Cornell Week 6 Review

Here is the capsulized version on my 6th and final week in Cornell's online course:

Throughout the course we have learned a range of techniques with different types of art media. We have also learned about illustrating different types of plants and their parts.

For the final illustration you will create a finalized botanical illustration. You can select the type of art medium and plant subject.

For this warm up I would like you to submit your ideas for your final project. What type of plants are you considering illustrating? Which medium would you like to use? Please give this thought -- and remember that more is not always more.

Wow.

John, you've mastered this medium, you truly have. Everything about it says mountain laurel, not graphite -- that is, you don't see lines and shading and such, you see the plant. Your use in the leaves is soft, muted and beautifully blended, and your work in the unopened blossoms is crisp, calling your attention to the detail.
Honestly, my hat is off to you.

I wish that I had your first drawing ever -- from the first assignment in the first course. Do you still have it? If you do, could we use it for a before and after....?

Congratulations!

. . .

Exercise 1.4: Portfolio Development

You will prepare an electronic or hard copy portfolio of six completed and mounted plant studies in a range of media studied during the course.

Please consider the following guidelines when building your portfolio: the degree of botanical detail, accurate color-matching, use of the medium, placement of the specimen on the page, and overall design.

Just a brief note here to describe my portfolio thoughts. I have the resources—Bluehost web hosting and Adobe tools—to put together an online portfolio. I've been through various tests and failed starts and figure that this exercise is the perfect push I need to get started. I will journal the progress.

Rather excited to finally get something out there.

If you hadn't written this very thing, I would have wondered about it! Of course, with your comfort level, I think this is an excellent approach to follow. Glad it's giving you the impetus.

Exercise 4.5: Portfolio Development

We are already half way through the course and this exercise is to simply remind you to be working on your portfolio. How is it going?

This is the perfect chance to post to others in the forum or post a message to the instructor with any questions or concerns you may have with your portfolio. By now you should have decided what type of portfolio, either hand or electronic (or both). Your portfolio presentation should be a reflection of your work and style! Be creative with this process. Again, feel free to share your ideas with me or ask me any questions.

I have a simple test site that illustrates how I could set up an online gallery.
See: http://www.johnlynchperry.com/woodfrog/
This is an HTML-based gallery created with Lightroom 3. You'll notice that I have my own domain name and host my online presence using BlueHost. (I mentioned some of this in a forum post.) This setup is really just simply about viewing. Not sure where I'd go for online sales or perhaps try to wire my own in.

And regarding sales, at this time I'm really more interested in honing my skills and finding my voice. I am very lucky to have a couple of mentors—professional artists who offer serious advice on my work and future. I've planted my stake in the sand, that I am committed to becoming a good painter, probably in oils and perhaps in egg tempera. My mentors remind me that at this point that that commitment is more about working hard than trying to sell. So, I will have online galleries but not sales oriented. But what is important to me at this time is to spin the display of finished pieces away from my blog only. The blog can present all the details and explorations that lead to my work and that will be freely available to all but need that clean place for those who only want to experience the final work.

First, thank you for sharing your resources with others! I appreciate the support and camaraderie that has developed among the 3rd level participants.

Yes, you're on the right track, and I appreciate the perspective you offer here. Sounds as if you're on a great path.

And again -- I can't say enough simply about the value of documentation. I have long sold, or given pieces that I am grateful for having captured in a high quality image -- and a bit sad for never having done so with some of them. It's an important habit to get into, one that you seem to have natural leanings toward, given your dedication to the process.

Portfolio Review

You should have prepared a finalized electronic or hand portfolio of six completed and mounted plant studies in a range of media examined and rendered during the course.

Your portfolio should provide viewers with a clear idea as to what your vision is. It should be organized by subjects or different styles. Horizontal and vertical images, as well as different size prints should be organized and grouped separately. Keep in mind, portfolios are never actually complete. There are always new samples to add, new skills to highlight, and less effective samples to remove or replace.

Here is the link to my draft portfolio. It's a Flash gallery created with Lightroom 3 and uploaded to my web host. The images are merely a display for easily selecting final images.

http://johnlynchperry.com/gallery/cornell/

I fear this is all rather simple, missing goals on creativity? In an online presentation, what would you expect to see?

My own thoughts, kind of my wish list...

Artist statement: Where I am and where I'm going.

Individual text for each image: How and why was this piece created?

Entry page: A main menu with links to blog, artist info, contact info, links to galleries. I realize my web look might be a bit spartan. I'd like to background with the slightest hint of bare canvas but I opt for a simple look that keeps my work foreground. Curiously, I see that clean look much more with photography than with fine art. Wonder why...

