Me

A self portrait of sorts. I'm not sure how much this looks like me but I like it fairly well anyway. If I were to rework it, I'd add a nice strong color to the background to make the whole thing pop more. It's been years since I drew a self portrait and while it was semi entertaining, I think I'll not revisit this idea again for some time. Focusing on myself too much just ends up making me feel too introspective and that gets me feeling somewhat irritable. Last night I saw a commercial on PBS for an upcoming special on some really neat looking fish. Maybe I'll draw a fish next, or someone else at least.

The Mojave Desert

These are images I drew of the Mojave National Preserve for my husband. We visited the Mojave desert a few months ago and both fell in love with it. The first picture is my first attempt. I like it, but as I thought back to being in the Mojave desert I felt that there were more smooth places and much more blue sky there (as least when we were visiting the preserve), so I added to my first picture and came up with the second one. Possibly I should just have put the second drawing up but I like the first one, it reminds me of something you'd see closer to an ocean; desert or ocean, they're both great in my book.

Back to a favorite

This rabbit was really really fun to create. Last fall I drew a series of three animals, a rooster, a cow and a pig. I really have enjoyed them so I thought I'd return to the subject of animals for this post. I like the idea of drawing animals that I wouldn't automatically be drawn to first as a subject, rabbits fall into this category, who knows why, they just do. The color scheme in this picture fell together so quickly and the colors seemed to blend together all by themselves, it was amazing. Basically, this picture falls into the "simply fell together nearly without my help" category. I almost got to feel like I was watching "The Joy of Painting" on PBS, simply a spectator. This doesn't happen often and what a joy when it does.




Portfolio Image.

In the rain

When the sky is dark, small birds become interesting silhouettes, tiny forms simplified down to a flurry of feathers. I've attempted to draw these birds many times but when I've tried in the past I seem to end up getting lost in details - wings, beaks, tiny claws. When I add these details I no longer have drawings of silhouettes and the drawing, in the sense of what it was supposed to be, is a failure. For the last few days it's been somewhat rainy here and I've been watching birds flying back to wherever they go when the weather turns warmer. Once again I found myself longing to draw birds against stormy skies. Since past attempts at this didn't go very well, I decided a new approach was in order. I simply drew a picture of clouds in the style I've been using lately and then drew some really simple sparrows over the top. Keeping the birds to flat color helped keep me from deciding to add just one eye, one feather shape, etc and getting once again lost in details. What I began years ago, is finally finished. Ahhhhh.

Something New

There are so many styles of art. One that I've always liked is a type that relies heavily on thick pencil marks and then colors washed over them. I thought I'd give this a try. I saw a man with an interesting smile today and thought I'd use him as the subject for this drawing. It was fun to quickly draw thick dark pencil lines; not worry too much about laboring the process or creating gradations with the pencil. I'm not sure about the results, I'll have to let this sit for awhile and then take another look. But, for what it's worth, I put my drawing up here.

Abstract 3

Initially when I started this series of abstract pictures (see past two blog posts if this makes no sense) I really enjoyed it, then quickly became bored. It felt too much like copying; nothing new, nothing exciting, nothing to be discovered. I considered abandoning the project, then, thought of a new way to go about it and was enthused enough to create at least one more picture for this series. My approach this time was to start with a whole new piece of paper then only reference the section of abstraction I had decided upon as little as possible. This really made the whole process so much more interesting. Rather than feeling ho hum, just recreating something that was already done, I was really drawing something new. I began to see this drawing as a landscape as it progressed; so, I added some clouds that I saw a week or so ago driving home from work. They were an unbroken line and looked so white against what was otherwise a very dark stormy cold feeling sky. I enjoy them being in this picture, they make the scene look more refreshing.

I accidentally saved this drawing in the wrong color format initially but I liked it so I'm including it here.