Thursday 31 December 2009




Course work: Reviewed work to date on “Drawing fruits and vegetables in colour.” Decided I could do better on the tomato, and added a fourth one to the original three(26 Dec09): I found this one more satisfactory. What I have learned so far in this exercise (and in related work): (1)colored pencil is a very slow medium to work with; (2) faster results can be obtained by doing a tonal drawing and applying color over that, or by applying the shaded areas with a complementary color, but neither method produces an optimal result; (3)best results are obtained by matching color and tone as closely as possible with a pencil of similar color and tone.



Reading:



Bernard Chaet The Art of Drawing (3rd Ed)

Harcourt College Publishers, Orlando, Florida, USA, 1983

Pp 42-78



Personal Sketchbook work: A drawing of a chambered nautilus, using Prismacolor Warm Grey pencils 30, 50, 70, and 90%, with powdered graphite for the shadow and a touch of white acrylic to accentuate the highlights.

Review of effort to date: This last day of the year seems a good time for an overview of work on the course so far. I started the course 134 days ago, and have worked on it to some extent on most days, averaging about 1 hour 55 minutes each day, for a total of almost 258 hours to date. A review of my earliest work on the course shows growing confidence and improved accuracy of form, as well as improved use of tone, though I still have a long way to go. My sketchbook work still needs improvement: I am still uncomfortable drawing people (or anything else) in public, and I recognize that my sketchbook work is often over precise (probably a personality trait). At present, less than halfway through Assignment Three, I would estimate that I am just over 1/3 through the course (based on the recommended times in the text or reasonable approximations based on comparison with other sections of the text). This would place my estimated date of course completion close to 1 September 2010, as opposed to the 7 June 2010 date originally estimated when I laid out my plan for the work in August, 2009.



Total time: 1 hour 53 minutes (53h41m)

Wednesday 30 December 2009




Course work: Drew three views of a bell pepper, using Prismacolor pencils. The three views were arranged to suggest a composition. One image was drawn with a red-orange and its complement, one with the same red-orange and grey, and one with colors matched to what I actually saw as closely as I could. The latter was the best of the three.

Reading:



Nick Meglin Drawing From Within

Warner Books, Inc., New York, 1999

Pp 119-158



Bernard Chaet The Art of Drawing (3rd Ed)

Harcourt College Publishers, Orlando, Florida, USA, 1983

Pp vii-viii, 1-41



Personal Sketchbook work: A pencil drawing of a compact fluorescent bulb. A quick sketch of one of the cats in my pocket sketchbook.

Total time: 2 hours 9 minutes (51h48m)

Tuesday 29 December 2009




Attended the funeral of a friend; didn’t feel like working today.

Monday 28 December 2009




Course work: Did one additional banana in colored pencil, using only four pencils and a hatching technique instead of several solid layers. While this is somewhat faster, it is much less convincing. It might prove more productive with colors stronger than yellow.

Drew three views of a pear, one worked from light to dark, one with color applied over a tonal drawing, and one with the native color applied over shadowing done with the complementary color.

Reading:



Nick Meglin Drawing From Within

Warner Books, Inc., New York, 1999

Pp 77-116



Roberta Weir Leonardo’s Ink Bottle: The Artist’s Way of Seeing

Celestial Arts Publishing, Berkeley, California, 1998

Pp 165-175



Personal Sketchbook work: Additional work on the colored pencil project referenced on 25 December.

Sunday 27 December 2009




Course work: Three colored pencil drawings of a pair of bananas, each using a different approach (light to dark vs. dark to light) or different sets of colors.

Reading:



Susan Dorothea White Draw Like Da Vinci

Cassell Illustrated, London, 2006

Pp 69-139

(This book, given to me as a Christmas gift, turned out to be interesting and useful. It provides an often-entertaining overview of da Vinci’s methods, guidelines to their performance with more modern media, and enough basic material on drawing to make it useful to users at almost any skill level. Lots of da Vinci drawings, and contemporary copies, near-copies, and derivative work by the author.)