All this is familiar territory. Building a better web presence can been on my mind. The above ideas aren't really new, just never developed properly.

I'm feeling a bit on spongy ground here. Hence an early start, giving me time to reshape as needed.

I read through your pdf and looked at your slideshow. Much of this is so personal, in terms of taste, don't you think? So, personally -- I find something nearly akin to relief in seeing something more spare, simple. It completely calls attention to your work. Sometimes extensive artist statements are just so over the top.

Yes, I think a simple statement, along with titles and media, spare main menu would be lovely. But don't lose the lovely, simply quality that calls attention to the work, not how cleverly worded it all is.

Take this, or leave it, John: I don't know that I would include the pastel -- it seems evident that you're newly learning that medium, and in this venue, I believe you want to highlight your mastery.

Does this help?

Cornell Week 5 Review

Here is the capsulized version on my 5th week in Cornell's online course:

Pencil Illustration: Pleurotus ostreatus. For this lesson we will focus on illustrating this specific type of fungus.

This exercise we will be illustrating the oyster mushroom. Pleurotus ostreatus, is a common edible mushroom. Depending on your location, you may locate it at your local food market, so you can have a live study for this exercise. If it is unavailable, you may reference the images below, or locate a similar mushroom at the grocer.

Beautifully done, John! Very well rendered -- I appreciate the composition and angle of the work, the overall contour, and the exceptional thought you've put into the shading. You've managed to evoke texture so well here -- that odd, somewhat peeling papery feel at the top, the rough, darker area at the base, the gills. 

Nicely done! You have come a long way in your black and white work from the root/radish submitted at the beginning of the course. May I share this with a colleague who teaches a popular course entitled Magical Mushrooms and Mischievous Molds?

. . .

This exercise we are using pen and ink to illustrate one of the species from the Quercus genus. Since there are many oaks available, you have the option to choose which type to illustrate. Depending on your location and time of year, you may find a subject in your area.

Nicely done, John. What paper are you using here?

I especially appreciate the composition, and the detail in the two acorn 'caps.' You have wisely positioned this so that the main event -- the darkest portion of the drawing, in which we are looking into the interior of the lower of the two acorn caps -- is off center, which lends a nice sense of assymmetry and is pleasing. I appreciate, too, the light shadow under the leaf petiole to the far left. It anchors it well.

The only thing I might suggest is a bit more detail in the stem -- a wee bit of stippling -- all the little lenticels and such that make this more detailed, and make it come to life. Would you agree? I certainly feel as if I'm seeing that level of attention in the caps.

. . .

Now that we are getting toward the end of the class, we will focus on creating more finalized works of art. This assignment will be one of the most difficult, as we are working with detail and color. Similar to the last two assignments, we will create a finalized botanical illustration for Rosa spp. See below for the photos and description.

For this assignment please choose a specific rose to study and illustrate, which may vary greatly depending on your location in the world. Spend as much time as you need to complete this assignment. Remember your colored pencil techniques, along with all the details in the study.

Good work here, John. Your use of color pencil is soft, and you're working it a bit more to get rid of the lines, get some good blending. Roses can, in my view, offer a lot of complication with the tremendous number of petals. You have hung in there, paying close attention to the highlights in particular, so that you don't get lost in the sameness of the color.

Of the two color pencil pieces I've just seen, I strongly prefer the interesting quality of the iris. Even with the light scan, I could see much more attention to detail, and I think that's partly because the detail is there for viewing. I enjoy roses, particularly their intoxicating scent, but as a subject, in this case, they can be...well, a little pedestrian. They don't offer as much to work with in terms of color, texture, veination and such, and are therefore a uniquely challenging subject, in my view. Do you agree? So different from, for example, the iris, or the artichoke!

Cornell Week 4 Review

Here is the capsulized version on my 4th week in Cornell's online course:

For this exercise explore your outside environment to find an interesting landscape to draw. It may be a row of trees, a perennial bed or a pond. You may find that a view without too much detail -- a simple field or hedgerow against the sky, for example, is easier to work with.

In order for your landscape to come to life, you need to discover where your light source is. This is very important when creating pastel art. Working from dark to light is standard procedure with pastel colors.

Oh, how interesting!

Let's talk about what is working well here. I like the way that the orange bleeds into light in the sky. Somehow that line of blue serves as an anchor on the horizon. This has a high contrast quality. I see a lot of potential in it!

I really, really love this medium. I recall when I first started using it, that it took awhile to get the hang of your fingers as instruments. It's ideal for plein air, and I've even pulled off the road, and painted on brown grocery bags, to capture the 'just right' quality of a field in summer.

