had plenty of drawing time left.  It was time to go back to the old standby topic of interest- horses!  I was much more satisfied with this one, and I even reminded myself of Wesley Dennis's illustrations, who is best known today for his work with author Marguerite Henry.  Dapple gray is a difficult coat pattern to draw, by the way.  It requires quite a lot of patience and concentration for all of that detail.  That is where the beauty of suggestion comes in handy.  I think that this is the first drawing of two horses doing something other than standing around looking pretty that I've done in a while, and I used two reference photos for the composition.

"Tag"
graphite
small leather sketchbook

"Plum Pretty"

"Plum Pretty"
11x13
pen

After a little bit of sketching and perusing another Google image search of "two horses," I decided to type in "galloping horse."  I was having trouble staying awake and needed to draw something with plenty of energy.  Somewhat dissatisfied with the results, I typed in "galloping Thoroughbred."

I have always been very fond of Thoroughbred horses; many of the horses that I have ridden are OTTBs.  Their athleticism, conformation, and competitive spirit have always impressed me.  I came across a photo of a mare named Plum Pretty.  She was fully extended at the gallop, one ear pricked back at her jockey, one ear surveying the track.  Her muscles would make Michelangelo drool.  As it turns out, she is quite a fancy filly, having won the 2011 Kentucky Oaks.  She sold at Keeneland for $4.2 million in 2012 (source: Blood Horse).  This is not a horse who will turn up in a lesson string for the likes of me to fall in love with.

While drawing, I found myself thrilled with excitement over just how fit this mare was and how amazing the equine physiology is.  I'm not sure that I manage to capture her as well as I would have liked, but some passersby thought it was a pretty picture.

"Balboa Lusitano" and the perils of cats and charcoal

"Balboa Lusitano"
detail with cat's pawprint

I was waiting for my turkey to brine on the night of Friday, November 28th.  I had about four hours to kill, and I was inspired to take out my charcoal for the first time in quite a while.  Working from a reference photo by Bob Langrish in one of my many horse books, I became lost in capturing the spirit of this fiery Lusitano stallion.  His bay coloring and fierce eye put me in mind of Rocky Balboa; Rocky IV had been playing in the pizza parlor earlier that day.  Hence, the title for this piece: "Balboa Lusitano."  I will probably almost certainly do some more work on it.  As you can see in the above photo, my cat Arya decided to take a closer look at this drawing.  I took the picture for evidence before erasing the paw print with a kneaded eraser, so I could photograph the entire drawing.

"Balboa Lusitano"
pen and charcoal
11x14

During the process of photographing, Arya came to investigate.  Most of the time, I love how she follows me around the house.  Most of the time.  I like it rather less when she gets her little paws (and claws) into my artwork and supplies.  She is terribly adorable, regardless.

Who, me?

On Friday, I became frustrated with the lighting at my desk job while working some more on my Suffolk Punch team graphite.  It's rather dim and yellowish light, and I literally could not see what I was doing with the lighter gray details.  So I decided to make this tracing off of the computer monitor to feel some sort of sense of accomplishment.  This revealed to me that my free hand drawing was not quite accurate in its proportions, but fairly close.  I might take some watercolor or acrylic paint to it and just have fun.

I was talking to my significant other about all that I had/have in mind to do: finish matting and framing my prints, acquiring more supplies, going to Greens and Beans, blogging, trying to become good enough to have an art show, going to other people's galleries.  He said that he had no idea that there was so much to art.  As one of my professors said, there's a reason why artwork is called Art. Work: yet I want to continue enjoying the fulfillment of my creative process.
 

Sometimes I draw stuff other than horses. But mostly I draw horses.

I am in the process of working on an exhaustingly detailed (for me, anyway) graphite drawing of a Suffolk Punch team.  Draft horses have been very appealing to draw for me lately.  Their thicker, more muscular conformation allows me to diversify my equine portfolio, and I also don't want civilization to forget about these strong animals, without whom so much agricultural work was nigh impossible.  Also, war horses.  Do you really think anything but a big draft type could handle The Mountain That Rides?

"Suffolk Punch Team"- work in progress
graphite
11x13

 I really, really want this to be a great piece.  The reference photo is just gorgeous, and I want to do it justice.  However, I need to keep reminding myself that it doesn't have to be good at all, that I just have to try and all will be well.  Like so many others out there, I struggle with being far too harsh on myself, and I want art to keep being fun for me, after so long of it feeling like a chore.  For now, this is just a graphite piece, but I may add pen for some boldness.  It's about four hours in, and many more to go.  Just figuring out the contour lines was an excruciating two hours.   I unfortunately forgot my pencil on Thursday, so I did a sketch of my beagle, Brucie, instead.  This one took about two hours.  What is this?  She does stuff other than horses? I can hear you asking.  Why yes, yes I do.  But horses are my favorite.

