Life Drawing Tuesday—Frugal Me

 

I suppose it’s something of a milestone, but I finally finished the last of my ‘office’ paper, which was actually a huge box of tear-off printer paper from the days of the dot-matrix printer.  Contemplating the fact that I’ve scribbled up that much paper is daunting, and I’m not sure if it should be a point of pride for all the practice or a crying shame of squander.  At any rate, that paper had been destined for recycling anyway, and my direct reuse was a good a thing (thanks, anonymous donor, you know who are).

Switching to newly paper, was more difficult than I thought.  I have a ‘thing’ about waste, and using scraps eliminates the ‘blank page freeze’.  I ended up packing more scrap paper (ugly stuff with a defunct letterhead en-scribed on the back) which I used for the minute poses.  Meanwhile, my neighbour to my left walks in, as always, carting giant sheets of brand new spanking white 140lb cold-pressed what looks like Arches watercolour paper.  This makes me want to cry.  This is the kind of paper that, if I lay out the cash for it, I hoard, somewhere safe, somewhere secret, for some special future project that deserves the million dollar approach.  I can’t imagine marking it up for a warm-up sketch. It’s like watching someone burn money; or maybe she takes them home and develops them into masterpieces. That would make me feel better about it all.

So I have my hang-ups, and paper frugality is one of them.  Necessity led me to using 8x10 office paper, and now, in all honesty, I love the stuff.  It’s smoothness never interferes with the line and the image, and the pencils slide right on.  Even brand new pages are cheap enough to play with, but unlike the newsprint ‘sketchbooks’ you can purchase from the art store, a nice white bond can produce a lovely finished drawing (I hate newsprint even for quickies).

I’d love to say something sublime, but for the most part, my drawing session was characterized by desperately trying to keep my jaws shut, and repeatedly losing the battle as my mouth cracked open into cavernous yawns.  I did manage not to give in to the strong urge to lay my head down on the table and sleep, but this temptation took up a lot of band width in my brain, and drawing was difficult.  Finally, after weeks of maximum pose times of 20 minutes, we get a long pose, and I just didn’t have the brain power to take advantage of it.  I left my Stonehenge paper in the case, and used my office paper to make multiple sketches instead.  I just knew I didn’t have it in me to sustain anything.

PS. if you haven’t already figured it out, my life drawing tuesdays are bloged about a week behind.  I get home at 10pm which is way past my bedtime (it took me years to admit it, but I just really need 9 hours of sleep to be anything more than ‘low functioning’)

Images: White bond paper (New!), prismacolor pencils.  2nd image done in black prisma pencil, and my new purchase, a black prisma stick.  I thought I’d try them out for fast coverage. In all honesty, it’s better reserved for works larger than 8x10 but this was a trial. It looks like conte but it’s a pencil crayon, soft, buttery and sticks tight. I tried out a neighbours conte just to compare (haven’t used conte in ages) and decided the prisma’s MUCH better.  Not sure why conte has such a hold on the art tradition.  I guess it sounds much more sophisticated than Pencil Crayon.

PPS. Life Drawing Hint: even if you can’t move for a different angle, get up and walk around to ‘see’ the pose in 3D.  I was rooted into my chair, and thought I could get away with ‘guessing’ at the hidden/obscured body parts.  I’ll remember this for next time.

T’s finally ready

I carved the blocks way back in September, to be ready to ‘field test’ on my holidays. The sample shirts (which my husband proudly wears) were trail tested and machine washed many times already. New shirts (shown) hand-printed but it took me ‘till yesterday to get them out and photographed, and then scanned as the photo’s just don’t seem crisp enough. Spending all day fiddling with facebook (I’ll get to that) and Etsy was frustrating, especially as I had been busy for four days straight on non-art projects and I’m just itching to do some drawing and painting, but here I am fiddling on the net again.

So here’s the t’s, up for sale, finally, on Etsy.

As for facebook; I’m using it for networking, so privacy is not a big deal. There are enough other ways to have private correspondence, walking in the woods together notwithstanding. That said, some people do use it to post pics of their kids in swimsuits, or themselves blasted at parties, and for them, ‘friending’ a stranger, like me, is a big no-no. So I’ve built a ‘Fanpage’ on facebook to use as a public gallery on facebook. Here, my pictures and images will be available whether you log on to facebook or not. And if you ‘fan’ me (but not ‘friend’) me, you won’t be giving me access to your private pics. It’s a whole lot of duplication as far as the pictures go but I’ve been wanting a quick and easy gallery for a long time. So here it is: Ingrid Schmelter, Kaslkaos Art. (this will be just art, no blather)

Life Drawing Tuesday-It's a Man

Yep, another man, actually Greg, the guy from the last time. This time, I cheated...I did a light pencil sketch first, then inked in with my magic brush aka Pentel Pocket Brush. Black is so strong, I just didn't have the courage to start with it. One false move and you're toast. So now I know what graphite is for (I hate the look and feel of graphite, but it erases real good!). After removing the graphite with a kneaded erasure I had great fun with the colours.
And that's all for today.

& PS. This one passes the library test for me given the style & lighting so no censorship today; hope I'm not wrong on that.

Feral

Feral refers to many things, meaning something domestic reverted to wild. A cat, a dog, an orchard tree. These things can be feral. We rarely think of ourselves as such, domesticated as our lives may be, but for us, the wild lies equally just below the surface.

This is a view from my window; the cat is a frequent visitor—she may be feral, or just playing with the idea. The vastness of the overgrown field beckons and instincts blunted by easy meals are sharpened by the experience. The field is land that has lain fallow many years (another version of feral), dotted with sprawling survivors of an old orchard, filling in with transitional trees of aspen, birch and poplar, un-trimmed grass ripe with wild-flowers flowing with the wind. One day, surely, this small acreage of nascent wilderness will all fall to development, but for today, it is an inspiration.

Image: 8”x10” watercolour paper, watercolours, gouache, acrylic gel medium, fine sand & finally & most importantly, coloured pencils. This one was a discovery. Early on, much of the paper had lost its tooth inspite of the sand layer. Once again, it was time to take violent action or toss it in the trash (the WIP I posted was as far as I could take it in that state), so I slathered on a brand new layer of sand & gel, right on top of everything. It dried invisibly, and left a textured surface absolutely perfect for finishing. Yay! It’s probably obvious, but the underpainting is an abstract rich sepia tone.

Life Drawing Tuesday

Finally, a new model; well, new to me anyway. I’ve seen the same six faces for a year, and while they are wonderful, it’s great to see someone new. This guy brings ‘professional’ to a whole new level. He arrives more than 15 minutes early—he was ready to go, and in his robe when I arrived 15 minutes early. The lighting was not yet set up and he was ready to take charge in moving the podium to a better lit spot. Once the artists arrived, he began warm-up exercises—I have never seen anyone do warm-ups before.

We are a leaderless group at the moment, and a little disorganized, so we didn’t have a ready answer as to how to proceed (ie. pose lengths, number of each, etc.). As soon as he realized this, he pulls out an outline that he’d received on his last visit (which was many months ago) and asks if he should follow those instructions—we all nod gratefully.

He’s lean and muscular revealing a wealth of details not usually apparent. I reigned in my scribbly style for a change and tried to take advantage of the study opportunities and paid extra attention to the muscle groups and interplay of light an shadow, while still having some fun with colour. His strength is phenomenal, as he can hold a pose for 20 minutes without so much as a millimetre of movement—I do not exaggerate.

He had cards available; since I’m definitely not in the market for hiring my own model, I thought, why not pass along his website here. Careful what you look at; some is for over 18 (appropriately labelled); apparently he doesn’t just model for little old ladies like me.

Images: 8”x10” office paper, prisma coloured pencils, the upper is my favourite monochrome sketching colour ‘expresso’

More Life Drawing on the Human Studies Page

PS. I’m on facebook now; actually, I signed up a long time ago, but left an empty profile. Now that I’ve discovered it’s dial-up friendly (at least using ad-blocker) I’m going to try it out as a central ‘go to’ site when I’m on dial-up. I even get sneak peaks at your blogs this way.

The Mushroom Pages

Chrome-footed Bolete, Tylopilus chromapes, Prismacolor pencils on 8”x10” Stonehenge Paper.

Anyone who follows this blog can’t help but notice the mushrooms sprouting up amongst the posts like, well, mushrooms after the rain. A life-long fascination of mine, begun by my father, for whom mushrooming was a tradition of ancient lineage, their intrusion on my blog is inevitable. While I follow in his footsteps, I often take a more aesthetic point of view, deriving greater joy in finding, admiring, photographing them, and sometimes rendering them in full colour, than I ever do eating them (with the exception of a fresh yellow morel, mmm…irresistible).

For those of you who share my enthusiasm for things neither plant nor animal, let this page serve as a guide to all things fungi on the Drawbridge. As there are many more to come (I am loyal to my loves) you can also use the search box at the top, type in ‘mushrooms’.

The Lost Art of Mushrooming – A tribute to my dad who guided me through the forest.

Play With Your Food – Bizarre events in the kitchen.

Don’t Eat These – Inedibles are fun too.

Jewels of Autumn – Pungent Cort, a beauty inspite of it’s name.

Food or Pleasure – too beautiful to eat, the Fading Scarlet Waxy Cap.

True Blue and Edible Too – only a photo will do for the incredible edible Indigo Milky.

Rivers Edge, Gargantua River

Rivers Edge, Gargantua River, Lake Superior Provincial Park.

Here, an impression from latest hike on the Coastal Trail, heading from Gargantua Harbour to Warp Bay. From these two points the trail heads through shaded woodland, and eventually catches up to Gargantua River that flows into Warp Bay. The river tumbles darkly over the granite before it slows into a sinuous ribbon of transparent nutrient rich tea coloured water. The habitat about the river is rich with life, moose and beaver, lynx and wolf, but the river belongs to the fish. Trout lurk below, twining together through the shadowed depths, rarely emerging to the eye. This is their domain.

This year, I was lucky enough to see these furtive aquatic creatures, and a glimpse of them is enough to impress their image on my brain. My original reference is a snapshot of the tangled alder growing on the sandy banks of the river. I was fascinated by the twisted patterns they made and the mysterious depths within them, but when it came time to render them onto paper, the fish intruded and insisted (quite rightly) on taking the centre stage.

Image: 15”x15” watercolour paper, watercolour wet in wet wash, followed by acrylic gel & fine sand, finished with coloured pencil. If you click on the image, you’ll get to see the heavy texture of the paper, almost like a rough canvas. The coloured pencil went on well this time, sticking tight when moderate pressure was applied, and smearing like oils when layered together. While flash photography didn’t capture this, from a slight distance, this piece looks slick and wet like a fresh oil painting.

Works In Progress, the Chrome-footed Bolete on the left on Stonehenge paper, almost finished, but in need of tweaking. On the right, another mixed media, painted in gouache and watercolour, followed by the infamous sand, then pencils. This one is challenging me to think and work in the negative shapes (sky and sky holes) more than ever before as I want to keep it looking loose and spontaneous and don’t dare to pencil it in first. Not sure why I do this to myself….