Sketch of a horse

"Untitled"
Sharpie pen
5.5x8.5

Study of a study: Leonardo da Vinci

"Study of a rearing horse: Leonardo da Vinci"
Sharpie pen
5.5x8.5

A couple of my teachers throughout the years have recommended replicating art that you admire as a method of improvement in technique.  I pulled up some images of sketches by Leonardo da Vinci, and chose this one as my reference.  

I used a Sharpie pen, whereas da Vinci used red chalk in his drawing.  The feel is a lot different as a result.  His lines and shading have a much more organic feel to them, which makes sense given that many of his studies were in preparation for sculpture.  My lines are sharp and crisp, and I had to rely on crosshatching for a similar result to da Vinci's shading.  

It is interesting to see where he experimented with different anatomical placements of the horse's head and legs.  These conscious choices can make a huge difference in the impact of a piece; I am striving to be more aware of my choices when creating art.  While I was working on this piece, I felt the most focused and inspired that I have in quite some time.  I suppose that studying the great artists will do that.

Freehand Andalusian

"Andalusian"
Sharpie pen
5.5x8.5

I was standing outside yesterday, admiring the balmy October afternoon, when a little niggling thought popped up.  "You haven't drawn anything in over a week now.  You really ought to update your blog."  An image of a proud Spanish horse, mane flowing and neck arched, came to my mind.  I like to draw the Iberian horses the best- the Lipizzaners, Friesians, and Andalusians.  There is such grace, strength, and beauty in their conformation.  They are the Adonis of horses.

This was a freehand, no reference drawing.  There are some liberties taken with the horse's conformation, and as usual when I draw without reference, his eyes are too high up on his head.  It's not as noticeable as usual, so there has been some improvement.  The foreshortening of the right foreleg is a little awkward but gets the job done without detracting from the overall image.  I could spend more time on the shadowing and crosshatching.  There is a heavy reliance on line in the drawing, especially on contour lines.  While there is nothing "wrong" about that, some classic instructors and critics might turn their nose up.  I'm no da Vinci, but even he used a lot of contour lines.  I think I may try replicating some of his sketches to improve my own art.

The Last Rose of October

"The Last Rose of October"
f/2.0/ISO125/1/2564s
HTC6500LVW

The days are growing shorter and cooler, and the sky is becoming clearer and bluer. It's October, the growing season is ending, and the time of harvest is here. A few hardy blooms remain in my garden. I had the good fortune of seeing a goldfinch perched on the coneflower stalks, pecking at the seeds of the dried flower heads.  With wonder, I observed that the only rose bush is putting forth one more bud.

We inherited this rose bush with the house, before there was a flower bed. It was a sad little thing, growing out of the yard itself at the corner of the house. Last year, only one bloom made it. The leaves were chewed full of holes, and it didn't quite clear a foot in height. When we finally got around to putting in the flower bed on the street side of the house, I decided that the rose would need to be transplanted. It needed to be dug up anyway, otherwise the rototiller would have destroyed it. Up it came and into a temporary home while we weeded, turned over and amended the soil, and bought a few perennials. I didn't have high hopes for the rose, but we put it back in the ground anyway.

This year, we made sure to fertilize the rose bush in particular, and keep the pests off as best we could. This last October rose is the seventh bloom. It's a blinding hot pink, so bright that the human eye and the camera have a difficult time focusing on it. The chilly weather has preserved the rose for days now, a late summer firework. I took this photo early on a Saturday morning.  The sun had only just come over the horizon, and a few raindrops from the storms the night before lingered on the silky petals.  Liquid gems sparkled and caught my eye, and my lens.  

The photo was originally in color, but I want the focus to be on the lighting, and to capture the melancholy feel that autumn sometime brings.  Bittersweet, the end of warm sunny days, but the beginning of wonderful crisp days that lift my soul on brisk winds.

Music, some of Bob Langrish's photos have blurry bits, and drawing on a large scale

"Untitled by Bmode"
India ink on Bristol board
18x24

I was knocked out by a pretty ugly stomach bug for the past couple of days, and only this afternoon was I able to rise out of bed for more than the necessities.  I had recently cleaned my studio space at home.  As I stood on knees as wobbly as a newborn foal's and stared at my desk, I decided that I would draw something, and something big.  I opened up my portfolio from my student days, where to my delight I discovered that I still have a few pristine sheets of Bristol board.  It's a fine, smooth paper, and yields incredibly crisp results.  