Personal Sketchbook work: Additional work on the colored pencil project referenced on 25 December. A not-too-successful ballpoint pen drawing of a pear.

Weekly reflections on learning experience:



Holiday obligations, and some frustration with unclear instructions, made the earlier part of the week less than satisfactory. Although pastel and colored pencil are both unfamiliar media to me, I am finding the latter more to my taste, though very slow when compared to pastel. Learning to use both at least somewhat effectively remains a goal.



Total time: 3 hours 23 minutes

Saturday 26 December 2009




Course work: Arranged another setup of seashells and sketched it using colored pencils of approximately yellow ochre, burnt siena, and burnt umber colors, near enough the actual colors to work tonally without offending the eye by gross misrepresentation of color. I think at this point I have done enough work on this exercise, though I remain unsure I have met its objective.

Started work on the “Drawing fruit and vegetables in colour” exercise by drawing a tomato three times, using three different types of colored pencils.

Reading:



Nick Meglin Drawing From Within

Warner Books, Inc., New York, 1999

Pp 57-73



Personal Sketchbook work: Having become somewhat weary of “natural” subjects as a steady diet, I drew one of my manikins; I used colored pencil in order not to stray too far afield.

Still life check and log: I think my three monochromatic tonal drawings are far more successful than are the three I did in color. I had difficulty in using color as a tonal medium without consideration of local color. The drawing using primarily line was more immediately successful, in part because I had a far clearer idea of just what I was supposed to do to complete the exercise than I had with the tonal drawings.



I was able to achieve some sense of depth, most apparent in the monochromatic pieces. Overlapping, shading of each item, and shadows were the primary methods used. Neither atmospheric nor geometric perspective played any significant role in the tonal drawings, though perspective was of some use in the line drawing.



Being restricted to line makes it difficult to express shapes well: is that round object a sphere, a circle, or a flat disc? Tone without the use of line (except to represent areas of tone) is easier: my problem was with the instructions, as I have commented upon perhaps to excess.



Total time: 2 hours 3 minutes

Friday 25 December 2009




Course work: After a day of consideration, I decided that I had not met the objectives of the “Still Life” exercise to my satisfaction. I therefore made another setup, this one of seashells, and drew it with colored pencils, using black and two shades of grey.

Reading:



Roberta Weir Leonardo’s Ink Bottle: The Artist’s Way of Seeing

Celestial Arts Publishing, Berkeley, California, 1998

Pp 149-163



Susan Dorothea White Draw Like Da Vinci

Cassell Illustrated, London, 2006

Pp 6-67



Personal Sketchbook work: Started an exercise from a colored pencil workbook Colored Pencil Techniques (Bernard Poulin) F&W Books, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, 1989. This exercise will take me several sessions to complete, but should help my colored pencil handling. Also drew a tomato in graphite, in partial preparation for the upcoming fruit and vegetable work.

Total time: 3 hours 13 minutes

Thursday 24 December 2009


Busy day. Didn’t find much time for the course.



Reading:



Roberta Weir Leonardo’s Ink Bottle: The Artist’s Way of Seeing

Celestial Arts Publishing, Berkeley, California, 1998

Pp 129-148



Total time: 14 minutes

Tuesday 22 December 2009




My painting group met today (time not included).



Reading:



Nick Meglin Drawing From Within

Warner Books, Inc., New York, 1999

Pp ix-xvi, 3-33



Personal Sketchbook work: A drawing of my left hand.

