Rodin was my friend Cheryl’s suggestion. In the photograph it looked like he was wearing a sweatshirt. Did they have those back then?
Rodin
Posted by melydia on April 2, 2016
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Degas
Posted by melydia on March 31, 2016
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This drawing of Edgar Degas did not turn out how I’d hoped. His head is shaped weird and his hair isn’t anywhere near fabulous enough. But while I don’t share everything in my sketchbook (because wow there’s some atrocious experiments in there), I decided to go ahead with this one. The longer I go since I drew it, the less horrendous it looks to me. I mean, it’s still not great, but it doesn’t make me cringe so much anymore.
Monet
Posted by melydia on March 30, 2016
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Journal52 – Week 9
Posted by melydia on March 29, 2016
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Journal52 – Week 8
Posted by melydia on March 28, 2016
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Strathmore Artist Workshops
Posted by melydia on March 18, 2016
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No pictures today (I procrastinate because my scanner is a pain), but I wanted to share a free video series I’m enjoying: the Strathmore Artist Workshop Series.
You may be familiar with Strathmore sketchbooks – I know I own a few. Turns out they do more than just make paper. Every year they release a free set of workshops and this year I’m finally actually watching them. They’re very low-pressure. The first workshop is called Sketchbook Fury: The Art Ninja’s Guidebook, and it’s taught by Graham Smith who for some reason reminds me a little bit of Anthony Bourdain. Maybe it’s the voice.
I’d worried that these would be nothing more than ads for Strathmore products. They’re not. While you can’t miss the brand-name sketchbooks in the videos, the focus really is the art and the process of drawing. And while I of course can’t speak for the other workshops offered, Smith’s videos have been much more about inspiration and motivation than teaching specific techniques. And that’s fine; there are plenty of other videos out there for that.
It’s a pleasantly different style of art workshop video. Check it out.
Journal52 – Week 6
Posted by melydia on February 22, 2016
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This week’s Journal52 theme was “Above My Head” so I drew the contents of one of the “plant shelves” in my house – little nooks near the ceiling in all the upstairs rooms. This one is in my study. I removed the captions from the scan, but the objects are, in order:
- A lantern my husband got from his sister
- A stein I bought my husband when I was in Belgium. I didn’t draw it here, but the top of the lever to open it is shaped in the form of Manneken Pis.
- A glass mug belonging to my husband. The silver emblem has his initials engraved on it, but I don’t know where it came from.
- A vase I procured in Muncie, Indiana, during college. I couldn’t quite capture the pearlescence in marker but it is beautiful.
- A mule deer skull found in Flagstaff, Arizona.
My walls aren’t actually that purple – they’re a far more muted purply-gray – but I love that marker color so much that it ran out of ink. Alas.
Materials: Staedtler triplus fineliner, Prismacolor markers.
Fathers of Aviation
Posted by melydia on February 21, 2016
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I continued the joke and ended up drawing Orville Wright on Tuesday. About a week later I drew his brother Wilbur. These are not subjects I ever would have considered drawing. I’m not sure what happened to their eyes. A conversation I had with my husband while drawing Orville:
Me: Pretty sure one of the fathers of aviation didn’t have derpy eyes.
Him: To be fair, one of his eyelids is droopier than the other one.
Me: Yes, but both his eyes are pointed in the same direction, unlike his depiction in my sketchbook.
Oddly, I drew Wilbur one night because I was feeling anxious and needed to quiet my brain. Some people use adult coloring books to de-stress; apparently I draw dead people.
Clara
Posted by melydia on February 20, 2016
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Still on my retro photo kick, I decided to see if I could find any good pictures of women. Clara Barton was the only one I could think of with a clear headshot. I’ll be frank: I don’t like this one. I think it turned out weird. Her eyes really weren’t the same height, but somehow I managed to switch which one was higher.
But you know what? All drawing is drawing practice. The more you do it, the better you get. And no matter how good you get, sometimes you make stuff you’re not happy with. It’s all part of the process.
Uncle Bob
Posted by melydia on February 19, 2016
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This is my grandmother’s brother Bob. I never met him (he died more than 25 years before I was born), but I had a decent photo of him in my genealogy files. I think this drawing looks more like my friend Jose than Uncle Bob, which is a little trippy since I’m fairly certain Jose has no Iowan in him and Bob definitely has no Puerto Rican blood.