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!

Artwork, is, well, work.

"Untitled Spirit"
5.5x8.5
Sharpie pen

I like to think that I am more self-disciplined than the average person.  However, I still find that I could improve in this area.  For instance, I have not kept my promise of drawing something at least once every weekday.  This is clearly detrimental to my goals of becoming a professional artist, yet I have chosen not to take this helpful step.  Why?  

Part of it is fear, fear that I'm not good enough, that I'll never be good enough, and I will always work for the man.  (By not practicing my art, I very nearly ensure that this will be the case).  The latter isn't particularly bothersome, but I feel I cannot live up to my artistic potential, my creative potential, by doing so.  I have always been bound by my desire for security, and the idea of lacking a steady paycheck with benefits wrapped into it is troubling.  Still, I dream of spending my days creating and marketing my art.  It would be amazing to work with my hands and mind in synchronization.

Discipline is doing something towards a goal, anyway, no matter what.  It's recognizing the consequences of action and inaction, and working towards improvement when it would be easier not to.  The idea of art is wonderful.  For me, the creative process is exhausting.  I made two sketches yesterday, one of which is posted here.  I got to the point where, instead of refining the second drawing, I got tired.  I felt my muse run dry, the flow ebbing away to dry sand and sawdust in my mind.  This is where discipline must step in and push creativity onward, and this is where I failed.  I was done, and simply didn't want to go on any further.  I have plenty of self-discipline when it comes to cooking, cleaning, housework, staying fit, and getting myself to my day job.  When it comes to my art, it is a notable area where improvement is possible.  I've already identified that some of the housework could and should be allowed to slide to make more room for creative time.  Now it is a matter of action. 

Pony Scribble

"Pony Scribble"
pen sketch

In order to encourage myself to draw something today, I simply took a pen and began scribbling in my sketchbook.  As happens so often, the scribbles began to take on an equine form, and a quick drawing was built from there.  I gave myself permission to be messy, to not have perfect proportions, and allow my creativity to come to the fore.  All too often, my creativity is swallowed by other demands on my mental energy, and when I do sit down to create, I am hindered by fear of not being good enough.  I am learning how to push through that reluctance and anxiety about beginning, and accepting the changes and flaws that occur both in art and in life.  Trying is better than not taking any risks, and if I can encourage myself to draw outside of my comfort zone, wonderful things might happen- such as this little drawing!

Saguaro Spirit

"Saguaro Spirit"
pencil sketch

 I'm back!  I have done a few sketches in my (online) absence, and these are the most recent ones.  Today begins the renewal of my goal of drawing every day.  "Saguaro Spirit" is a free-hand, no reference sketch.  I was thinking of my horse, Lola, and how she often peers out of her stall down towards the pasture and the pond at the bottom.  My spirit horses seem to be the most unique and fun expression of my style, so I will probably be spending a lot more time on them.  I will eventually translate this from quick sketches to large paintings.  This style and subject would have great presence in a larger format.

"Thinking of Dali's Elephants"
pen sketch

I'd like to say that the disproportionate conformation of this horse was intentional, but it was purely accident.  My brain was probably shocked that I was asking it to draw again.  As you can see, head, neck, and body are all proportionate to one another- but something disconnected when it came to drawing the legs.  They became elongated and large, a grown horse with foal's legs.  However, it is not an unpleasant effect, and perhaps even benefits the drawing with artistic license.  I may try to replicate the style on purpose in the near future.

Honeybee

"Honeybee"
pen sketch

I was absurdly pleased this morning to see a bee visiting the purple speedwell growing in one of my flowerbeds this morning.  "Look!  A bee!" I squealed with delight to my significant other.  As spring progresses into summer and more of my flowers bloom, I've looked to see if I have any visiting pollinators.  Alas, not even the clover in the lawn has attracted bees, at least not while I've been around to observe it (admittedly, I am not home very much- something that I'd like to remedy).

You don't have to follow the news to know that bee populations are dwindling rapidly.  Just sit outside on a warm afternoon near some flowers, and you'll be surprised (and maybe saddened) as I am by the lack of these fuzzy little guys.  It's tragic for the bees, and bad news for us two-legs.  Without bees, we lose a lot of pollinators that make agriculture possible.  Certain species of flowering plants that require bees to assist in their reproduction may see a decline, as well.  There are many other species of pollinators out there, but how long until climate change and disease affect them, too?  

I want to help the bees, and I try to do so by planting flowers they find attractive in my garden, and allowing some dandelions and white clover to live in my lawn.  It's all right if I don't have pristine perfect grass if it's helping nature out a little.

