I recently visited a friend in Portland, Maine. While we were there, we got to see a procession of tall ships in Casco Bay. We watched from Bug Light Park and had a lovely view. I drew some of the ships as they passed by.
As slow as the ships were moving, I was surprised by how quickly I had to work. Still, it was a lovely way to pass the afternoon.
I didn’t get as much drawing done as I’d hoped during my vacation, but I did sketch a table in my friend’s apartment while she took a shower:
For most of my life, the only kind of watercolor I’d ever used was the little bricks you’d use in elementary school. Until recently, I didn’t even know watercolor paints came in tubes. So for this assignment, I purchased a 12-color set of Niji Water Color paints and a little aluminum palette, and set to work.
The colors were far richer and darker than I’d expected. The little color bricks were always pale, and you have to use a whole lot of watercolor pencil to get things this dark. The assignment was to do a contour drawing of a still life, then use watercolors to fill it in. For my still life I used a perfume bottle, a little plastic maraca, and my poor ceramic moose who’s missing an antler.
The moose is overworked but I kinda like the body of the perfume bottle. I’d like to work more with watercolors but it’s a difficult setup since it requires additional materials. I’m pretty spoiled with the compactness of my watercolor pencils.
I live in a fairly typical suburban neighborhood: cookie-cutter townhouses, curvy streets, small trees. When I was given the assignment to draw the birds around my house, I had no idea it would be such a challenge. For three days I sat on my porch. I could hear birds. Lots of birds! But I could see nary a one, save for the occasional millisecond glimpse of one as it flew by in the distance. So I ended up drawing the hostas and the little rabbit that’s taken up residence under our neighbor’s porch. All the same, I kind of like how this spread turned out.
Danny Gregory on (drawing) selfies:
I draw self portraits because my model is
A) super handsome
b) poses for free
c) always hanging aroundSelf portraits have show me how I draw how I feel as much as what I see; they’re a constantly shifting reflection of the inner me. Each day I change and so does my drawing.
I’ve never given much thought to self portraits, but they make sense if you want to practice faces. Koosje Koene draws some of the most amazing selfies I’ve ever seen, so I suppose it’s not surprising that this was her assignment. We drew three kinds: contour, photo, and mirror. I really like how my mirror selfie came out, but the contour is probably the most accurate. The photo ones amuse me because I drew my badge photos: terrible drawings of terrible photographs!
Contour (top) and photo selfies
Mirror Selfie
In my current Sketchbook Skool course, I learned a technique called drawing fast and slow. You start with a fat medium, like a big brush of watercolors, and draw an object very quickly. Then you take something finer and draw in the details. I chose to draw my mixer. I didn’t have any paints handy, so I used a Zig Clean Color Real Brush waterbase marker. For the detail work I used a Prismacolor Premier 08, which is larger than I usually use, but felt right for this.
Every year, BCinDC (my local BookCrossing group) gives away free books at the Gaithersburg Book Festival. After getting my 227 books all ready to go, I decided to draw the boxes and bags and bins. That purple bin has been my BookCrossing bin for years, and has served me very well.
By the way, we as a group brought 2100 books and came home with fewer than 10. That, my friends, is a good day.
On a beautiful day in April, I drove out to Morven Park in Leesburg, Virginia. I’d been going through a bit of a drawing drought and I was determined to draw something. Well, I ended up taking the tour of the Governor’s Mansion, which was lovely, then wandering around the carriage museum, which was empty save for me and had no chairs and I felt like I would have been conspicuous had I started sketching. However, I did draw this one picture of a small portion of the mansion. I had to sit a bit awkwardly – most of the benches are not within sight of the house, for some reason. Anyway, it was a good time and taught me that I really need to start keeping a pencil sharpener with me at all times, because the stubby gray pencil left scratch marks.
I recently went on a little road trip, snarfing my way across Maryland’s Eastern Shore. One of my stops was Berlin. This town is absolutely precious. I stopped by Rayne’s Reef for lunch, and sketched the display window of Town Center Antiques across the street (which I also enjoyed browsing – it’s huge!).
I’d like to note that this was my first time sketching in public with no other artists around. I’d joined in sketchcrawls before, and I’d drawn in public with no one else around, but this time I was the only one drawing among a bunch of strangers going about their day. And you know what? It was fine. Nobody bothered me or rushed me or commented on my drawing. I felt comfortable and confident.
And I may just do it again sometime.
There’s a chance I might have mentioned, once or twice, that my dear husband is a musician. His studio is packed to the gills with equipment and toys and art, and I picked only a tiny part of it to draw. Pictured here: one of his many guitars, an amp, a tape deck, a reel-to-reel, a cabasa, a keyboard (in the foreground), and a record player, among other smaller items. It’s a study in black because 99% of modern musical equipment is black.
One day I hope to get back in there to sketch some more, but it’s not easy because he’s usually either working in there (in which case I’d be in the way), or we’re hanging out together (and it’d be a touch rude to run off). But that’s okay. It’s not going anywhere, and I imagine it’ll only get more packed with interesting things as time goes on.
Okay, I really only hate drawing trees. Now I understand why so many urban sketchers stick to buildings – they’re easier. Anyway, I decided to take advantage of the morning light to draw the view out the kitchen door onto the deck. We have a gorgeous crape myrtle that blooms bright pink late into the summer, but of course it’s currently January, so it’s nothing more than sticks and some dried out berries. The deck railing is in desperate need of a good cleaning, which will also be waiting for warmer weather. But this was a bit of a fun experiment with my new pens of varying widths.
While we’re focusing on the mundane, here’s a little sketch I did of the kitchen counter as seen from the living room couch, drawn while my husband was cooking dinner.
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