Total time: 35 min

21 December 2009




Course work: I found the instructions on “Still Life Group in Tone” to be among the more confusing ones I’ve encountered in the course. To me, a drawing in tone (or value, in U.S. terminology) is done with black, white, and greys, or with white (or black) and shades of a single fairly neutral color (e.g., sanguine Conte’). I know that color has tone, but the instructions call for the use of three different colors to produce a drawing in tone. This makes my setup, which is fairly monochromatic, consisting of a deer skull and three pine cones in different stages of opening, a real challenge. In response, on A3 paper, I quickly did one sketch with black, midgrey, and white pastels. For the second I chose primary yellow, red, and blue pastels. I’m not happy with either piece, but the second is particularly unsatisfactory.

I’ll try a different, more conventional, setup as further work on this exercise.



Reading:



Roberta Weir Leonardo’s Ink Bottle: The Artist’s Way of Seeing

Celestial Arts Publishing, Berkeley, California, 1998

Pp 112-128



Sean Dye The Mixed Media Sourcebook

Watson-Guptill Publications, New York, 2004

Pp 100-138

(An interesting book, potentially useful to me in the future.)



Personal Sketchbook work: A colored pencil sketch of a portion of a cedar twig, with berries (these berries are an important food source for birds during the winter).

Total time: 2 hours 29 minutes

Sunday 20 December 2009




Course work: Added a few marks to suggest a background in my line-drawing still life. I think I’m about done: will look at it again tomorrow.

Reading:



Roberta Weir Leonardo’s Ink Bottle: The Artist’s Way of Seeing

Celestial Arts Publishing, Berkeley, California, 1998

Pp 88-111





Personal Sketchbook work: Returned to the oil pastel sketch from yesterday, and learned that more color can be added after the first applications are blended with turpentine. Drew a little cluster of pussy willow catkins in my pocket sketchbook.

Weekly thoughts on learning experience: I continue to work along on the course, although I find some of the exercises more interesting than others. I also continue to find some of the instructions confusing or self-contradicting, and some exercises appear to repeat work previously done in Assignment One. A good editor could significantly improve the text. My sketchbook work has been sub-par lately, in part because unusually wet weather (and the final, irreparable failure of my rubber boots) has kept me almost-house-bound for much of the past several weeks, and in part because I can find little that seems interesting enough to draw. Seasonal affective disorder may play a role as well.



Total time: 32 minutes

Saturday 19 December 2009




Course work: More work on my line drawing of a still-life group. Today I prepared a dilution of ink and put in the foreground wood with a brush, as well as some details on the fruit and vegetables with pen and brush.



Reading:



Sean Dye The Mixed Media Sourcebook

Watson-Guptill Publications, New York, 2004

Pp 82-99



E.H. Gombrich, The Story of Art

Phaidon press Limited, Oxford 1978

Pp 375-394



Personal Sketchbook work: Not done in my sketchbook, but on an 11 x 7 inch scrap of watercolor paper, an oil pastel drawing of two bananas, overworked with a bristle brush dipped in turpentine. A worthwhile experiment, as I learned that even cold-press watercolor paper clogs quickly with oil pastel, after which it is very difficult to add more. After this dries well, I will try to add a little more color, and see what happens.

A marker sketch of a yellow apple. I was not happy with this: the colorless blenders don’t seem to have any discernable effect, resulting in a lot of sharp, irregular transitions.

Total time: 1 hour 51 minutes (33h45m)

Friday 18 December 2009




Course work: Further work on the still life group using line. So far, I’ve employed a steel pen, a reed pen, and a brush.



Reading:



Sarah Simblet, The Drawing Book

Dorling Kindersley, London 2005

Pp 238-255

(I wish this book had been longer: it was a real delight. Even postponing reading in it until I was near the relevant section of the course didn’t make it last long enough. I’ve read it before, in the U.S edition, called Sketchbook for the Artist, and I’m sure I’ll read it again.)



Dorr Bothwell and Marlys Mayfield, Notan

Reinhold Book Corporation, New York, 1968

Pp 5-32



Personal Sketchbook work: Two bananas done with colored markers, a medium I doubt I shall ever come to love.

