A Different Perspective...

On this lovely afternoon, I was able to spend time painting.  I realized that the little still life I just painted was OK, but...something about it isn't sitting well with me.  I'm happy to be more comfortable working with acrylic paint, but it's still falling flat.  That contrast that I like to emphasize just wasn't there once the colors dried.  Also, I wanted to try something a little looser now that I'd solved the question of colors and mixing.  So, I decided to try it again from a slightly different angle.

First paint (left) and today's painting (right)

I definitely like the 2nd one better - it has a greater level of contrast and it is slightly looser (although I think total reckless abandon just isn't how I was created to paint).  There's still a little tweaking that I'll do, but it shouldn't change too drastically from this.  One thing that I thought about while painting was how much easier color mixing has become.  In the early days of painting, color mixing was a little confusing - sort of hit or miss.  But now, I have a better sense of whether I should add a blue, a brown, or a black for a shadow; whether I should add a white, a yellow, an ochre, or some other color for a highlight.  I'm actually quite happy with my painting now - I want to have one foot in the natural world and one foot in the expressive without swinging too far one way or another...at least for now.

This doesn't exactly accurately represent the saturation of some of the colors, but it's close...

I've been watching some art programs on the Ovation channel lately and I had to pause one episode of Art in Progress to write down a quote.  The show focused on the artist Donald Sultan - I was not particularly familiar with his work and I liked it to some degree, although it was a bit to conceptual for my tastes (a topic for another time).  But, he said something that really struck a chord in me as I so often "overthink" things.

"One of the mainstays of making art is that you don't think of new ideas - you discover them.  So, that's why you have to work all the time.  If you go out and just lie around and start thinking and waiting, you know nothing is ever gonna happen.  And, the longer you wait, the more you realize that when you come back to it, you're right back where you were.  You're not any further along even though you thought and thought and thought - you didn't really go anywhere."  Donald Sultan

I appreciated this thought since I often like to spend time - too much time - thinking about what I want to do.  And, sometimes it's paralyzing.

Back to the Boards...

Well, I'm back.  It's been a very busy week with the end of school (summer vacation - here we come), registration for my homeschool co-op next fall, a broken down car to repair, my turn to sit at the gallery, a birthday (mine), unexpected doctor appointment...you get it.  Also, I've been suffering from tennis elbow symptoms that have been around since before I started the mural, so a little break seemed like a good idea.

My very own art critic

I did head out to the garage this evening to add some details to the strawberries - softening the shading around the seeds, adding dark shadows under the leafy tops, etc.  Also, I detailed some of the flowers a little more - mainly the centers, adding a little red/orange in.

I wasn't out for too long, though.  I'm at the point where I'm going to be moving on to the next panel - the grapes and all of those leaves.  It's going to require me to mix up a little more of some paint colors and, once I get going, it's one of those areas that I'll probably obsessively continue until I have them all done.  So, tonight was not the night to go there.  Maybe tomorrow.

Considering the Target Audience - The Issue of Character and Style

Recently, I dusted off an old idea that I thought would be a good “assignment” for myself. It’s one thing to invent a character and move on, and another to actually carry them through an entire picture book. My target audience for this project is kids 4-9 years old who are moving into homeschooling – kind of a “get ready for school” book from the homeschooler’s perspective (the issues are completely different).

Anyway, I found myself struggling to determine the style I wanted to work in. I’m drawn toward wanting to do unusual characters (lots of that in my sketchbook). However, they can sometimes come across as a little dark or unsettling. This book is meant to be positive and encouraging, and to represent real-life experiences that kids could easily associate with.

Since I want it to appeal to a range of ages, I figured it should be fun and colorful without being TOO cartoony and babyish. On the other hand, I don’t want anything too serious, “textbookish,” and dull. (Maybe I could have picked an easier first project)

Well, I came up with some characters (done in ink with watercolor washes) that I kind of like. They’re fun and colorful, but I’m not sure if they’re borderline too cartoony. I think I’ll try to do some studies placing the characters within a setting – perhaps then I could see it as more of a whole, and that will help me decide if I should push them toward the “real” a little more.

In this post, I’m showing 2 of the 3 characters – the older brother (aprox. 12 years old) and the youngest sister (aprox. 5 years old). The main character I’ll address in a future post.

McCarty - A Recent Discovery

I’ve just discovered an illustrator whose work I really admire. Well, actually I have seen a couple of his books and made note of the covers many times, but I’d never really looked very closely at them. However tonight, it was painfully slow at work, so I took the opportunity to study some of the children’s books we have in the store.

The artist is Peter McCarty. He’s able to achieve an effect that I have played with since my college days – graphite and colored pencil used together (or at least that's what it appears to be). It gives the appearance of a color-tinted black and white picture that I really like.

My approach has been to do a drawing fully shaded in pencil and then color over it with colored pencil. This resulted in a smearing of the under-drawing that I didn’t like, giving some of the colors a “dirty” appearance. It looks as though he mainly uses hatching and cross-hatching rather than smooth, seamless shading like I do. Another difference between our approaches is that his illustrations have a hazy, all-over softness about them while mine employ more of a hard edge.