"Brucie"
pen sketch
small leather sketchbook

Some sketches, and more thoughts on matting

Some quick internet searching has revealed the depth of my lack of knowledge on how to mat my prints.  However, my googling has also shown that this can easily be remedied, and now I have a few more items on my wish list: namely those supplies required to cut my own mat board.  I also saw some good ideas on picking up frames from Goodwill and the like, since places like Michael's will charge you a simply ridiculous amount of money.

I'm always a little nervous about using sharp edges and power tools (I walked in on The Machinist at a very scarring moment), which is one of the reasons why I only ever visited the wood shop at Mason Gross once to attempt making my own frame for a canvas.  If only somebody would cut the frames for me, then I would happily stretch my own canvas!  I do think that I can handle a mat cutter, though.  I want to be a serious artist, and a serious artist can and will cut her own mats.  I will start with simple archival-quality matboard until I have a little more recognition and funding, then I will look into the museum-quality stuff.

Meanwhile, here are some sketches for your amusement.

"Palomino"
colored pencil
small leather sketchbok

"I Love Snow"
EnerGel pen
small leather sketchbook

"Dappled Stud"
EnerGel pen
small leather sketchbook

Laser Reproductions, Matting, and Feline Interference

"Galloping Draft"
pen and colored pencil
11x13

Last month, I created three pen drawings which are some of the best work I've done in a while.  This was following the encouragement of some of my affiliates who passed by and admired my work.  These three, along with "Two Horses" are the works which I am planning to display and hopefully sell at the florist.  My tentative price per framed and matted print is $25; maybe $30 depending on how I end up matting them.

I went to Staples on the advice of an article on how to make your own prints here.  It's written by an artist who actually works in my area by the name of David Sullivan.  His most well known work is that portraying the Bethlehem Steel Stacks in Pennsylvania, and he works mainly in pen and ink.  He writes:

 "...Using laser copies is probably the best method to use if you're just starting out. It allows you to get individual copies and not be committed to high numbers, and it allows you to experiment with several different drawings to see which ones will sell, and which ones won't (without going broke in the process)."

He also cautions that if you intend to sell laser copies as matted, framed work, you should limit the venue to small coffee shops and the like, as a large gallery will not take you seriously if you bring them laser prints.  Since I am just barely starting out as a professional artist, this is definitely welcome advice.

I had no idea what I was doing when I walked up to the copy center with a brand new USB and a beat-up school folder with my drawings.  Thankfully, the woman at the desk was patient and helpful.  She scanned the work onto my USB, reduced the images by 75 percent, and centered them on 8.5"x 11" card stock as she oo'ed and ahh'ed over my drawings.  The resulting images are roughly  6.5"x 8.5" (my wooden ruler is warped, and I don't remember what she said to me).  They look beautiful.

"Grazing Belgian"
pen and ink
11x13

I wanted them centered because my intent is to mat and frame them before finally getting over to Greens and Beans.  When I went to Michael's, I quickly rued not selecting a larger image size, as there were no pre-made mats cut to the size that I needed.  Thinking swiftly, I decided to purchase heavy black drawing paper and create my own mats.  I was thinking poorly after an exhausting (but fun, don't worry) weekend of family get-togethers and cooking a second Thanksgiving dinner almost by myself, and chose a not particularly standard size of black paper (9x12).  This would lead to difficulties when I was attempting to create a mat for a 8.5 x 11 frame.

I will learn to properly mat artwork again; I think there was a lesson on that in my high school freshman drawing class, but I remember almost nothing.  What I decided to do was to take the measurements of the scanned image, mark the dimensions on the heavy black drawing paper with a white colored pencil, and using a straight edge and an Xacto knife, cut out the opening.  Simple, right?

Well, not so much.  My cat, Arya, otherwise known as the spirit of mischief, kept leaping onto my drafting table and my art supplies.  This was very distracting, and resulted in many interruptions as I removed the tumultuous tabby from the desk and reorganized my work station.  My finished mat certainly was not as straight edged as I wanted.  But, not all is lost.  I may be able to salvage the roughly rectangular cut out and use that to create my mat templates.  Next time I do make copies, I will make sure that either I am much more proficient in matting or that I choose a standard sized image.

"Gypsy Vanner"
pen and colored pencil
11x13