Total time: 1 hour 13 minutes

Thursday 17 December 2009




Course work: Started work on the “still life group using line” in the Still Life exercise.

This will be an ink drawing of an assortment of fruits and vegetable on A3 paper. Not too imaginative a subject, but I still feel the effects of my ‘flu shot.



Reading:



Sarah Simblet, The Drawing Book

Dorling Kindersley, London 2005

Pp196-237



Personal Sketchbook work: A drawing of a bluejay feather, done with Derwent Coloursoft pencils.

Total time: 1hour 23 minutes

Wednesday 16 December 2009




Side effects from influenza vaccination precluded any useful work today.

Tuesday 15 December 2009




Course work: Drew a cow’s vertebra with fine ball-point pen, using line and stipple, as part of the Detailed observation of nature exercise. I found this drawing less interesting than yesterday’s: perhaps I made a poor choice of subject or should have used artificial rather than natural lighting.

Reading:



E.H. Gombrich, The Story of Art

Phaidon press Limited, Oxford 1978

Pp 352-374



Personal Sketchbook work: A colored pencil sketch of a ginkgo

leaf.

Detailed observation of nature (check and log)



Of the media used in this exercise, I found graphite pencil to be most effective. Hatching and cross-hatching is very slow, but it does produce effective results with sufficient patience.



In the proper setting, I think that any kind of mark can be used to produce some sort of tone, pattern, or texture.

My preference for drawing either details or big, broad sketches depends to a considerable extent on the subject drawn, and on a lesser extent to my mood at the time. On the whole, most people would probably consider me to lean toward detail in my drawings but to paint somewhat more loosely. Among artists who worked in contrasting ways, one would have to include Rembrandt, whose drawings were often so loose as to almost be a personal shorthand, yet who could become very precise and accurate in, for example, his etchings. Goya was another artist whose drawings differed so greatly from detailed to almost-unrecognizable that one could wonder if they were done by the same person. In more modern times, one could consider Picasso. It seems likely that many artists work in this fashion, with what is almost a scribble to get the idea down before it is lost, followed by other, more precise, drawings to develop the idea.



On the topic of composition, strictly speaking, none of the drawings that I did for this exercise involve more than a single object, as directed by the text. Therefore no real composition other than deciding where on the paper to place the object was involved.



The first two drawings of the series done for this exercise were pure line drawings, to be done with a single line. I spent little time thinking about looking at space effectively, but much thinking about how best to use that single continuous line I was allowed. I don’t think that I did very well.



Total time: 2 hours 35 minutes

Monday 14 December 2009


Course work: Drew the seed-pod of a sweet-gum tree, five times life-size, in rollerball pen, using line, hatching, and stippling, as part of the Detailed observation of nature exercise.

Reading:



Michel van Maarseveen Vermeer of Delft: His Life and Times (2nd edition)

Bekking and Blitz Publishers Amersfoort, The Netherlands, 2006

Pp 75-115

(Much of this small volume is devoted to the author’s opinions concerning the locations from which The Little Street and A View of Delft were painted, but there is sufficient biographical information to make it interesting, and it is well-illustrated.)



Personal Sketchbook work: A pencil sketch of one of our cats, sound asleep.

Total time: 1 hour 37 min (26h43m)

Sunday 13 December 2009




Another long and trying day on the road.



Reflections on recent work: Have forgotten to do this for a couple of weeks. Much recent effort has been devoted to learning to use colored drawing media, with which I have virtually no experience. I find that I still prefer using a graphite pencil as much as any other drawing tool. It seems typical of the course that the earlier exercises are less interesting than the later ones: so far in this assignment I have enjoyed most the drawing I did of a portion of a driftwood log. Of late, guests and the unavoidable activities of the holidays have affected the amount of time I have been able to spend on the course.

Saturday 12 December 2009




A long drive to south Georgia for a holiday visit my mother limited my day’s effort to a little reading.