So two things I might offer: first, my favorite medium is a bristol vellum -- the vellums will offer a smoother surface, so that you don't get the white pebbling.

Second, you might mess with really using your fingers -- pressing, smudging, blending, working. Not that you have to do that throughout the piece, but it does help a LOT, and integrates color smoothly. I wanted to reach right up and rub the screen, blending more deep color into the hedgerow at the horizon with my fingertips, to eliminate some of the 'whiteness...'

See how that works for you.

. . .

Colored pencil can be used on a variety of papers. Textured papers such as watercolor and pastel papers work very well. For more detailed and fine work, especially drawing technical illustrations, smooth papers will offer you the most successful outcome.

For this exercise we are going to illustrate autumn leaves. This is a great exercise for color blending and shading. This is one of my favorite exercises - seeing all the beautiful color combinations from your illustrations is a great joy.

Start by finding a few interesting leaves. Do not be concerned if you are not in an area with fall leaves, you can refer online to interesting color combinations and you can use your imagination, or find an object in nature that challenges you similarly. The purpose of this exercise is to advance your skills in color blending and shading.

Think about an interesting composition. You may include more than one leaf that can overlap.

Terrific interpretation of this exercise -- I really like the way you've selected portions, instead of drawing the whole! Nice use and selection of color, and attention to detail -- especially those little idiosyncrasies that make a leaf an individual. 

Similar to the pastel, I'm wanting to see you press a bit firmer, or perhaps switch to a smoother paper, to eliminate some of the little white portions. I would find this a bit more satisfying to see a little less of that white -- in the background, to have a sense of solid, inky darkness that contrasts more vividly with the leaf in the foreground. Do you agree?

. . .

For this exercise we are creating a portfolio piece: Iris species with colored pencils. Irises are an interesting subject with beautiful flowers, making them ideal to illustrate with colored pencils. Irises can easily be found outside during the spring and early summer, depending on your region or location, or at a floral shop. If you live in an area of the world without this particular flower either available in gardens or at the florist, of course, feel free to identify a suitable substitute.

Plan out your drawing. Start by using your pencil for the overall layout of each part of the plant that will be shown. First, begin with the main focus, the flower and stem...

Before you begin your illustration, consider conducting some research on your iris. This will help you really understand the parts to the plant...

How interesting! This is so soft, so subtle. I can't tell whether this is due in part to the scan -- literally shut off my lights and fiddled with the screen to try to see better -- from what I can see, I think this is a color pencil piece rendered with a tremendous degree of softness. You will want to be cautious that this soft quality doesn't slip into disappearance.
While soft, you have still provided excellent detail, particularly in the petals -- you've captured the veins so well.

Now wait a minute -- I was going to suggest that you consider, in the spirit of botanical illustration, adding in some leaves, perhaps a dissection, but again, in tipping the screen, I think I see some leaf shapes there. This is a funky scan, after all, I believe. Or are they merely hinted at?

. . .

For this exercise, you will expand your opportunities and will create an abstract piece.

This is a great exercise to advance your techniques with the various media we have focused on. It is also a great learning tool to explore the interesting ways in which to mix those media.

We have addressed several different types of media from past assignments - pencil, pen/ink, colored ink, charcoal, chalk, colored pencil and pastels. For this assignment, be creative! Use this opportunity not to focus on technical details, but to explore interesting curves, shapes and mixed combinations. For inspiration, you may go outside in your environment to study certain plants. For example, the inspiration for the illustration below was corn.

Spend at least an hour on this assignment. I look forward to seeing your submissions for this creative exercise! Sign, scan and submit.

This is another interesting piece -- I'm casting about for the word that comes to mind, and I believe it would be evocative. Which media did you mix? Pastel and color pencil...? 

From your recent forays into a diversity of media, you are really gaining a command of working with light. This piece has the feeling of light hitting a forest floor. It has realistic qualities, and yet, you have those more vivid lines drawn evoking blades of grass, and they have an abstract quality (in pastel or pencil? Can't quite tell). 

As I have viewed interpretations of this exercise, I have wondered what I would have done with it -- I haven't worked much with mixed media, though do love ink, color pencil and watercolor together. 

Nicely done! Think you'd go further with this...?

Cornell Week 3 Review

Here is the capsulized version on my 3rd week in Cornell's online course:

After you have completed your observation of geometric forms, find three different types of leaves. Observe and note the variations of form and shapes. Notice the detailed differences such as serration, veins, etc. With your pencil and paper, sketch the outline of the leaves, then work on the details. Spend 10-20 minutes on each leaf.