I’ve included a couple images of mine where I’ve used colored pencil over pencil – the one on the left was from about 17 years ago in college; the one on the right was done just recently in my sketchbook - both began as doodles.



I was a little discouraged by one thing – I once thought the approach of working with colored pencil over pencil was unique since I hadn’t seen it anywhere. But, I guess like most everything, it’s “been done” in some way by someone. On the other hand, it’s encouraging to see another artist working successfully with pencil (he’s a Caldecott winner)

Animal Studies

As I already mentioned, my drawing time is pretty limited at the moment. But, I always take my sketchbook to work with me and draw during my breaks.

Although I try to work from life whenever I can, the nice thing about working in a bookstore is the selection of resources that I have to work from. I like to grab one of the field guides from the Pets and Nature section and head off to the back room (the next best thing to drawing at a zoo). My goal is to get familiar with the characteristics of different animals by drawing them realistically. That way, I will have the drawings to refer back to, OR some of those characteristics might materialize in one of my future doodles.

Sometimes I’ll work from some of the DK baby books that contain real photographs of babies and toddlers showing different positions and expressions. For older kids, I’ll just recruit one of my own kids to pose if I’m stumped on how a limb should be positioned.

Here, I’ve shown 2 of my sketchbook pages with some of the animal sketches. I especially like how the badger, the groundhog, and the wolverine turned out.

OK, Here's the Plan...

I wasn't exactly sure what the purpose of this blog would be when I set it up a few days ago. All I knew was that it would be related to my art in some way. However, that purpose became clear to me earlier today. This will be a journal of my experiences as I attempt build a career in illustration. Since this has been a fairly recent decision in my life, this blog will be a chronicle of my efforts from the very beginning to some sort of end.

There are only two possible outcomes to this adventure:

1) Yeah! - a successful career! And, look what it took to get here!
OR
2) Woe is me - can't seem to make it in this field. But, I tried my best.

Time will tell which outcome it will be, and we'll see how it all unfolds.

At the moment, finding time to draw and paint is the biggest challenge I face. My primary focus right now is family and homeschooling my children - that will keep me busy for several years to come. The bulk of my work has to take place on weekends, holidays, and summer vacations. Then, once the kids are older and more independent in their studies, I will have a portfolio ready to shop around (that's the plan, anyway).

So, now I feel like Dorothy in Munchkinland, taking my first steps on the yellow brick road. Either I'll make it to the Emerald City or the witch will get me. We'll see...

The Journey Begins...

Early Sketchbook Doodle
Originally uploaded by sdzsmith

Before I even came upon the previously mentioned article, I guess I would have to credit my 12 year old son's honesty in getting me back into my art. I was going to be teaching an art class for the first time in a long time. So, with a grin he told me I'd better practice because I was out of artistic shape.

True enough. I had gotten into doing stained glass for fun after college, but I really didn't do much in the way of drawing and painting. So, I bought a new sketchbook, dug out my pencils, and figured I'd just doodle and enjoy. That way, I could just play with the materials and not worry about the subject matter.

Pictured here is one of the first pages in the new sketchbook. The doodle started with a number 7-ish grouping of lines that formed the upper right corner of the brick structure, and it grew from there. I had no idea what it would be as I worked through it, but this is how it ended up.

While it's not a perfectly "finished" drawing, it serves as a unique idea for something I could use in the future. And, it turned out to be a great review in creating value with the variety of pencils.

Thank You Paul O. Zelinsky!

It's funny how things work out.

About 15(ish) years ago I was finishing up my degree in Fine Arts at California State University in Long Beach. I chose to specialize in drawing and painting, although I wasn't sure what I was actually going to do with it. I did, however, manage to find art teaching opportunities in a private school and a few workshops over the years.

Fast forward to the present...after coming home to homeschool 3 kids (which is still in progress), I've found myself working part-time in a bookstore. Not long ago, I picked up an issue of The Artist's Magazine that showcased an article about Caldecott winner Paul O. Zelinsky. It turned out to be an unexpected turning point for me when I read the following:

"...art purists have traditionally made a distinction between fine art and all forms of illustration, often viewing the latter as inferior work that can't hold its own."

Mr. Zelinsky goes on to speak about his experience at Yale: "In the art department, illustration was a derisive term."

BINGO! I completely understood what his experience had been, because I had gotten the same (mostly) unspoken message in my art department. I can even recall one occasion when my professor got into a heated debate with a classmate (who happened to be an illustration major), insisting that illustration was not real art.

Why did this matter? Well, I guess back then, my youthful ideals and I didn't want to pursue a "lesser" form of art. In spite of the fact that my work fit quite naturally into the illustration category, I fought against that tendency and never really found my artistic groove.

But time, wisdom, and a few words in a magazine have started me on a new creative journey. At long last, I've come to embrace the idea of illustration. Who knows...maybe I'll have a future in it as my kids become more independent. Regardless, I've never had more focus (and fun) building a portfolio!