Reading:



Michel van Maarseveen Vermeer of Delft: His Life and Times (2nd edition)

Bekking and Blitz Publishers Amersfoort, The Netherlands, 2006

Pp 7-74



Total time: 48 minutes

Friday 11 December 2009




Course work: A little more work on my driftwood drawing, graphite pencil on A3 paper, part of the Detailed observation of nature exercise, which I think is now finished. I’ll look at it again in a couple of days and see if I need to do anything further.

Reading:



Morrell Wise Colored Pencils

Walter Foster Publishing, Tustin, California, USA, 1985

[This very slender (64 pages) volume could better be titled Use of Colored Pencils in Mixed Media Work, as little of the book deals with the use of colored pencils alone. Overall, not a very useful book. ]



Sean Dye The Mixed Media Sourcebook

Watson-Guptill Publications, New York, 2004

Pp 35-81



Personal Sketchbook work: A line-only drapery sketch, done in pen. Pure line is a particularly difficult technique for me to use convincingly.

Total time: 1 hour 8 min

Thursday 10 December 2009




Course work: Further work on my driftwood drawing, which is now approaching completion.



Reading:



Sean Dye The Mixed Media Sourcebook

Watson-Guptill Publications, New York, 2004

Pp 9-33



Personal Sketchbook work: A colored pencil drawing of an autumn leaf. A partial drawing of the seed-pod of a sweet gum tree, in graphite pencil.

Total time: 1 hour 33 minutes

Wednesday 9 December 2009




Course work: Further work on my driftwood drawing.

Reading:



Ian Simpson The Complete Drawing Course

Running Press, Philadelphia, PA 1993

Lesson 11 (pp 88-93)



Jeffery Camp Draw: How to Master the Art

Dorling Kindersley, London, 1993

Pp 8-17



Total time: 1 hour 18 minutes (21h37m)

Tuesday 8 December 2009

Course work: Further work on my driftwood drawing.

Reading:

Roberta Weir Leonardo’s Ink Bottle: The Artist’s Way of Seeing
Celestial Arts Publishing, Berkeley, California, 1998
Pp 71-87

Personal Sketchbook work: In my pocket sketchbook, a small drawing of a lady with an umbrella. In my A4 sketchbook, a drawing of a cow’s skull, and smaller drawings of a well-used paint tube and a child’s paper-wrapped lollipop.

Total time: 2 hours 47 minutes

Monday 7 December 2009




Course work: Further work on my driftwood drawing



Reading:



Cathy Johnson The Sierra Club Guide to Sketching in Nature

Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1990

Pp 193-228

(This is the best book on outdoor sketching of which I know, and one of the best all-round drawing books. It merits a place on any would-be artist’s shelf.)



Total time: 1 hour 34 minutes

Sunday 6 December 2009




Course work: Further work on my driftwood drawing. A progress photo:

Reading:



Sarah Simblet, The Drawing Book

Dorling Kindersley, London 2005

Pp 174-197



Roberta Weir Leonardo’s Ink Bottle: The Artist’s Way of Seeing

Celestial Arts Publishing, Berkeley, California, 1998

Pp 45-70



Cathy Johnson The Sierra Club Guide to Sketching in Nature

Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1990

Pp 179-192



Personal Sketchbook work: Sketched a representative track from the largest set of wild hog tracks I’ve seen on my usual walking trail: 7 ½ cm long. Drew a magnified view of a lichen growing on a decaying branch, using Derwent Coloursoft pencils.

Total time: 3 hours 8 minutes

Saturday 5 December 2009




Course work: Started work on a pencil drawing of part of a piece of driftwood on A3 paper. (We picked up this driftwood log over thirty years ago, on a nameless North Carolina barrier island, for use as a cat-scratching log, a function it still fulfils.)