Excellent work here -- it has an instructive, text book quality, which of course, is important with botanical illustration, to be able to communicate that information. I like in particular the sassafras -- just the right amount of information, and personally, I always feel as if those imperfections -- the little insect nibbles, presence of fungi and such -- breathe a kind of honesty and life into the work. 

Good work here. I like it better than the radish -- feel as if perhaps your heart was more in it here, a little more devotion to the details.

. . .

For this exercise we are working with pen and paper. Pen is very useful in advancing your skills in shadows and overlays. Pen and ink also "forces" you to plan ahead. A few ideas to keep in mind while planning:

• Where your light source is coming from. 
• Consideration of the overall layout. This is important because shadow and light can make up how the composition is developed. 
• How layers will be rendered when working with overlays. 

For this assignment find a challenging, single subject to illustrate,with multiple layers and many details. A good example is a pine cone or a pineapple. A branch with leaves, or even a rose flower can be an interesting subject for the layers of petals, too.

Now THIS is a pen piece, John, more what I'm after! :-) 

This is just what I'm looking for. The composition is excellent, and your stippling is outstanding. Hard to describe, exactly, but I really want to see shading as opposed to stippling, that is, they are there to suggest the shadows, but not shout out as little dots. See what I mean? You've managed that very well here. A great improvement in your pen, I'm really pleased to see the effort here! 

Would be nice to return to this subject, present it as a series of sorts. It's ideal for this work, since it offers enough challenge as to be interesting, and yet, it doesn't seem to be overwhelming.

. . .

Start by finding your subject. When searching, find a plant subject that you have not sketched before. Either a flower, leaf, seed pod or fruit will be great. If you are looking for a challenge, try sketching a group of flower blooms or foliage.

Plan out your drawing. Use your pencil to sketch the layout. For this assignment we will use the first technique as outlined from the previous exercise.

After your layout and composition is finalized, use your charcoal tool lightly to sketch the outline. Work on this illustration for over an hour. This will be part of your portfolio, so spend as much time as necessary! Please post any questions or concerns you may run into.

Once finished, spray your drawing with fixative (make sure to follow instructions). When dry, you can return to your drawing to add a second layer to darken with charcoal and add highlights with your chalk. You can spray again after it is completed.

This is softly and beautifully rendered. You're exercising good command over a medium that can be a little wild and wooly. I appreciate, too, that you selected a rather contained subject -- not too complex, and yet with enough challenge to give you a run for your money.

Cornell Week 2 Review

Well, I've certainly been delinquent in my postings. The course work seems to consume me. So be it! Here's the week 2 work and Marcia's comments. I will wrap up week 3 and post soon. The new week's work will be colorful--pastel, colored pencil and mixed media!

Good work, John. Nice eye for composition, good shape, you're observing well.

Often I like to see those times in which a drawing is somewhat spare -- as if one doesn't feel the need to include each and every little thing. In this case, I'm feeling that it may be spare, bordering on unfinished. If it's a piece you're invested in, I'd like to see a bit more detail -- perhaps more stippling, root hairs...

Good work here, and my comment is very similar to the one I just reviewed: a little light on detail.

I suspect that perhaps you are simply inclined more toward color -- you'd rather put your energy into the work of something like the pine cone piece, maybe? In any event, for the work you include for your portfolio, you'll want to devote a bit more time to shading, detail.

Your color chart is awesome -- you've stretched the opportunities of color combinations very nicely. From what I've seen in the work this week in this exercise, I think I have a new favorite medium -- not in terms of doing myself necessarily, but I like what students are doing with it. It has an incredibly graphic quality. I can't wait to see the piece you created with the pens.

John, I can sincerely say that in the years of witnessing your work, here it is: this is one of your finest piece to date, in my view. It's -- well, it's kind of perfect. I really like your choices of color, the simplicity of it.

It's a fine illustration, it truly is. Would you permit me to make a suggestion?

A friend of mine runs a company called [edited]. I'd like you to find it on the web. Look over the work, study the pieces they select. Perhaps when you've amassed some other work, you might send an inquiry, tell him how you know me, and that I encouraged you to submit a piece, this lovely cone in particular.

I am thinking as I'm typing that it might be an opportunity for all of you. Steve tends to focus on natural, local elements, indigenous to our area here in central NY. This piece really has me thinking....this course is very exciting as it's evolving. My brain is turning in a different directions here...

Cornell Week 1 Review

I have been busy at work on this week's exercises. Instead of working each exercise through, this week I'm first building all my transfers. Last week I got into trouble by not having clear compositions. There is nothing like a good foundation!

