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