Reading:



Roberta Weir Leonardo’s Ink Bottle: The Artist’s Way of Seeing

Celestial Arts Publishing, Berkeley, California, 1998

Pp 3-43



Personal Sketchbook work: A colored pencil sketch with Derwent Coloursoft pencils of a tiny wild strawberry (tonight’s first freeze of the season will kill the rest).

Total time: 2 hours 36 minutes

Thursday 3 December 2009




Course work: Drew a hemisectioned tomato with a single line, using a felt-tip pen.

Reading:



E.H. Gombrich, The Story of Art

Phaidon press Limited, Oxford 1978

Pp 325-351



Deborah Haynes Art Lessons

Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, USA, 2003

Pp 161-184

(The title of this book is very deceptive: it contains, not art lessons, but a series of loosely-connected essays on what the author sees as the essential interconnectedness of left-wing politics, Eastern spirituality, and art. This is my second reading of this book: I had hoped it would make more sense this time. It didn’t.)





Personal Sketchbook work: Drew a tomato with Derwent Coloursoft pencils.

Research point: One artist who worked frequently with pure line was Egon Schiele. Contour is of surpassing importance when using pure line, as one does not have shading as an agent for depicting form. This requires careful thought as to what lines should be employed, and precise line placement so that use of line alone can cause the viewer to “see” the shading that is not there. Much of Schiele’s work in his last year was line, and I think it much improved over his earlier efforts. I think that, had the influenza not taken him at 28, he would have become a truly remarkable artist.



Total time: 1 hour 37 min

Tuesday 1 December 2009




Course work: I carefully cut an onion (previously drawn in my personal sketchbook) in half vertically, and drew it in my course sketchbook with a felt-tip pen, using a single line. Some retracing was required, but it seemed like a pretty simple exercise. Perhaps I am overlooking something.





Reading:



Ian Simpson Drawing Seeing and Observation (Third Edition)

A & C Black, London, 1992

Pp 32-68



Deborah Haynes Art Lessons

Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, USA, 2003

Pp 141-160





Personal Sketchbook work: A drawing of an onion, done with Derwent Coloursoft pencils. I am learning that colored pencil is not a medium with which one can work rapidly.

Other activity: My painting group met today (time not included).



Total time: 1 hour 51 min

Monday 30 November 2009




Course work: Experimented with a tin of twelve Derwent Drawing Pencils. These are more muted than the Derwent Coloursoft Pencils, but handle in a very similar fashion. They blend slightly when rubbed, and are very slightly water-spreadable. The somewhat muted colors would appear to be useful in landscape sketching, where the more-intense Coloursoft pencils might prove less realistic.

A tin of twelve Derwent Graphitint pencils was tested next. I thought that the colors chosen for the tinned set were somewhat strange: three browns, three greys, two greens, indigo, a color a little redder than burnt siena, and reddish and bluish violets. This selection of colors limited testing. Several of the pencils showed striking color differences between the dry application and the brushed-out color. As with the Staedler Karat Aquarelle pencils, results obtained on a scrap of watercolor paper were superior to those on sketchbook paper. The colors did appear more “natural” than similar colors of the Staedler Karat Aquarelle pencils.

I concluded my color experiments with two small sets of pastels, one soft, one hard. I have not worked with pastels before, and was somewhat surprised by their tendency to coat everything within reach with colored dust. Both types of pastels blend easily, and smear very easily. The colors are opaque: only the lighter colors produce optical mixing when laid over others without rubbing. Moisture produces only minimal difference in comparison to dry rubbing. Sketchbook paper is not intended for use with pastels, but nevertheless produced fairly satisfactory results.

Research point: Among the artists who produced detailed drawings are da Vinci, Durer, and George Stubbs. Da Vinci’s notebooks contain such highly-detailed drawings that it has been possible to build some of his proposed machines from them. I remain amazed that he could draw lines as fine with chalk as I can with a crow-quill pen. Durer was a master of the line in portraiture and the figure. Stubbs’ Anatomy of the Horse is still in print, as the detailed drawings it contains have not been excelled. Many others could easily be named.



