Sunday, September 25, 2011

French Gray from red and blue

Well, my prismacolors came. No more excuses for not doing my colored pencil homework, well, aside from the excuse that I have no clue how to draw folds.

Back to the internet which is sprinkled with tutorials and utube entries. I think my rendering looks somewhat like the kleenex I crumpled.  And my french gray from red and blue worked fairly well, It wasn't till I saw the photo that I could see how the blue seems to dominate. I will have to work on that!

By the way, I added a pan and some carrots and onions to my previous drawing of an egg on a tshirt. Maybe only I see it as a turkey, but it made me feel good to trivialize it!


Friday, September 23, 2011

Turkeys and Thumbs


I  can't help it. Every time I look at this I think of a raw turkey ready to be stuck in the oven.  I have been meaning to try again, but then I look at this in despair.   Maybe it is switching to a t shirt instead of using a man's handkerchief like the thumbnails we did in class.  ( link to thumbnails )

At any rate, my new pencils are on order and I am hoping they will come before my Monday colored drawing class and I can make a better French Gray.  Yup ... when in doubt, blame the tools!

Fun email today from weeklyartlesson.com --- Lillian Kennedy explained the origin of the term thumbnail and says somebody someplace used to draw his ideas on his thumbnail.  With my fading vision, I am afraid that is an impossibility, I have trouble enough just seeing my thumbnail to clip the nail but it was a fascinating thought.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Drawing Class

I am taking a colored pencil drawing class at the art center - and we spent the first hour of class creating "french gray" from colored pencils. She said that you would get a depth of color by using 2 complementary colors that you don't get by using grays. So we layered and layered.
Creating French Gray with complementary colors


There's more than one way to sketch an egg ...


I found this site which also talks about making grays ... and a whole lot more.

We did thumbnail sketches of an egg on a white cloth - she explained the rule of thirds and sweet spots.

Then I started looking for tutorials on drawing eggs ... and of the thousands, I liked the finished look on this one, but not the way it was filmed.

The trouble with never having had art classes is that the simplest thing, like drawing a 3D object, sends me to the internet for tutorials.  But there sure is a lot of support to be found!

Our homework is to create a 6 x 8 composition of an egg on a cloth using colored pencils but ending with gray tones.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Balloon Fest









Woke up to the sound of hot air balloons overhead.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

David's Birthday card

I don't think David watches this blog, so he won't see the birthday card I made for him today. Now if I can get his presents wrapped and in the mail, I will be all set.

Hmmm. Wonder how I got old enough to have a 35 year old son.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Sunday, September 4, 2011

A fun find on utube


I discovered a tutorial for drawing petunias while googling "botanical drawings" and came up with what I consider a pretty decent petunia myself!   Check out Val Webb for some fantastic inspiration.

Here is the link for the petunia.



I am adding her to my morning muse list for sure!

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Barb's Birdhouses




These birdhouses were up at my friend Barb's place at the Cape. I am not sure if the hurricane took them down or not.