Tuesday 23 February 2010




Persistent cardiac problems prevented much work today



Personal Sketchbook work: A sketch of a doctor’s examining table in my pocket sketchbook. A sketch of a small still life, more conventional than I’ve been working on, done with Design Ebony pencil in my A4 sketchbook.

Total time: 47 minutes

Monday 22 February 2010




Course work: A skull with reed pen, steel pen, and brush. A fairly interesting approach, if I can think of a good way to integrate it with other natural objects done in other media.

A second skull, very loosely done with powdered graphite and a bristle brush: won’t work for this application.

Reading:



Jeffery Camp Draw: How to Master the Art

Dorling Kindersley, London, 1993

Pp 35-51



Total time: 1 hour 21 min

Sunday 21 February 2010




Course work: Tried a new arrangement for a still life, consisting of a box-tortoise shell, a pear, a sweet-gum ball, and a volcanic rock. This was initially done in graphite, then worked over with markers. Don’t like this one, either.

Reading:



Daniel M. Mendelowitz and Duane Wakeham A Guide to Drawing (Fifth Edition)

Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers, Orlando, Florida, USA, 1995

Pp 205-239



Bert Dodson Keys to Drawing With Imagination

North light Books, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, 2007

Pp 30-57



Weekly reflections on learning experience: Not my best week. Profound indecision about the final Assignment Three drawing, coupled with anxiety about persisting cardiac problems, has left me feeling that I have done very little of merit, especially over the past five days. I’ll keep on trying.



Total time: 1 hour 10 minutes



Monday 22 February 2010

Friday 19 February 2010




(Cardiac problems have kept me from doing nearly as much work as planned for the past three days.)



Reading:



Bert Dodson Keys to Drawing With Imagination

North light Books, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, 2007

Pp 6-29



Personal Sketchbook work: In my pocket sketchbook, a partial sketch of a fat man dozing in a doctor’s waiting room.

Retrospective review: Six months ago today I started work on Start Drawing. A review of my coursework and the work in my personal sketchbooks shows substantial improvement in quality over the period. I have learned at least something about the use of media that I had not previously considered using, e.g., markers, and have worked in areas in which I had little previous experience, e.g., portraits. I look forward to starting the Landscape section soon. I wish that I had known about OCA when I retired, so that I could have started working on the courses then, with some reasonable expectation of finishing the entire program.



Total time: 38 minutes

Thursday 18 February 2010




Course work: Work continues on selection of objects for the still life. I did a graphite drawing of a large conch shell (probably not to be included: the texture is interesting, but the color is much the same as the skull…too much white!). I then did a drawing of a dark volcanic stone with graphite, marker, and pastel: this has enough texture to consider inclusion. A third drawing was of a small oak gall, which also has enough texture and size difference from other objects to be worth considering. I need to get more color in, and this may prove a challenge in mid-winter.

Reading:



Daniel M. Mendelowitz and Duane Wakeham A Guide to Drawing (Fifth Edition)

Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers, Orlando, Florida, USA, 1995

Pp 173-204



Total time: 1 hour 6 minutes

Wednesday 17 February 2010




Course work: Another developmental drawing on 12 x 18” (305 x 457mm) paper, using pen and markers. Substitution of a larger manikin is interesting; replacement of the rounded clay pot with a square plastic one is less successful. My intent had been to introduce some variety in shape, but now I have ended up with my major items all smooth in texture. In this larger format, I’m also less pleased with the look of marker and pen together. More thinking to be done.

Total time: 1 hour 3 minutes

Tuesday 16 February 2010




Course work: Two more rough sketches using mixed media, one with pen and marker in which the color was rather loosely applied and the pen lines then drawn over it; the other incorporated pen, marker, and soft pastel. I think the half-page in my A4 sketchbook was too small to do the former justice, and plan to test it on a larger format. The latter makes depiction of rough and smooth surfaces easier, and it also merits a larger-scale test. I am beginning to have a clearer idea of what objects I want to include in my still-life setup, and will add and subtract them in further preliminary studies until I am reasonably content with it.

Reading:



Gemma Guasch and Josep Asunción Form

Barron’s Educational Series, Inc, Hauppage, New York, USA, 2004

Pp 134-159 (I did not think this book was quite up to the standard of Line by the same authors; the focus was quite vague, and some of the examples utilized seemed inappropriate or irrelevant. The text was fairly superficial, and the “meat” of the book lies in the sequential “work in progress” illustrations.)



Personal Sketchbook work: A pencil and marker drawing of a cat’s eye view of part of the living room. Patterns and colors were changed somewhat to compensate for limitations in my marker assortment, but I believe the cat would recognize the view.

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



Total time: 2 hours 18 minutes (149h12m)