Playing with Pencils - Rutabaga

My mom and I had a garage sale last weekend.  Several old gardening books that my dad had acquired somewhere did not sell, and I kept one that had a lot of simple (but very well done) color botanical illustrations that would be good for collage or for sketch practice.

I drew a rutabaga based on an illustration in that book, then colored it with Prismacolor pencils.  I like how the bottom section and the stem turned out, but I had trouble getting the purple section to blend the way I wanted it to.  I like to use odorless mineral spirits to blend my Prismacolors, but since I was working on this in the living room I had just my pencils and an eraser.  It was a relaxing way to end my Saturday.

I hope you're enjoying your weekend.  Thanks for popping in.

Supplies:
Sketch book; Prismacolor Premier pencils; Staedtler eraser.

Playing with Pencils - Graphite Granny Smiths

Late last night, while bingeing (see ** below) on Mad Men (AMC is running a marathon leading up to Sunday night's series finale), I also spent a little time sketching.  I wanted to work on basic shapes, so I chose a Granny Smith apple and worked from photos taken from different perspectives. 

I used a 4H Staedtler Mars Lumograph graphite pencil for most of the sketch, then used a B to add just a bit of shading and to make the sketch dark enough to scan.  A 4H pencil is pretty "hard" and therefore doesn't make a really dark sketch.

** Regarding the spelling of bingeing: the Blogger spell-check doesn't like that "e" in there.  But according to most dictionaries, it is an acceptable spelling.  As a linguist, I think you need that "e" in there to keep the "g" soft, that is, pronounced like a "j."  After all, I'm not bing-cherry-ing on Mad Men, if you follow where I've drifted (wink).

Hope you're having a great day!

Sketch Practice - Marti

For a year or more I've been sketching (well, doodling, more like) on a stack of unused day planner calendar pages held together with binder rings.  I keep it in the living room and it's become a handy place to jot down notes, practice my writing or just doodle.  Since the calendar pages didn't cost me anything and are on cheap paper, I don't feel any guilt about "wasting" them on idle scribbles.  Here's a sample page where I drew a small coneflower and scribbled down a recipe I heard on television.

Unfortunately, I'm running out of the calendar pages.  And in some cases, my doodles were actually rather nice sketches that I wished were on better paper and not done in ink pen.  So I decided it was high time I committed to using a real sketch book.  Therefore the calendar pages have been replaced with an honest-to-goodness hardbound blank journal (purchased years ago and never used), a pencil and an eraser.

I drew this face while watching television and titled it Marti after the classic movie I was watching at the time.  Marty is a touching film from 1955 staring Ernest Borgnine as a 34-year old, single butcher who lives with his widowed mother.  He struggles with the desire to find love for himself versus pleasing his family and friends, who make it clear they would prefer he stay single.

Since I haven't sketched too many faces I'm pleased with how this one turned out, and I plan to use her in some enhanced form on an art journal page or perhaps a piece of mail art.  In the meantime, I'm glad I have a "real" sketch in a "real" sketchbook to refer to.

Thanks for stopping by!  Have a great Presidents' Day.

Sketch Practice - Tulip, Day 1

Long story short:  I've determined that in order to progress in my art, I need to learn how to draw again.  So I sat down late last night and started a simple sketch of a tulip based on a photo I found on the internet.  My goal is to draw a little each day, because I will learn and get better only through practice.  I think I worked on this sketch for about 30 minutes.  (You know how easy it is to lose track of time when you're arting.)  This is still a work in progress.

Happy May Day!  Thanks for stopping by.