Cupcakery

A "gorgeous pink cupcake" from The Cupcakery. It actually had a dollop of raspberry filling on the top with a white chocolate mint, but I wanted a cherry on top, so I exercised my artistic license on this one. The best part -- Doug shared a bite of it with me today, and it has a big dollop of the same filling IN THE CENTER of the cake. Double yum. Gorgeous outside and inside ... just like the person* I drew it for!

(*My daughter, the Duchess Cupcake, wanted a picture of one to use as her avatar on Twitter, so this is probably the first of several cupcake drawings. And of course I had to start out with pink...)

Almost All Week Long

Well, except for Friday, I managed to draw every day this week. How about you guys? I even fit in a quick colored pencil sketch today from a photo taken yesterday when we went to ... wait, that comes later ... The sketch was done on Stonehenge paper with Aqua Monolith pencils.(Yes, those pencils that Laura got me hooked on some time back -- so much so that I recently upgraded my set from the 24 pencil version to the 72 pencil BONANZA! No new shoes for me for a while ... ) I haven't done any water brushing on this yet, but might some time this week.

You've already seen the paintbrush section of this page, but here are some flowers from the back yard last Sunday. Over the past week, the Virginia bluebells and the Celandine Poppies began blooming under the trees. The redbuds are coming out, and the dogwoods buds are getting fat. The Bradford pears are losing their petals, making it look like it is snowing when the breeze kicks up.

Monday I drew the dish soap. I don't know why -- was it because it was blue? On Tuesday I got my new video camera! It is just like Diahn's -- I was so impressed with hers that I had to get one -- but it turns out that she is a much better videographer than I am. Okay -- this is little and light and I have plenty of opportunities to practice.

BTW, the camera is listed as being blue -- but it's not really -- more purple when the light hits it just right. My car is like that, too -- I actually thought it was dark blue when I bought it, but as I was driving it home the sun came out, and the hood was PURPLE! I was thrilled. I mean, who has an occasionally purple car? Me, that's who!

Wednesday evening I gathered things together for a silent auction at work to benefit the Alzheimer's Association. During my gathering together of things, I found this raspberry pink jacket that I got last year and had forgotten about. Darn it -- and the cold weather is nearly gone. I decided to keep it or give it to my daughter. On Thursday, I just drew a candle that sitting there handy. My enthusiasm shows. But -- I got Janey's new Zine -- and it is GREAT. So Thursday was good.

Friday, after an incredibly, um, long and challenging day at work, I went out to eat with my parents, who had come into town for the weekend. It was late when we got home, so I skipped drawing. To make up for it, I drew a clementine Saturday morning while I waited on my parents, my sister, and our friend Marcia to come over. Then, along with DH, we went to Dollywood for the day to see the Festival of Nations. It was cloudy most of the day, and rainy at the end, but we had a blast. Not a good day for rides, but great for shows. We heard loads of different types of music, took a lesson on how to play the Bodhran, saw all types of dancing, and nearly every country did some version of Rocky Top. This sent certain members of our party over the edge, particularly when it was done in Russian, so that by the end of the day my sides hurt from laughing so hard. Once we got home, I took a hot bath and drew my slippers. I mean, really -- you just can't top a day like that.

Again, I have to say that I'm impressed with those of you who REALLY fit in the time to draw every single day. I tend to "quick draw", so it isn't that time consuming -- but making the habit stick IS.

Value Studies for Michael

Post disclaimer: Non-art people will be bored. Most art people will be bored. This is for Michael, who may also be bored with it, but ... oh well.

Further disclaimer: I'm LEARNING, not a teacher. This post is the result of a conversation that just needed pictures. :-)

This is a prime example of why you look at the colored pencil POINT rather than the color painted on the barrel of the pencil to see what color it is. You shouldn't completely trust those sly colored pencil manufacturers!

(This is Prismacolor Scarlet Lake - 923)

All of the following examples are done with prismacolors.

What I did -- took my jumble of colored pencils and semi-randomly made some nice colored squares on a small piece of Stonehenge paper.

I scanned them in color, then switched the scanner to grey scale and rescanned to see the actual color values.

The top two rows -- Pink (929), Orange ( ), and Rosy Beige (1019)
then Pale Vermillion (921), Canary yellow (916), and Apple Green (912)

It's easy to look at the colors and see how the Pink and Pale Vermillion and Orange are near values, but when you look at the grey scale you can also see how the Orange and the Apple Green are nearly the same value even though they are very different colors. So we can figure out that if an entire drawing is done in colors of all similar value, it is going to feel kind of washed out, even though the colors themselves are really nice.