Spotted Hyena- pen sketch

"Spotted Hyena"
gel pen

Here is a terrible photo of a less terrible sketch.  I'm feeling very tired and cranky, so do forgive me my transgressions.  While reading about hyenas, I discovered that they are closer in the animal kingdom to cats than dogs, but display behavior typical to both canids and felids.  Wildlife biology is absolutely fascinating- if only math wasn't so frustrating, maybe I could science.

Bees

"Mistaken for a flower"
HTC One camera phone

I almost didn't draw something today, but I convinced myself that it was worthwhile to try, even if it didn't turn out great.  And it would be okay if it didn't turn out well, because I'm rather tired and am on the eighth day of working twelve days straight.  Yesterday, during a very long and hot twelve hours of being on my feet, there was a bee that would not leave me alone.  (Foolish me, wearing perfume to an outdoor event).  I did have the opportunity to take some photos with my phone, since it was both quite persistent and docile in insisting that I had to be a flower of some sort.  One of the photos came out surprisingly artsy; my phone's camera was having trouble with the bright sunlight, but it yielded a very interesting effect.  Below is the drawing based off of the photo.  Bye the bee, we ought to be concerned about their declining population.  Plant native (or at least non-invasive) flowering plants in your back yard as a start to helping out- I'm planning on getting some veronica to augment my flowerbed.

"Bee the Light"
pen- sketchbook

Friday Sketch

pen

The Landing, and some thoughts on my direction in life

"The Landing"
ballpoint pen- about twenty minutes of sketching
small leather sketchbook

I've been remiss in posting, largely because my time and energy has been eaten up by preparing for an interview for a job that I didn't get, and also by my re-entry into the horse world.  It's probably better that I didn't get the job, despite what would have been a significant pay raise.  An administrative position, while lucrative, isn't truly what I want.  To be honest, what I really wanted was more money to play with ponies, especially now that I'm riding and leasing again.

I did my first horse show photography since the WEG trials at Gladstone nearly five years ago in mid-April, which you can take a look at here.  This quick sketch is based off of one of my photos from that day.  It was a laid-back and very fun event.  I took my Nikon D100 with the 135mm lens, which telescopes.  The multiple frame feature wasn't as effective as I had hoped, so I really had to focus on each horse and rider, count strides to the jumps, and try to time the photo so the horse was in the position favored in most jumping photos- knees up and forelegs tucked underneath the body.  Since I am a rider, I had pretty good luck with that.  I unfortunately had some issues with blurriness in the more distant shots.  

The folks at the schooling show seemed pretty happy with my work though, and I even sold a few photos.  My price was much cheaper than what the professionals at the big shows charge- according to my trainer, $75 for a small photo.  I'm not a full-time photographer in the least, and I want people to buy my work- so I suppose I could consider this an introductory phase.  Were this a full time gig, I would charge much more.  I have to live, after all, and roughly $70 for six hours of work (plus editing, uploading, and printing photos) doesn't cover the labor.  For now, this is for fun.  I think I would enjoy specializing in schooling shows and lessons.  I'm not very comfortable with the tense atmosphere at rated shows, and I do think that people would love to have photos of the hard work and fun put into their horses.

Part of me still longs to drop the full-time job and jump into full-time artist status, lack of a steady paycheck notwithstanding.  Or at least go to a part-time job, to alleviate things like having to eat and keep a roof over my head, and devote the rest of my time to what I really love.  It may be worth the sacrifices required.

This was shared with me recently, and is making me rethink what I'm doing right now.

Chincoteague Pony- Pop Art style

"Pop Art Pony"
gel pen
small leather sketchbook

I originally went into this drawing with the idea that I'd create another one of my "swirly horses" as one of my friends has dubbed them.  However, my rendering of this horse's anatomy went awry in the area of its loins and hindquarters.  As I was drawing in pen (oh, how I love to live life dangerously!), the mishap was glaringly evident.  How was I going to solve this?  Enter clever cross-hatching.  The result is certainly not photorealistic, but visually appealing.  In fact, I can even say it's inspired by Roy Lichenstein and the pop art movement itself.  This is not entirely a conscious inspiration, but a few years of art school might have had some influence on my subconscious.

