Spotted Nubian – Illo Friday
Click to enlarge
I got busy this week and missed the chance to do something for Illustration Friday. So here’s something done earlier this year that wasn’t used for any previous project …
If you’re a regular reader, you know that I very seldom do any graphite drawing. I don’t have any negative feelings about it. In fact, I love the beautiful halftones that some of my artist friends like Detlef and Felicity so skillfully achieve. For some reason, perhaps negative experiences drawing with a pencil when I was a child, I just don’t gravitate to it. So today, as part of my ongoing animal series I decided to do something radical and to draw this spotted Nubian goat in graphite instead of ink or paint. The paper was not particuarly smooth or fine, much to my regret. I used 2B, 6B and 8B pencils, a kneaded eraser and a tortillon here and there.
(Edited to add: The paper size was 8 1/2 x 11 – for some idea of scale. K.)
In reality the goat is colored burnt sienna, deep burnt umber, black and white. Maybe I’ll try her in watercolor next. After I finish cleaning my refrigerator, that is.
Arroyo Twilight
I think I tend to be a little too conservative with color. It’s a rut I’m trying to get out of by occasionally getting experimental and pushing the colors far beyond realism. So, today my husband and I went out for a little “golden hour” painting time – the last 25 minutes of the day before the sun went behind the nearby Verdugo Hills. There wasn’t time to fiddle and fuss about being neat or getting the shapes and values right – the light was changing rapidly by the minute. I had a very good time splashing around while he read to me about Calder from today’s LA Times.
This watercolor sketch is another view of the same arroyo I painted last week – an area that is either dustbowl dry or full of water depending upon the season. Right now there are cattails in a marshy area – redwinged blackbirds everywhere and ponds full of poliwogs. It’s my idea of a great painting location.
If you draw or paint, in what areas are you ‘pushing yourself’ to be more experimental, regardless of the outcome? Are you taking chances? How does it feel when you do?
Ripley again …
It’s been a few weeks since Ripley has made an appearance here and she was calling that to my attention earlier today. So here you are.
Because I know someone will ask, I will answer it ahead of time – I did not paint this from life. In fact, here’s the secret code to to figuring out whether a particular Rip-painting has been done from life. If Ripley is sleeping or lounging in a mostly horizontal position, there’s a good chance it was done from life. If she appears to be standing up, bouncing around, digging, begging, panting or wearing a plumed hat and pearls, there’s a good chance it was painted from a photo. I do sketch her from life a lot, but mostly when the switch is set to ZZZZZZZZZZZ.
Pasadena spring
A watercolor sketch of a local streetcorner, influenced in part by a recent demo I saw by Joseph Stoddard, who is, himself, a student of Charles Reid. I think I’m going to be leaving the Niji waterbrushes behind for plein-air sketching, or else I’ll be using a lot more water for juicier washes.
Still pursuing camellias
I’m still in search of the secret of shiny leaves. So here I am, Day 2, after a night’s sleep. (See the day before yesterday for my first attempt, in watercolor.) This is an experiment in acrylic, suggested by Cynthia on the botanical art list. I have very little experience with acrylic – my practice has been almost completely in watercolor and pen and ink – but acrylic is starting to grow on me.
Watercolor is a stern taskmistress. She’s like the Olympics. You get one try on the 10 meter board and if you do a belly flop there are no do-overs, you just have to go find another piece of paper and try again. (Unless you can lift or scrub your mistake out, but that’s a different story.
Acrylic is like your favorite aunt that says “Relax, have fun, you’ve got a little wiggle room. Don’t stress.”
That being said, I’m still not satisfied with the leaves but I like the fluffy camellia a bit and most of all I liked the experience. I am always surprised with what a project teaches me; it’s never what I would expect. Maybe that’s what makes art such an addictive experience. There’s always something new to learn and you can mix it up infinitely and never, ever be bored.
Some leaf and flower studies
Last night, an art friend mentioned the book Botanical Illustration by Siriol Sherlock, and I pulled out my copy and read a little before going to bed.
Big mistake.
I turned fitfully and dreamed of impossible leaves and flowers and woke up in about two hours, probably due to Ripley snoring. But once awake, I couldn’t get those illustrations out of my mind. So I toddled down to my studio and studied some of the instructions, and then used some of my own reference photos to practice what I read on a scrap of watercolor paper. Modeling shiny surfaces wet in wet is going to take a lot of practice before I get any measure of comfort.