Summary Observations on Exploring Coloured Media (Check and Log):

A brief summary of color-testing results: (1) proper paper is important, and varies with medium (2) solubility and insolubility are relative terms (3) choosing a medium is very subjective. I found pastels to be expressive, and hope to work with them in a little more depth: they would seem to be particularly useful for capturing a quick impression. I was interested in colored pencils as well: these would probably be the most useful medium for highly detailed work. The very hard lead of the Staedler Karat Aquarelle pencils could produce quite small details if used without water; the softer leads of the Derwent products would require careful attention to sharpening to keep a drawing detailed, but would produce superior color.



Reading:



Ian Simpson Drawing Seeing and Observation (Third Edition)

A & C Black, London, 1992

Pp 7-31



Deborah Haynes Art Lessons

Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, USA, 2003

Pp 111-140



Personal Sketchbook work: Half an apple, done with Derwent Coloursoft pencils

Sunday 29 November 2009




Our house guests having departed, I can at last return to working on the course.



Course work: Out of concern that my testing of Staedler Karat Aquarelle pencils might have been a bit too superficial, I conducted some further tests. I sketched two apples, one red, one green, and moistened them with a damp brush. Again, color intensity was increased only moderately, and underlying pencil marks persisted. I then carried out some further tests on a scrap of watercolor paper, and found the results somewhat more impressive. Colors mixed from primaries are somewhat stronger, but neutrals remain rather weak. I doubt that these pencils will be of more than limited use to me.

Reading:



Cathy Johnson The Sierra Club Guide to Sketching in Nature

Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1990

Pp 133-178



Deborah Haynes Art Lessons

Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, USA, 2003

Pp 99-110



Total time: 1hour 14 min

Thursday 26 November 2009




Reading:



Cathy Johnson The Sierra Club Guide to Sketching in Nature

Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1990

Pp 101-132



Deborah Haynes Art Lessons

Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, USA, 2003

Pp 84-98



Total time: 34 min



Friday 27 November 2009



Museum Visit: Visited the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, Georgia

Tuesday 24 November 2009




Course work: Today I experimented very briefly with Staedler Karat Aquarelle pencils. When applied dry, the color is not nearly as strong as with the Derwent Coloursoft Pencils. A dry finger produces modest blending; a damp finger produces better blending, and in the tested blue pencil, what appears to be a slight shift toward green. The drawn orange was not very intense, and painting half with water increased the intensity only moderately. Mixing complements dry or wet produced unconvincing neutrals. Mixing primary colors dry or wet produced somewhat better secondary colors, but only the orange color produced with red and yellow approached that of the pencil of the same color. Although my experiments were admittedly superficial, I wasn’t very impressed by these pencils.

Reading:



Cathy Johnson The Sierra Club Guide to Sketching in Nature

Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1990

Pp 67-100



Total time: 43 minutes

Monday 23 November 2009




Course work: Continued exploration of my colored media. Oil pastels produce nice, strong colors, though they tend to look a bit like children’s crayons. Colors can be blended fairly well, either by hatching and rubbing, or by rubbing one color directly into another. On my color-bar test, it was obvious that the colors were being dragged across from one bar to another, leaving more examples of neutrals than of two- color mixing. Mixing complements produces usable neutrals. Some tests were made on a separate card using odorless paint thinner: this blended the colors nicely, and produced good mixtures. Two pastels were tested following being directly dipped into the thinner…one went on smoothly, the other streakily, from which I conclude that extensive further testing would be required were I to choose to employ them in this manner. After drying, the card was pasted into the sketchbook. The page opposite the oil pastel page was left blank so that I can see how strong the tendency is for the colors to rub off in sketchbook use.

Reading:

Deborah Haynes Art Lessons

Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, USA, 2003

Pp 51-83



Personal Sketchbook work: Three views of a lemon, and a sketch of the ancient nail that appears somewhere in each of my sketchbooks.