With Marcia's approval, I'll be summarizing our exchanges over the exercises. (Her comments italicized.)

I look at this piece, and think, my, how far you've come!
This pepper is rendered so thoughtfully. Excellent, soft shading. I particularly appreciate the highlights -- that you wisely left space in the piece, rather than feel compelled to keep going, and going. For me, that's an important and sometimes challenging aspect of illustration.
The main event for me is at the top, around the stem. I think that's particularly well rendered.
Something feels just a bit funky about the shadow along the right side, as if it's climbing a bit high, though perhaps this is sitting against a backdrop, which would explain it. Somehow my eye wants to see more at the tabletop level. Always a bit of a challenge, communicating feedback in this fashion, but do you see what I mean?

Great job, so bold!


I really like the suggestion of the bends in the leaves, and especially, how thin you've kept the stems. Your background is blackest black.
This is almost logo-like in quality, that is, it's representational, and could work well as a logo for a plant-based business. I like it.

I don't know why I find this so satisfying, but I do, I do. I find it pleasing to sit and simply look at this assignment. It's instructive, too -- worth displaying prominently.
Lovely experimentation with pencil, particularly with the softness of the effects in the lower blocks.


My only suggestion with this is that you also might want to see how incredible hard you can press on the pencil, to create nearly solid blocks of color. In doing so, what does the blend look like?


My journal:

I made it! Well yes, of course back for another fine course with Cornell, but also that I made it through the week! I somehow put off my work and then realized it was due on Thursday, not Friday. Duh!

So I'm thrilled that I'm all caught up and yet wondering if I had more time could make that pepper look a bit less wonky. I spent hours building form but might have overlooked the entire for the pieces. Whatever, I did enjoy the meditative aspects of building form slowly.

The high contrast piece was great fun and I really like it. Good negative space, repetition, strength. I thought about adding some detail but felt it might lose focus. I first drew it in with a Micron and then brushed in india ink.

I used HP watercolor for both pieces. It's the very first time I try it with graphite and I love it. Good smoothness and seems to respond well to many layers, almost like it's spongy.

I will try pushing harder on my colored pencils and I think that HP watercolor paper may help as well. I'm looking for a smoother finish. Colored pencil, although not my fav medium, allows for interesting layering, reminding me of egg tempera. I particularly like burnishing with white or cream, which seems to add depth as well. I have a set of VeriThins that I'll work with on upcoming exercises.

I've a number of simple graphite drawings and some egg tempera work that I'd like to get into an online gallery. This week I reviewed past work, leaving me assured that this will be an easy setup. Testing a Flash gallery on an iPad failed as expected—no Flash support for iOS devices: iPad and iPhone. An HTML gallery worked fine with iPad.

Next for the gallery will be to uncover and scan drawings and publish a test gallery. I am attracted to simple galleries. No wild colors or backgrounds or music. Ugh! I will go with grays and unassuming fonts, leaving all the space for the art.

I became interested in a dedicated online portfolio when last fall I sold my first and only painting. That got me all fired up but I've not filled in with much salable work. I then took part in an exhibition—good experience but poor showing.

I guess I've been leaning more towards finding my space in art. These days I'm interested in oils and Old Masters in particular. I grind my own oil paints and will soon process linseed oil. Can I join botanical with Old Masters? The Dutch did it well. I'm particularly fond of the work of Melendez and have been copying parts of his paintings.

This course comes at a perfect time. It's a good shakeup as I try out mediums that aren't on my radar at all right now. And, I have to come with design ideas fast. I like that.

As always, your reflective writing is a pleasure to read. You have a way of looking critically -- or perhaps, thoughtfully -- without self denigration. You're rather matter of fact about it in a refreshing way. You also seem optimistic and upbeat in your tenor. I am going to be so eager to learn about the process of preparing your work for sale. I have known of a number of people who have done very well using etsy.com. Have you had any experience with this?


And I want to encourage you to exercise some ownership of and "adult learning maturity" in this course, in terms of what you get out of it. You may interpret the exercises as you wish -- for example, if there is a certain medium that is introduced, and you really are just not all that interested in going further with it, you could take that week to go more deeply into the exploration of Dutch masters and botanical works ( and yes, there are botanical pieces by Dutch masters here at Cornell, in fact. The detail in them is absolutely stunning). It's your course, and your opportunity to go deeply into those areas of interest. We'll all learn in the process! You're definitely exploring new terrain, as far as I'm concerned. (Maybe sometime you'll present a workshop to one of my classes at the university!)