Because I grew up loving horses, they are a clear influence on who I am today.  Horses are a frequent theme in my work.  When I was 9 or 10, I was given Marguerite Henry's Misty of Chincoteague to read.  I became obsessed with the series and fell in love with Henry as an author.  Many of her titles still sit on my bookshelf.  As I've discussed in an earlier post, illustrator Wesley Dennis was also an important influence on my art and my passion for drawing.  While I appreciate the style and challenge to conventional art that pop art presents, I still love a painting or drawing that tells a story.  I only hope to capture the liveliness of spirit that Dennis' work does.

Red-winged Blackbird

"Red-winged Blackbird"
gel pen and red Sharpie
small leather sketchbook

I heard the "konk-a-ree!" of a red-winged blackbird as I walked my dog in the morning.  It was thirty-six degrees Fahrenheit, warm enough for me to wear a hoodie instead of my winter jacket.  The sun actually felt warm on my face.  Starlings, cardinals, finches and sparrows sang and called.  When I heard the redwing, I was transported back to one of my childhood homes, which had a small wetland ecosystem in the back yard.  Each spring, hundreds of red-winged blackbirds would nest in the cattails and puff out their feathers as they called.  I loved to look for the stately males on the tops of the reeds, trees, and telephone poles.  Wings and tail are fanned, beak opened wide, as they claim their territory.  They are one of my favorite harbingers of spring.  Shortly after I heard the blackbird, I saw yellow crocuses about to bloom on a sun-drenched southern slope.  Warmer weather and the growing season are indeed almost here.

My drawing's proportions are a little off; the body of the bird should be a little more slender and his beak shorter and thinner.  I was very pleased with the hatching effect of my pen, but the shoulder patches were too white and flat in comparison.  There happened to be a red Sharpie marker on my desk, so I took a risk and used that to shade in the bird's namesake.  I'm pleased with the overall result.

Bay Arabian- 30 minute pen sketch

"Bay Arabian"
gel pen
small leather sketchbook

I'm trying to pull myself out of this winter funk and begin publishing a new blog post 3x a week.  Today I came across a stock photo of this exuberant Arabian.  Despite my sleepiness (c'mon, it's in the lower fifties and sunny!  So much better than the negative temperatures we suffered in February!), I managed to dredge up enough motivation to do a quick sketch.  I worked with quick, gestural strokes of the pen.  There is a certain beauty to sketching that I haven't quite managed to translate to more formal work.  This particular piece showcases that beauty in its expressiveness and use of suggestion.  The viewer is allowed to speculate more about the horse instead of being given a  representation which leaves little to the imagination.  Perhaps the loose lines and wild energy appeal to me so much because it represents the churning thoughts of my subconscious, which are often masked by my practical and precise outer personality.

Landscape drawing and small acrylic painting of a fox

"Landscaping"
gel pen
small leather sketchbook

It was pointed out to me that I tend to focus on details or single subjects in my work, followed by the suggestion that I try to branch out and experiment with landscapes.  I have done a couple of small landscapes here and there, and while there are many possibilities within the scope of landscape painting, it just isn't something I have really gotten into.  Many landscape paintings are large, grand affairs.  This sketch was somewhat tedious for me.  Leaves were agonizingly difficult to represent to my liking, so I settled for suggestions of leaves.  I remember several years ago when I had recently gotten my driver's license, I took my paints and even an easel out to do a little plein air, but once I had arrived at my destination, I realized I hadn't brought a single scrap of paper. 

As a viewer of art, I find myself attracted to more impressionist landscapes in the style of Monet  than those devoted to capture every detail.  Tight, realistic brushwork is impressive, but it doesn't stir me the same way loose strokes and a sense of effervescent light do.  Maybe I'll hit the road with brushes and paints again, and this time I'll remember to bring a canvas or two.

"Vulpes Sienna"
acrylic paint
4"x5"

Yet another snowy day gave me some time to break out the acrylic paint again.   I've been considering re-reading His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, and I've always wished for a daemon of my own.  Sometimes I like to wonder what my spirit animal could be, even going so far as to take some of those silly online quizzes out of boredom.  The answer points strongly to wolf or bear, so I originally was going to do a spirit-wolf painting.  Then I made the face of the canid too pointy.  Oh well, I had been reading about foxes lately, so I pursued the vulpine subject matter.  This was just for fun, and I wanted it to be a simplistic representation of the animal.  I've seen foxes hunting in the winter snow.  They leap straight into the air, back arched, tail looped, and come pouncing down forelegs first.  This behavior is what inspired this fox's pose.

