A fun little discovery

Today I went to my art class and, partly because I didn't have what I needed, I spent the time learning a little about the internet art world.  And, then I spent the rest of the afternoon online, having a great time!  (oops, so much for getting anything done) Anna introduced me to Flickr. I thought it was just a place where you can put your photos online and then email your family to have them look at it (like photobucket or shutterfly).  Well, you can do that, but then there are also groups you can join. And, there are a bunch of artists groups.   For example, I joined a group that is called "Artists - show us your pastels" and a bunch of people have posted their pastel paintings (I learned today that people generally call them paintings, even though they are not done with a brush - it is because you are mixing pigments on a surface - who knew?).  I posted some of mine, and I even got a comment on one (It is funny the things that can get a person excited).  I was able to find several groups I like and to see artists whose style I like. And, it can help me with ideas and trying new styles and techniques. Some of the groups have forums where you can ask questions and get ideas and tips. 

In addition to Flickr, one of the groups had a link to a wonderful website called wetcanvas.com.  I have just barely scratched the surface of it, but it is this huge site where you can get information about any kind of art that you want - any style, medium, etc.  They have places where you can post your work and get people to critique it and you can view other work. In just the short time I skimmed, I learned about various types of pastel paper, how to improve how photos of pencil drawings look when posting, and a good fixative to use for my art that won't darken the color. SO cool!  I need more time to explore and figure out how the site works. It has so much on it I felt my brain expanding as I looked at it (hee hee).

I am really excited to find these sites, and hopefully it can open up my art world a little.  Fun stuff!

Lindy

I have decided I need a way to get nice bright lighting in my house for taking photos of my art. My nice camera was having a problem with the flash, so it has been shipped out for repairs. And, I guess I had forgotten how dark photos are with my old camera, because I was surprised at how much I had to adjust levels in photoshop to get this to a decent brightness. But, the adjustments make the drawing look grainy.  I like the drawing though. It is the last of three in a family (my nieces and nephew)

Now... on to my next project  :)

A new favorite

This is one of my favorite drawings so far. It is the one I have been working on for a long time, and I think I am finally finished.  It has been really fun to do and I have learned a lot. For the fun of it, I posted below about the process I went through to draw it.

The process of making a drawing...

 
 I really wanted to try doing a pastel portrait - as in a person's head only kind of portrait. (Different from the other pastel drawings of people that I have done). So, for my art class I got some good help and guidance from the teacher (her blog is on the right - Anna Peterson)  She is a portrait artist and she gave me some great tips. Because I haven't drawn  portraits in the past (meaning back in the college and pre-college days), I never have had any formal instruction on how to do it. So, I am learning a lot. I really love the drawing I did with her help. I love the photo in the first place, and I love the contrast of lights and darks in the drawing. I thought for fun I would take pictures of the process that I went through to complete the drawing.
I started with this photo:

 Then, I carefully (with lots of revisions) made up a sketch of his face on the paper with chalks. I don't think this photo shows the final sketch, but it might. I don't remember.

 Then I started filling in with color. This picture looks a little freaky because I hadn't put in details of eyes and mouth yet because I was mainly working on skin tones.

 Then, I went back to my class and started filling in more details and putting the dark contrast  of the background in. The difference in the drawing once that dark background was put in was really amazing. Anna also taught me a cool trick for toning down skin color, and she helped me learn how to blend the colors to get the mouth to look like a mouth color, not lipstick. (When you only have so many colors to work with, you have to do a lot of blending. I was surprised at some of the combinations of colors, but it really works - for example, you wouldn't know that I used purple on his face here below).

I thought I was just about done at this point (above). I took the drawing in, and that is when I posted about color and all that I had discovered in my lesson about the colors in the face and the things I learned to improve the drawing.  So, I came home and worked on it some more, adding purples and greens, yellows, reds, oranges, and more. I was amazed at how much it brought life into the drawing. I liked it before, but I like it even better now. (If you look at the drawing above, you can maybe see how brown his face was. The real life thing is much easier to see than a photograph, unfortunately)

And then I went to class again and added more contrast and color, and I finally got to where, if I did anything else to it, I was starting to mess it up worse than fixing it anymore, which is when it is time to stop. I fixed a few details, looked over all of it, and finally decided that I needed to be finished with it.

Here is the final drawing (the same as the one posted above).

The reason why it is one of my favorite drawings so far is that I really put a lot of thought and effort into it. I feel like I really stepped into the world of color more, I loved putting more contrast into the drawing (and hope to be able to do that more in the future) and I just love the photo it came from in the first place. Now, of course, I want to do color portraits of all of my kids. However, my "to do" art list is very long right now. I definitely want to do more of this though. It was really fun.

"Benji"

Well, I snapped out of my funk enough to try drawing something.  Maybe I will get back in my groove again...

Flashback - color

I have been in a bit of an art funk lately. I had that great lesson last week and was all motivated and then I had a crazy week and couldn't get to my art at all, and now that I do have a little time, my brain just doesn't want to go there. I feel like I have a bit of a block at the moment. And, probably the best thing to do is to try drawing something to get over it. I just feel a little stuck. So, in the mean time, here is my last "flashback" post.

A lot of my art is done in pencil and is therefore black and white. I like that medium a lot, and I like the simple contrasts of blacks and whites and grays. Since I have gotten to know how to use pastels, I am venturing into the world of color a little more. It adds a whole new dimension to the art, and the approach is different. Back in my high school days, I experimented a bit with painting. I never did oils - there was never the budget at home or at school for oil paints, and to this day I have not yet painted with oils. But, honestly, I don't love painting. It can be fun at times, but it isn't where my interest lies. That being said, I have a few paintings (and one colored pencil drawing) that I did during High School. I look at them now and I see all the things that I did wrong, but hey, I was just getting started at this point.

 This first one is a pencil drawing of my brother. It isn't my greatest portrait, and it doesn't really look like him very much - more the essence of him than really him. The paper got wrinkled, thus the funny shadows. But, it was one of only a few drawings I did in colored pencil.  I still like pastels better. Colored pencil doesn't blend the way pencils and chalks do. There is more layering than blending to get the colors you want.

 This second picture is a study, probably from a magazine ad. I had to take the picture, do a line drawing, a black and white painting, and a color painting of the same picture. It was an interesting task, and it was a good challenge to see how well I could duplicate the same thing. I decided I shouldn't be an animator - my characters would look different every time :).

 This is from a photo I had of sailboats in Mission Bay in San Diego. It has a very "beginner" look to me, but this may be the first time I attempted water.  I was in love with the ocean and all things related to it at the time. (Well, I still love the ocean, I am just not as obsessed as I was then).

Speaking of ocean, this is from a photo of a beach house I stayed in in South Carolina. I have fun memories from that place - it was beautiful. I have found that green is a hard color to mix - whether with paint or pastels - it is tricky to get the right kind. The fluorescent green grass in this has always bothered me, but I love the building. I remember actually painting this, remembering the fun times I had there.