Do you ever get that way with an art project – where it grabs you and won’t let you go until you practice something or try something out?
Sketchcrawl at the Huntington
It was a spectacular spring day, not too warm, not too cool and all five of us (me, Nancy, Robin, Diann and Wendee) enjoyed the natural beauty of the Huntington for another memorable sketchcrawl. Our first stop was the Shakespeare garden (I’ll be scanning my sketch and posting it tomorrow or the next day) … second was the Japanese garden (this one), which was my favorite location of the day. We wrapped it up in the desert garden where we were joined by Diann’s husband and daughter.
As usual, many people stopped by to see what we were doing throughout the “crawl” and one journal keeper from Orlando showed us some of his watercolors as we compared notes about Niji waterbrushes and other traveling paint brushes.
This sketch was painted in about 45 minutes, give or take a bit. I stopped before painting the tree in the lower right hand corner or the water under the bridge so this is a “not quite finished” work in progress. So if you’re wondering why it looks like I just sort of stopped, it’s because I did. (smile)
I look forward to going back again soon and painting this garden from another vantage point, and to visit several other highlights as well. There’s just too much to take in all in a day. And then there’s the arboretum, too. We really do have a wealth of botanical gardens within a 20 minute drive. And I understand that the Getty’s gardens are overflowing with color, too.
Arty bits: painted in my super aquabee sketchbook with portable palette of tube paints and a Niji waterbrush.
Coffee at The Alcove
What a wonderful day … we started off in the LA Flower Mart at 7 am for a tour with a Descanso Gardens floral arrangement expert (more on that later) … then brunch at Operetta, a French cafe at the Flower Mart … then over to Barnsdall Park to see a show of fine art by Otis art college graduates (a show which ends tomorrow) … then a brief stop at an art supply store which my dear husband called to my attention, ending up at a charming coffee house called The Alcove on Hillhurst, near the Greek Theater, where we sipped cappucinos and I drew this courtyard tree. I drew a few people also but those will have to wait for another scanning session. Because I hadn’t intended to paint today, I took a simple sketchbook with eh paper for note taking and pencil drawing, so the color here had to be added digitally after the drawing was scanned. A 4B pencil was used for the sketching part.
I wish I knew the name of this tree, I’ll have to look it up in the Sunset garden book. Rough striated bark, grayish brown trunk and limbs, very “ordinary” looking leaves, oval, pointed, smooth edges. You see them all over So. Cal. It appears to be a deciduous tree as the leaves look new, bright green and on the small side. This is going to bug me until I figure it out, y’know?
Edited to add
The raw scan out of the sketchbook
I’ve created a grad from green to brown, pulled back the opacity to 50%, and set the grad to multiply
I made a composite of the previous layers and put it on a fresh layer. Then I added new layers and painted some foliage where it made sense. There are three layers of leaves, in varying opacity and color, to suggest volume and depth. I also painted a little color on the trunk.
The tree was a 15-20 min. sketch, the time it took for my husband to stand in line to get coffees while I claimed a table in the crowded courtyard. Photoshopping took about another 10 minutes.
I made the conscious decision not to fit all the tree on the page but to concentrate on the parts that interested me the most, the sinuous trunk and limbs and the textured bark.
I hope you found these additional “work in progress stages” parts interesting
White Poppy
Someone please tell me what possessed me to try to paint white poppies on a Moleskine page previously toned with darker paint? As a first attempt with a difficult flower it would have made a lot more sense to use watercolor paper and reserve the whites. But no … I had to do it the bass ackward way. The background is all acrylic – a mixture of red, blue, yellow and white. Most of the white of the poppies is acrylic, the better to cover the mottled background. Then there’s some gouache in there for shadows, and more dilute acrylic on top.
These are Iceland poppies from (where else?) Descanso Gardens. I have some matilija poppies in a pot, and when they bloom I’ll give it another try.
Another opening, another show
A different view of an opening magnolia blossom from Descanso.
As part of an ongoing experiment with some art friends, I painted the background with Van Dyke brown watercolor, then scumbled some white gouache over top. When that was dry I drew the flower and stems and painted it with watercolor and gouache, and touched it up with a little colored pencil at the end.
I might go back and add the genus and species later, but maybe not. This was done mostly for practice.
I wish these magnolias bloomed all year. I just love, love, love them.