I knew I was going to draw a horse (no surprises there), so I went through one of my coffee table books on the subject and chose a photo by Bob Langrish for my reference.  For those of you who don't know, Bob Langrish is pretty much the god of equine photographers.  He has shot nearly any equine subject that I can think of, and many of his Horse Illustrated magazine posters graced my walls when I was a kid.  I may or may not have a slight inferiority complex when it comes to my art, so it was an utter revelation when I was looking at these photos and noted that the whole horse was NOT entirely in focus all the time!  It's really hard to get crisp photos of a horse moving at speed, and I felt so much better about myself  when I saw blurry hooves in some of his photos of horses galloping.  Because, guess what, a lot of my photos are somewhat similar.  Of course, nearly everything else is totally on point- the lighting, the composition, et cetera- yet I felt a little relieved that I didn't necessarily have to be so ridiculously harsh on myself about such a technical point.  Equine photography is often about capturing a moment of beauty, grace, and power, and the feelings that these great animals inspire in us.  Piffle if the hooves are a bit blurry.

I set up my workstation, put on a bit of music, and went to work.  Music is a part of the human identity, and therefore also a part of an artist's identity.  Even as early as seventh grade, I remember my art teachers putting on the radio and us kids getting our creative groove on.  It was especially a big deal in my high school drawing classes, where our teacher allowed us to bring in CD's of our own.  I discovered a few new artists like this, but I owe a lot of my taste in music to my older brothers.  For art making purposes, I gravitate towards classical, trip-hop, electronica, ambient and downtempo.  There's a free online radio station called Jango that has helped me discover even more artists, such as Bmode, Nightmares on Wax, and Aphex Twin.  I've also become extremely fond of Nujabes, whose music is unfortunately awfully expensive to buy, but there is a good Youtube mix out there if you fancy trying him out.

Getting the horse's proportions down first with a pencil sketch took awhile, with the front legs below the knee giving me the most difficulty.  I was fairly successful, given that I don't often draw on a large scale like this.  Originally, I was going to use gouache paint, but my tubes of paint had dried solid.  Next to the gouache was a canister of unopened India ink.  It was a smashing success, and I do believe there will be more experimentation with the medium.  It felt magical and effortless as I wielded brush and ink over Bristol.  I know that there's a lot more to India ink than crisp lines, but it served my purpose so very well in this regard.

Clear Autumn Days

"Beneath the Surface"
HTC1 camera phone
f/2.0/ISO125/1/600s

It felt genuinely strange to not have any work obligations this past weekend.  For just over a month, I have been in the pattern of morning routine-commute-work-commute-feed pets-sleep, with Sundays being spent with family, preparing meals for the week, and catching up on chores.  This past Friday night, I came home and felt lost.  Now what?  There was no need to be up early for work on Saturday; this was unfamiliar ground.  What is this... free time... and what do you do with it?

Free time is absolutely vital to humans, and to artists in particular.  Constantly running against the clock and a schedule filled with obligations does not allow time for spontaneity or exploration.  It depletes mental energy to the point where a ten minute sketch is exhausting.  I have realized that some "necessities" will have to be put on the back burner if I want to make my art more of a priority.  Free time brings inspiration and the space to do something about it.

While on a drive through the rural countryside near my home last year, I noticed a trailhead that looked promising.  I had no plans on Sunday, and I decided that it would be a good day to go exploring.  The day had begun cloudy but by the time we made it to the trail, it was a breezy crisp day, and the sky was that special October blue.  It wasn't a very well-maintained trail, but after some bushwhacking, we were rewarded by making it to the Pennsylvania bank of the Delaware River.

We stopped for a while, just sitting on some river rocks, listening to the rapids and the wind gusting through the autumn leaves.  The view was extraordinarily picturesque.  I climbed onto a fallen tree and walked out over the shallows, where I saw a fuzzy white caterpillar, and focused on the cold breeze blowing in my face.  From there I spied a vividly colored leaf, submerged yet close to the surface.  It bobbed in time with the waves cresting through an eddy, lit up with the perfect light in crystalline waters.  I just had to get a picture.  I did some strange yoga pose with my toes touching the water, my body and arms stretched out over the pebbly shallows as I tried to get a good shot without dropping my phone in the water.  It was wonderful to pursue passion in place of necessity, even just for a precious few hours.

An Old Friend

"An Old Friend"
Sharpie pen
5.5x8.5

I came across this picture whilst browsing Pinterest, and I found myself deeply stirred.  The photo of the old dog reminded me of Star, my childhood black Labrador retriever.  I still miss her very much.  It's been said that everyone (who likes dogs, anyway) has a life dog- one special dog that none of the others in their life can compare to.  Sort of like a doggy soulmate, as it were.  I believe Star was my life dog, and sometimes the grief at her passing is as fresh as the day it happened.

It's rare that a photo or other types of artwork elicits such a response in me.  I decided to do a sketch and see what happened.  It has been awhile since I last drew from a reference photo; a lot of my recent scribbling has simply been from my thoughts.  I really enjoy using the Sharpie pen.  It's easy to elicit a sense of detail and illustration without laboring over depths of graphite.  I'm also fond of crisp, bold lines.  Growing up with Disney and lots of cartoon and anime artwork will do that.  My proportions are a bit off, and I didn't frame the dog to scale, but I'm still pleased that I had the discipline to draw it anyway. I could be good at this if I put the time into it!