Growing the Tree...

Last night was spent working on the study of the tree again.  I think I've worked out the solution to all the green on green - enough contrasts in light/dark, saturation, value... there are such nuances to deal with.  I thought my hills were pretty much done, but now I realize that once I get the trees in there, there'll be some adjusting of surrounding colors to do and possibly some texturizing that I like from the study.

Again, hard to get accurate color with a flash at night -
I've got to try it with the flash off

I'm hoping to start work on it tonight while it's all fresh in the memory.  However, I spent the day at the park with the kids (all day...without sunscreen), and now I'm really tired.  There's something about spending time in the sun that just drains all energy from you.  Hopefully, I'll get a second wind.

Free at Last...sort of...

I finally have time! And now it's hard to figure out what to do first. The house needs a good cleaning (boooo!), rooms need to be painted, the yard needs to be weeded...

And, of course, there's drawing and painting to do. I think I'll sneak out to the garage before work and really get going on the chicken drawing. I think I've got most all of the details ironed out and it's time to take it to the next level.

In the meantime, I'll share a older picture from the sketchbook. It started as a doodle, having fun with line, value, texture, and facial expression. I liked how it was going but there was a dark mark on the guy's forehead that I couldn't quite remove. I thought I'd hide it better with some White-Out (after all, this is just in my sketchbook, right?)...WRONG! That only made it worse! So, I cut out a "bandage" from an Avery label to cover it. Oh well...

Bathing Beauty...What To Do About the Background?

One of the things on my list of self-imposed "assignments" to do was a drawing with a limited value range, since I tend to use the full range of 6H to 9B. I attempted one in the dark range, which I recently shared. Now, I'm working on one in lighter range.

I had intended to do one of swimmers/beach-goers all standing in a cluster. I envisioned that they would be of various body types from short and squat to tall and lanky, various ages from child to grandparent, all with summer accessories (floaties, towels, snorkels, masks, goggles, etc.). But, as I started working on it, I focused in on one little girl figure and decided to just go with her.

I'm showing her in a couple different stages. Sorry the 2nd picture is pretty poor - it was photographed indoors. I'll have to repost that picture when I get a better one.

It reminded me of my youngest daughter a couple years ago. We were visiting a water park and she had put on every floating device she could get her hands on. She had water-wings, a tube floatie, AND a life jacket. The lifeguards had gotten a chuckle out of it - no one would have to save her from drowning!

Anyway, I'm sure you'll notice that it's just a little girl in a big white space. I'm at a loss for what to put in the background. Palm trees, lounge chairs, a pool, the ocean. It's so difficult sometimes to picture the background when it's completely blank. Other times, I know exactly what should be back there. Something I have to work out...

Here it is so far...and so far YUCK!

Well, I was unable to sleep yesterday morning - woke up when my husband got up for work and couldn't go back to sleep. But, that turned out to be good since I was able to spend a good hour working on my drawing before the kids woke up. It's inventory day at work, so I don't have to go in until 7:00 (and stay until midnight), so I was able to work on it even more.

I'm not sure I'm done, but I'm a little weary of working on it. I'm not really thrilled with the result - there are several things about it that make me cringe. For one thing, I'm not a big fan of the character. He's nothing I spent time developing - just a quick figure and his head is kind of flat. I don't like the mouth for some reason - can't quite figure out why. Note to self: study expressions of the mouth more.

The bottle was the original part of the doodle and it goes off the edge (which I normally wouldn't have done).

Of course, the main purpose of this drawing was to explore darker values and facial expressions, so I guess there was some success. I did learn a lot about the eyes and details that make them express surprise, and to keep a thin area of white above to show they are focused downward. That may seem pretty basic to some, but I always seemed to make the eyes of my characters focusing ahead and I didn't quite pay attention to why. So, at least I got something out of this drawing. That's what it's all about.

Oh well, the list of things to practice grows even longer!

This May Take a While...

OK, the original doodle that I left in the drawing is a bottle shape. Of course, it had to be an unusual bottle shape - like a perfume bottle or flask-type thingy with some sharp "shoulders." With my desire to work in darker, dramatic values it's taken some thought to try and figure out how the shadow would fall across the front. And, since it's a made-up shape, I don't have anything like it in the house to shine a light on and see.

I think I figured out something that looks right, however it took me most of my free time today (Tuesdays and Sundays are the 2 days I don't work). Needless to say, I haven't made much progress on the overall drawing.

Guess you'll all just have to wait.

(I'm pretty happy with the facial expression at least - on the figure, not the bottle)

Direction, At Last

I realized during this last doodle that I was in a "valley" in terms of my drawing. I had finished up some projects from before, I work on anatomy studies while on break at work, but I didn't have a specific focus at home.

I started the doodle because I wanted to keep drawing. But, it didn't feel like anything special - just business as usual - lacking direction. I was reminded of cable news anchors - they keep on reporting the news even when nothing new has happened. But, when some big news story breaks, there's new energy and excitement as if there's no end to what they could discuss and analyze.

That's how I feel now, because I'm suddenly flooded with possibilities. In my next few drawings, I'd like to explore value a bit further. I've done a lot with full value ranges, but I'd like to put some limits on that and see what happens (I know in theory - just haven't had the opportunity to practice it).

Also, I'd mentioned being interested in color. There are a lot of great articles on James Gurney's blog, Gurney Journey, that I would like to explore further. I was running low on some of my acrylic colors which I just replaced today. So, I think I can finally go forward with some of the color wheel studies that I've wanted to try.

Here is just a goofy painting I did just to try out the acrylic retarder I picked up (my painting skills leave a lot to be desired). The instructions really emphasized not to mix more than 30% retarder to paint, so I tried not to overdo it. While it extended the drying time a bit for the paint on the palette, it really didn't extend it very much on a whole. Of course, that's probably because I didn't have a lot of paint, so I was working thin.