Total time: 1 hr 12 min

ASSIGNMENT 3: Observation in Nature

Saturday 21 November 2009



Course work: Started exploring the properties of my various colored media, working in my course sketchbook.



My first experiments utilized Derwent Coloursoft Pencils. I started off working in a 5 cm square, but quickly learned that I needed more space. I also learned that, surprisingly, slight dampening produces an effect quite similar to watercolor pencils. I sketched an orange, and worked at shading it, not very convincingly…it appears that sketchbook paper quickly takes up a maximum amount of pigment, and that adding more doesn’t produce very satisfactory blending. A tiny stylized tree was half-moistened, and half left dry, confirming that water does produce some blending and color intensification. An application of yellow over blue produced a green, but not a very strong green. Vertical stripes of yellow, orange, red, purple, and green were crossed with horizontal stripes of the same colors to assess opacity and miscibility: yellow, orange, and to a lesser extent red pick up significant amount of the underlying color. None of the colors is opaque enough to fully conceal the underlying different color. Color blending with a finger is not successful; rubbing with a paper stump produces a somewhat better effect.



A second series of experiments was carried out with Prismacolor colored markers. I have only the three primary and three secondary colors in these. The colors are very intense. Since these markers are solvent-based, they are water-resistant once applied. Application of one color over another does not yield very strong mixing; yellow over blue produces only a weak green. Mixing complements produces fairly strong neutrals (particularly strong with orange and blue). Use of a colorless blender results in some color mixture, but also lightens the underlying color, and produces a strong “bloom”. The back of the sketchbook page is worthless for further use, and at least two sheets of paper are needed beneath the “working” page in order to prevent marring of subsequent pages of the sketchbook with bleed-through. I understand that special paper is available for use with markers that minimizes some of these problems, but I don’t see these markers as being very useful to me: I’m glad I only bought a few to try.

Total time: 47 minutes

Monday 23 November 2009




Course work: After reviewing yesterday’s work on the final drawing in Assignment Two, I concluded that it would be a stronger composition left unfinished. I did a little more work on it, applied some workable fixative, and photographed it for submission. I’ll move on to further work on Assignment 3 now.

Sunday 22 November 2009




Course work: Three small heads of people seen in town. I think it is time to declare the “Moving Figure” exercise complete, while planning to continue similar work until I can do it adequately. Two sketchbook pages of ideas and details for the final drawing in Assignment Two. Tried graphite pencil, carbon pencil, Conte’ crayon, water-soluble pencil, and charcoal: decided on the latter, since use of tone is the major objective of this drawing. On this grey, rainy day, I used artificial lighting, which brought out the folds in the model’s clothing very nicely. After some thought, I decided that omitting the feet, and legs below mid-tibia, would improve the composition. The drawing moved along fairly well, and I’d estimate I’m about 2/3 done.

Reading:



Cathy Johnson The Sierra Club Guide to Sketching in Nature

Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1990

Pp 31-66



Ian Simpson, The Complete Drawing Course

Running Press, Philadelphia, PA 1993

Lesson 15 (pp 122-127)





Personal Sketchbook work: A sketch of part of the nighttime view from my armchair.

Summary Observations on the Moving Figure Exercise (Check and Log):

This was perhaps my most difficult exercise to date, and I don’t really think I’ve done it justice: I will continue to work on the moving figure in the future. In a few cases, I managed to capture the “gesture” of the moment; most of the little sketches I’ve done are fragments. The visual memory I’ve always prided myself for doesn’t seem to have done much for me here. I continue to seek the “…few descriptive lines to suggest the movement…”.



Weekly thoughts on learning experience: Portraiture and figure work still seem to be very challenging, but I have made a great deal of progress over the past several weeks. I still lack the ability to capture a truly convincing likeness, but it may take more years than I have left to achieve this.





Total time: About three hours (95)