20 October 07
Drawing Through The Day
A couple nights ago we went to a presentation by artist John Muir Laws at the monthly meeting of the Yolo Audubon Society about his 6-year project to illustrate a new field guide to the Sierra Nevada. His beautiful illustrations inspired me, and today I ended up taking the day off and doing a fair number of drawings, many of them with the new set of pastel pencils. Here is a drawing of a magpie skull with chili peppers.
15 October 07
Every Hue of Dull
A trip down I-80 yesterday afforded yet another opportunity to reflect on how unimaginative the colors of cars that are available on today’s market. With the exception of midlife-crisis red, one can find almost any color out there, but the color saturation level is, say, no more than 12%. And heaven forbid trying to find a two-tone color scheme.
This New York Times blog post discusses this phenomenon. As commentators suggest, does this have to do with resale value? Or perhaps the desire for camouflage?
14 October 07
Rediscovering the Crowquill
Katherine Tyrrell of Making a Mark has started a new project of reviewing drawing books (and encouraging us all to review them, also). She recently reviewed Jos. A. Smith’s The Pen and Ink Book, which I have sitting on the bookshelf, and I decided to take another look.
( One of the things I like about working in ink is its strength. You have to commit to your line in ink. But that doesn’t mean your line has to be overwhelming; Smith reminded me that using a very fine nib, say a crowquill, with ink can be delicate as well as strong. I hauled out some of my walnut ink from the fridge (the batch I made in 2001 is still going strong) and started dipping.
Drawing a bird a day — and posting it — has given me the chance to become more familiar with bird forms, a practice I welcome and am eager to continue. But I haven’t drawn a while lot else. So yesterday I did some studies of the cats and of Numenius while the baseball game was on…
29 September 07
The Non-Moleskine Moleskine
We find Moleskine notebooks to be well-put together, but too much of a cult object to go off and purchase them. Fortunately, there are a good set of imitators on the market now. Here are some I’ve acquired in the past couple of months. At top is my sketch-a-day notebook, with a couple of drawings from my trip this week to Victoria, British Columbia. At bottom is another landscape format notebook I picked up at our latest visit to the art store. At left the notebook I was taking notes in at this week’s conference. And at right a freebie I picked up during said conference.
18 September 07
Pastel Pencils
Our trip Sunday to Berkeley featured a visit to the art store, located conveniently three blocks from where we had lunch. My cousin Susan is a colored pencil artist, so there we gathered around that appropriate aisle in the store. Pica spotted these Stabilo CarbOthello pastel pencils, and started playing. With no shortage of encouragement from the rest of us, who all had their own temptations, she ended up walking out with a set of 48 of these.
Basically these are pastel chalks bound inside a wooden pencil. I have not done much of anything in pastels and these are very fun to try out. The concept of adding white to a drawing to raise the value is hitherto new to me.
Above is a drawing of one of the white eggplants that Pica has been growing in the garden out front.
15 September 07
A Trip to Berkeley
We took a trip to meet a cousin of Numenius visiting from Cleveland. It was a delightful surprise to find she’s an artist. We spent lunchtime talking about pencils, brushes, pastels, and finally decided to drag everyone else off to Dick Blick on University Ave (far enough down that Cal football traffic wasn’t an issue). I bought some pastel pencils I think will work well for bird portraits, though there wasn’t any Ampersand Pastelbord at that shop — I’ll have to order it.
I did a sketch of Numenius’s father. He’s a great gentleman and a great person and I’m always happier and richer to have seen him.
13 September 07
The Use of a Monocular
Not many birders use monoculars, for good reason. The three-dimensionality of binoculars gives a much better look at a bird and a telescope gives much better looks from afar.
But as I mentioned in Bird by Bird, a monocular is a great sketching tool, one I’ve used already quite a bit in my daily bird sketches.
I wondered who, though, mostly buys monoculars. Oh, said the extraordinarily attentive salesperson at that fantasy palace of consumerism, B&H, on Friday. Antiques people and truckers.
?
Antiques people so they can look through the cordons on the cordoned-off Chippendales; truckers, so they can read road signs without taking their eyes off the road.
I’ll be interested to see if I ever notice monocular around birders in the next few years. I may be alone.
1 September 07
Moss Graffiti
Offering new possibilities in organic letterforms. I had no idea one could make such a slurry.
8 July 07
Illustration Friday: Geeky
I finally got around to making my radio QSL card, prompted by the Illustration Friday theme of Geeky.
Not shown in great detail behind the antenna is the vegetable garden, now producing in great quantity, including the pink okra which I imagined doomed:
25 June 07
Flourishing
I spent the day in Berkeley yesterday, taking a class in off-hand pointed-pen flourishing. I am saturated in ink, doodles, fru-fru — yet there is something so beguiling in all this. I see the temptation. I resist it on the grounds of good sense and because of my aesthetic training — but it’s so SATISFYING...
Swoosh. Loop, press, release, curl, swoosh.
I have no idea what to do with this. I took the train down and back (no time for lunch, I missed the Berkeley International Food Festival Ron told me about), and returned in a train full of Giants fans who had witnessed the miracle of their team beating the Yankees for the second day in a row.
Swoosh. Loop. Press. Release. Curl. Yell. Loudly.