Back to the Drawing Board

I've been doing more pencil sketching again recently, trying out some of the woodless graphite pencils I found locally, and working out of a book my sister gave me for christmas on drawing the human figure.  Here are some of the results:

 

 

Obviously, the kitten at the end is the one I spent the most time developing, and I can't take full credit for it as I got lots of help from another book on pencil sketching.  I still think it turned out quite nice, though.  Little by little, I think I'm improving.

goodbye, old friend

the bridge in this painting is out back from my parents house, on the MKT trail.  It's been there for many years, and this year it's being replaced.  So, as my first landscape that's done without help from a tutorial, I chose to take this bridge and make it my model.  Here's the result:

It's a little rougher than my last work (a riverscape), but there were some challenges that were neat to attempt.  The bridge itself has two sides to it, so painting the beams side by side was tough.  Also, because it's winter, the colors are all a little muddy, which is true to life. 

A Riverscape from scratch

Here is my latest project, a riverscape in watercolor with several pictures from along the way:

 

I'm happier with the detail on this painting than I have been with any other so far.  The trees on the left, especially, I'm pleased with.  Some weak points are the log in the foreground, which looks a little deformed, and the greenery over the rocks on the left side, which seems like it's too normal of a line to my eye.  Another part I'm really happy with is the water, though, especially the reflections under the rocks on the left.  Better and better every time!

Three steps in a Snowscape

Today I was able to finish my next attempt at painting with watercolors.  I decided that given the season, a snowscape would be appropriate.  After doing some research through a few Youtube videos posted by professional artists, I was able to produce the following:

 

 

This project was a great way to experiment with the different texture levels for objects at different distances, and to develop brush techniques from very wet (for the sky) to very dry (for the grass and twigs).

A New Medium

This week marks my first foray into watercolors.  A few lessons:

1) Painting is way harder than pencil-sketching
2) watercolors BLEED.  When I put my pencil down, it marks exactly where I place it.  With these paints, the mark runs everywhere.  It's tough.

Like most new attempts, the first one is pretty poor:

The colors don't blend well, the shape is malformed, and the structure is way uncomfortable.  However, it was a good learning experience, getting my hand used to having a brush instead of a pencil.

The second shot was marginally better.  Here's a monochrome mountain scape I ripped off from some tutorial video on youtube:

Better.  The blending is better, and the different objects have slightly different textures.  The water in the foreground looks somewhat watery, and the sky falls away better than I expected.  Still, the brush strokes seem clumsy.  Hopefully my next shot at stuff like this will continue to improve.  :)

Isabella Vizitei

As my first serious project, I've sketched up the 20-week ultrasound we got this week of my wife and I's first child, Isabella:

You may notice an addition in the final sketch that wasn't present in the original ultrasound.  :)

A sunflower in 6 stages

I'm posting today a sketch that I spent a little more time on than the others I've worked on so far.  From the first pencil stroke to the final blending pass, it was probably a 3 hour project over the course of the last 4 days, and as a result I have a nice collection of photos cataloging it's progression at every step.  First is the original loose sketch:

 That's the part I'm honestly not that good at.  My freehand is poor, and I have to spend a lot of time refining from the first sketch to a decent line drawing, which is what the next photo is of:

The leaves I wasn't happy with, but overall the shape looked decent, if a bit cartoon-ish. Here it is with the first layer of shading done.

That was mostly shading around the outline, which took some time given all the nooks and crannies around an organic shape like this.  Then I applied the first shading layer to the flower itself:

Now some more detail lines were added to give the leaves and the face of the flower texture (along with a more detailed pass at the shading):

And finally some blending to reduce the obvious lines throughout the drawing:

Overall, I'm calling this one my most successful work yet (not saying much, but I feel better about it than anything else that's up on this blog so far).  I guess it's true that the more work you put into it, the more pleased you'll be with the result.

Another lesson, and my first animal sketch.

This morning I relaxed by taking another page out of one of the books I'm reading on pencil sketching and working the project.  This one is the first I've done where I'm happy with the lighting on a cylindrical object.  It's not perfect, but it looks more realistic than my previous attempts for sure:

Next is one I'm particularly proud of.  I did this sketch of my family's maltese/poodle mix, Misha.  He's a friendly little dog, and the first thing I've sketched that isn't some sort of table top object (although he DOES fit on a table without any problem).

Because he's a white dog, it was more what I left OUT that made the picture.  Definitely a good learning experience.  Anyone who has advice on creating more realistic fur outlines, I'd appreciate it.  :)

Two new still life sketches

This evening I had time to sketch out two new pieces.  One I got from one of those drawing self-help books, and it actually turned out nicely:

The other is an attempt to capture a scultpture my wife and I were given for our wedding.  Given it's complex shape and my lack of experience, it may have been a bit over my head:

 As you can see, the shading is a little off, and the shape of the inner arch doesn't look quite right (in real life it's a bit more elegant of a curvature).  However, it was a good learning experience.  Given a chance to do it over, I would have backed off on the background shading, made the shadow a little more relevant to the shape of the object, and been more exacting about where the inner arch meets it's right hand base.  Oh well, with practice comes knowledge.

~Ethan

Introduction and Purpose

Here's the deal: I've always told people I can't draw. I'm a musician, a performer, I've never had a gift for the visual arts. However, I've always wished that I COULD produce some art, just for myself.

Today, after getting back from an early fire call and being unable to sleep (see my firefighting blog here), I decided to pick up a pencil and a pad of paper that was sitting on my coffee table and doodle a bit. This is what I came up with:

It's a leaf.  An awful, ugly, uninteresting leaf.  So I told myself, "Yep, still can't do it", and put the paper down.  I was still bored and suffering from insomnia, though, so after 20 minutes of reading I decided to give it another shot, this time with my pager on the edge of the coffee table:

hmmm.....not bad.  Certainly not impressive, but a damn sight better than that first artifact I'd produced.  Actually I'd enjoyed kind of just sitting there and sketching for the last 20 minutes.  It was relaxing, almost meditative, and although it hadn't produced a masterpiece, I was pretty pleased at the other benefit's I'd garnered from the session.

Later in the day I was sitting around the fire station, covering for another guy who'd had to go back to his night job for some reason.  I had forgotton to bring my computer with me, and nothing much was on TV, so I grabbed a pad and pencil from the station's office and took a chair out into the truck bay.  Staring at my turnout boots on the ground by the fire engine, I started to sketch:

"Wow", I thought, "I can actually tell what that is".  Very unrefined, yes, but I bet any firefighter would identify that as a pair of bunker pants without a problem, and I was pretty happy with myself.  As though through revelation, I felt I had discovered a side of myself that I didn't know existed:  The whole reason I'd never even seriously tried to draw was because I told myself I couldn't do it.  There's no reason I can't develop this skill the same as any other.  Determined to strike while the iron was hot, I headed to the craft store and picked up some quality sketching pencils and paper, along with some reading material, and after an hour at home I'd produced these pieces of work:

An egg, and a walnut.  Nothing fancy, just produce, but I felt as though with time I could accomplish anything. So that's what this blog is for.  I want to develop this as a lifelong skill, and I think having a place to display my work will motivate me to keep with it.  If you're an artist and have advice, I'm always open to help from those with more experience, so please leave comments where you see things that could be improved next time around.

Cheers,

~Ethan