Vinca

I'm using a little bit of Vinca to practice foreshortening. I like the curves. More of this tomorrow...

Around the Lake

Some recent tree work around the lake just broke my heart. The lovely buttonwoods are no more. The work seemed to be selective so these might have been taken for their rotten centers. I'm trying to rationalize...

Life goes on. A new Spring brings leaves of Japanese Barberry.

Soon the Royal Fern will sprout a new generation.

White Pine Cone Ideas

How little information needs to be conveyed in order to recognize an object? Familiarity must play an important part.

Squinting on the first photo gives results similar to the second. Would that very little detail be enough?

Or how about an inversion? This might be a starting point for an etching...

A Saturday Stroll

Spring is slipping in nicely this weekend...

Second Year Mullein

White Pine Pruning

Last Year's Green Briar

Lilac Buds

Swamp Maple Blossom

The signs of Spring continue. On today's drive home from work I noticed the clouds of red in the swamp (red) maples. Here's a little clump of male flowers.

Male Swamp Maple Flowers

Trying Out the Carbon Pencils

This is look I was after--a nice dark background and lost edges. The carbon pencils are considerably darker and lend themselves well to smoothing. These must be close to what charcoal feels like.

Rhody Wrap

Some smoothing with paper towel (I couldn't find my stomps) gave the background a soft, distant touch.  I liked the tonal range and wanted to push darker blacks but even with a 4B I wasn't satisfied--all I got was some distracting streaking. I just remembered that I have a pack of Wolff's Carbon Pencils...unopened! I'll try them out on the next pencil piece when I want dark darks.

A Sign of Spring

Skunk Cabbage is making its appearance, a sure sign of Spring!

I noticed a few clumps coming up from water cover, three or four inches deep.

More Rhody

Little by little, it's coming together.

Rhododendron Bud

Rhododendron in Graphite

I've been rather busy with various projects leaving my artwork to suffer a bit. In the spirit of recent posts on drawing and lighting, here's a start on a graphite piece based on a rhododendron bud photographed in my cardboard light box.

Rhododendron Bud

From My Kitchen Window

As I was photographing the bunny...

Squirrels began spinning around the yard. Most shots were simply a blur so these will have to do.

Drawing

"Art probably owes more to form for its range of expression than to color. Many of the noblest things it is capable of conveying are expressed by form more directly than by anything else. And it is interesting to notice how some of the world's greatest artists have been restricted in their use of color, preferring to depend on form for their chief appeal. It is reported that Apelles used only three colors, black, red, and yellow, and Rembrandt used little else. Drawing, although the first, is also the last, thing a painter usually studies. There is more in it than can be taught and that repays constant application and effort. Color would seem to depend much more on a natural sense and to be less amenable to teaching. A well-trained eye for the appreciation of form is what every student should set himself to acquire with all the might of which he is capable."

~ Harold Speed The Practice and Science of Drawing

I have lately had the great fortune to converse with quite a few professional artists.  The consistent message has been to draw well. See form--really light and its absence--and negative space. Painting is drawing with a brush.

Sometimes when I am painting, applying color, I feel lost. Is this color lighter or darker than this color? How dark is this color in shade? How does the color's hue change in shade? And so I imagine that if I feel confident with the values sans color--just pen and ink, ink wash, graphite--that I'll have some foundation for color.

And of course there is one more advisement... Practice!