These are the bottom two rows. I was a bit surprised at how light the blue in the upper middle showed up; I would have thought it was a darker value than it appears here on the grey scale.
The colors are: An Olive Green That I Just Dropped Which Then Rolled Under The Desk So It Is Now Irretrievable, Electric Blue (1040), and Scarlet Lake (923)
The bottom row: Violet (932), Imperial Violet (1007), and Dahlia Purple (1009)

This really shows how, even though the red is BRIGHT, it is a dark-ish value. It can brighten up a dark passage without changing the value a whole lot, but if you're going for RED IMPACT, it might get lost in near values. And, comparing the temperature of the colors on the bottom row, you can see how there can be a neutral purple, cool purple, and warm purple.

Sigh. At least that's how I figure it is. Books, books, books, study, study, study, and practice, practice, practice. That's the trick.

And for those of you who always want to know what music I'm listening to, I've got Jeff Buckley's "Grace" album playing now -- I'd forgotten all about how wonderful he was until I caught that cute kid with dreadlocks on American Idol singing the Buckley version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah". Yep, I decided to watch a little American Idol this season to finally see what all the fuss is about. Not near as good as the Rock Star shows have been, but getting reminded of this beautiful album was well worth the time. So iTunes scored a sale off of me because of the show -- they should be happy! :-)

Leaf Necklace

And since we were talking about leaves ....
This is the drawing that I started last night and finished tonight. It was supposed to be a quick one, but I ended up puzzling over the shadows, and how they changed from one side of the necklace to the other. I kept having to get up and double check that I was looking at it correctly! This necklace was made by my friend Marcia, who does just beautiful work and keeps me in jewelry.

Now, I really DO have to figure out my Halloween costume for tomorrow...

I probably also need to go downstairs and see how much of the candy has been eaten already. I KNEW I should have waited until tomorrow to get it!

You may notice that I'm in the process of making some changes in the blog's appearance. I don't know what I think about the teacup -- maybe something more seasonal will be coming up this week, but I'm wondering about column width. Please be sure to let me know if I make some changes that make it difficult for you to read things! And let me know if you have any suggestions, too. :-)

How to Get Into a Rut (And Back Out Again) part 2

(Feelin' Loon-ey -- colored pencil on color fix paper)

If I were a flower, I'd be a biennial.

Really. It seems like every two years or so, dissatisfaction sets in and I become very self critical. In the process, I will often quit whatever "arty" mode I'm in, not do ANYTHING for quite a while, then slowly start back.

TWO years are here now.

The Everyday Matters Group has been discussing "slumps" for the past few weeks, and it seems that a lot of people are experiencing the same problem. On the advice of several people, I bought Walking In This World by Julia Cameron (of Artist's Way fame) and am reading it. I've revolted and am NOT doing morning pages -- tried them before and they just don't work for me, but the book itself is a really good read. I've gotten loads of other helpful advice, and it REALLY IS helpful -- work smaller (like the example above, which is maybe 4"x6", or a tad smaller), change up mediums for a bit, try totally different subject matters, etc.

I'm trying all of them, but the best, most straightforward piece of advice may have come from Casey, who wrote:

"... As far as I can tell, there's no miracle cure except to keep slogging away -- one day it's over, and your work has improved all at once. If you stop working the game's over, at least for a while."

I think she's onto something BIG there. Maybe she should write a book, and title it "Slogging Away in This World" ...

:-) Thanks Casey!

And then there's the whole synchronicity thing ...

EDM Apple

This is probably showing up larger than life! It is actually about 2 1/2" x 2 1/2". I was playing around with colored pencils on Colorfix paper (a sanded pastel paper) after seeing Maggie Stiefvater's amazing work in this medium. The whole drawing took 5 minutes or less -- the paper just pulled the color right out of the pencil! It was really like learning colored pencil all over again -- the paper made it a brand new medium! I think I'll grid off this whole sheet and work on all those EDM challenges that I'm behind on...

Note -- I got the paper in a pack from Jerry's Artarama. A full sheet runs about $7 or $8 -- BUT they had warm or cool color sampler packs in quarter sheets for $13!! It was a fun way to try something new. It wouldn't work at all for a sketchbook or journal -- the paper is thick and sanded, but it is a fun surface for colored pencil. I may have to grid off several sheets and do a sheet of veggies ... a sheet of fruits ... a sheet of flowers ... a sheet of leaves ... the list could go on and on! ;-)

And an extra big Happy Blog Birthday to Lin who has drawn every single day for a year. I bow at your feet, oh dedicated one! You are a joy and an inspiration! :-D

Patrick Sullivans

A quick change from all the watercolor to a small colored pencil sketch of Patrick Sullivan's Saloon in Knoxville's Old City. Inspired by Janey's suggestion to use a 5"x7" