Archive for June 2008
Drawing Quote
“The process of drawing is before all else, the process of putting the visual intelligence into action, the very mechanics of taking visual thought. Unlike painting and sculpture it is the process by which the artist makes clear to himself, and not to the spectator, what he is doing.It is a soliloquy before it becomes communication.”
– Michael Ayerton, “Golden Sections”
Waterlily Series No. 1
9 by 12 inches on 140# watercolor paper using various brands of watercolor paints. One thing I learned from this painting is to take your time and you will get a good end result. I took a lot of breaks in between painting so I can’t say how long I took to do this painting. I started with the flower, then proceeded onto the buds; followed by the leaves and finally the background. Background gave me a lot of trouble since I was not sure how I should paint as. Finally decided to stick to a muddy dark background.
This time around I took a risk by not stretching the paper all around using a gummed tape. The paper buckled like crazy! Since I took break in between, most of the buckling would go away when the painting dried up. Lesson learned : always stretch the paper before you start painting especially if the paper is less than 300 lbs.
I used the reference image from WetCanvas Reference Image Library.
Color Quote
“Color can overwhelm… One must understand that when it comes to color less is often more – a lesson taught us by the masters but ignored by many artists.”
( Joe Singer in “How to Paint in Pastels”,1976)
Echinacea
9 by 9½ inches on 140# watercolor paper using Grumbacher watercolor paints. Thanks to my dear friend/work-partner Anitha for her kind permission in using her photo as a reference for my painting. It is not exactly like her photo but as per my composition. I can see a lot of improvement in my painting techniques when I compare this one with my earlier painting last month.
Drawing Quote
“In a way, art is like athletics: if you don’t practise, the visual sense quickly gets flabby and out of shape.The purpose of drawing is not to put lines down on paper any more than the purpose of jogging is to get somewhere. You must exercise your vision without caring overly much about the products of your practise.”
– Dr.Betty Edwards, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
Strawberries
I wanted to create a three-dimensional effect with this pencil sketch of three strawberries. Drawing the individual seeds and the highlights on the skin are sleep-inducing. I think I can polish this further by tinkering at various places to make it look even more three-dimensional; but I will stop here. I drew these strawberries referring to an image from WetCanvas’s Reference Library.
Geranium Series No.1
A more loose painting on a 9 by 10 inches watercolor paper using Bienfang watercolor pens. These watercolor pens are mainly used in calligraphy and scrapbooking – the kind of pens with brush at one end and you can squeeze the body to pump out the paint. I dampened the whole paper with water at first under running water; then I dripped the green paint at the lower part of the paper at several spots. Since it was wet-on-wet, the paint spread everywhich way. I filled in the gaps in between the blobs of spreading paint with a ¾ inch flat brush. I lifted off excess paint using a damp brush – see the light areas where the leaves are. For the geranium blossoms, I dripped red paint at three spots and allowed the paint to spread on its own. Again, I lifted off excess red paint using a damp brush. When both the red and the green areas had dried up but still slightly damp, I squiggled in the details of the petals and the leaves using the brush tip. When the paper was almost dry, I painted in the buds and stems. In this painting, I used only two colors – red and green!
Why Draw Faces?
Dr.Betty Edwards author of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain gives a wonderful explanation as to why portrait drawing is a useful subject for beginners in art:
For three reasons. First, beginning students of drawing often think that drawing human faces is the hardest of all kinds of drawing. Thus, when student see that they can draw portraits, they feel confident and their confidence enhances progress. A second, more important, reason is that the right hemisphere of the human brain is the one we are trying to gain access to, it makes sense to choose a subject that the right brain is used to working with. And third, faces are fascinating! Once you have drawn a person, you will really have seen that individual’s face. As one of my student said, “I don’t think I ever actually looked at anyone’s face before I started drawing. Now, the oddest thing is that everyone looks beautiful to me.”
Portrait : Julia
It took me about one-half day to do this portrait sketch of Julia Roberts. The tips from the book “secrets to Drawing Realistic Faces” by Carrie Stuart Parks helped me a lot in bringing this much semblance to Julia in this portrait. Used 2HB and 2B pencils and 0.7mm mechanical pencil with a No.2 lead. I used the mechanical pencil mainly in the shading area using circlism. I am pleased with using the mechanical pencil since I find that I can control the value of shading without resorting to a cotton bud to tone down the value. This is my first try in doing a portrait with a toothy grin. Julia’s portrait is not amazingly accurate, but I am okay with it because this is all a part of my learning process. I still find shading the most challenging part while drawing portrait. Now, I notice that the shading in the iris are not the same when you compare the two eyes.Oh well, it is normal to miss certain areas when you decide that your drawing is done; but a scanner image like this one will help you identify those areas you missed immediately.
Portrait # 5
Art Pearls 