Floral studies- pansy and crocus

"Crocuses"
gel pen
small leather sketchbook

Dreaming of spring, I thought of the flowers that I would like to put in my garden.  Crocuses shall have to wait for planting until the fall, but I'm looking forward to adding some bright, early splashes of color with pansies.  I've done a pansy study before from the flowers in my mother's garden, and doing this drawing took me back to that moment in April sunshine.  When it's cold, smells are dampened, but when the first warm spring winds come, the air is alive with rich soil and heady chlorophyll.  My favorite spring scents are lilacs and hyacinth.  Although snow is falling (again), the first green shoots will soon push through the thawing earth.

There was no preliminary sketch in pencil for either of these drawings; I simply took my pen, began with the basic shapes of the flowers, and added detail.  I have a tendency to vertically elongate my subjects, especially as seen in the pansies below.  A lot of (out)lines were used, giving these more of a design quality than realism per se.

"Pansies"
gel pen
small leather sketchbook

Pronghorn Antelope and the Creative Process

"Pronghorn"
pen
small leather sketchbook

Originally, I was going to draw a horse.  A Morgan horse, to be precise.  As I was idly scrolling through my Google image search results, I saw some baby goats standing on top of a reclining equine.  I thought to myself, "Perhaps I should continue in the vein of broadening my horizons, and draw something other than equus caballus."  "Goat" was summarily entered into the search bar, but nothing captured my eye.  Somehow my mind leapt to gazelle, and from gazelle to antelope.  I'm planning on going to the American Southwest early this summer, so I thought of pronghorn antelope.

According to Wikipedia, pronghorn are not antelope at all, but the last surviving species of the North American Antilocapridae.  Their closest living relatives include giraffes and okapi.  They were almost hunted to extinction, but collaboration between the National Audubon Society, the Boone and Crockett Hunting Club, and President Hoover helped establish a large enough game refuge which put the population on the road to recovery.  Some subspecies remain on the endangered species list, however.

I spent a little over an hour on this little sketch, working only in pen.  His nose should be a little smaller, but otherwise I'm pretty satisfied with his proportions. I will count myself very lucky if I get to see one of these guys in the wild! 

A (very rough) concept drawing

Color Concept Drawing
pen and oil pastel
11x14

It's been a while since I had the gumption to tackle a drawing on anything larger than my little sketchbook, which is only about 5"x7".  Yesterday night was a lazy Sunday night, and truthfully, I didn't feel like doing anything at all.  The February blues would have me hibernate until St. Patrick's Day if I let them.  But, it wasn't quite bedtime, so I took about fifteen minutes to sit at my actual drawing desk (it's rather funny how little I use it), pull out a large pad of drawing paper, and see what my recent experimentation with the equine form would look like in Fauvist color.

Immediately I sensed that my form was off.  My hand-eye coordination has become much better at approximating perceived shapes, but that was not the case last night.  I can live with the anterior of the horse; the photo was of a Quarter horse, with a smallish head and stocky, muscular neck and shoulders.  But everything went flibberty-gibbet when I tried to quickly sketch out his barrel and hindquarters.  My usual precision was nonexistent, and the poor horse ended up with a very awkward conformation.  Front and back appear to belong to two different animals.  I wanted to give it up right then and there (and of course I was doing the initial drawing in pen, so there would be no correcting it).  I took out my cheap oil pastels anyway and began alternating colors at random as I drew each spiral, focusing on warm colors.  Again, I like the result of the head, neck, and shoulders.  The cool colors are too dominating.  They throw off the flow of the pattern and create an almost mental disruption for the rest of the horse, which reflects in my shaky lines and imprecise pattern.

This was certainly a learning experience.  While it is good to draw and create even when you're not in the mood, it can be somewhat discouraging for an amateur like me.  Without my normal focus, it is not pleasurable and I am not motivated to fix mistakes, even as they are happening.  Continuing practice until drawing is more muscle memory for me will ease the pain of such sessions.  I will not give up on drawing more regularly, despite my winter blues.  A professional does not wait until they "feel like it."  They simply sit down at the table and have at it.

More primitive op art ponies

"Spirit Pony"
pen
small leather sketchbook

I'm still on the subject of these primitive op art ponies, as you can see.  Drawing them has a therapeutic effect for me.  They are not overly taxing to draw and have strong visual interest.  "Spirit Pony" was inspired by a painting I found online called "Navajo Dreams" by one Shellby Young.  My crappy ballpoint pen blotted all over, but I still like it, and it is just a sketch.  I enjoy the expressive quality of this style, and look forward to trying it out with paint and brushes.

"Pinwheel Pony"
graphite
small leather sketchbook

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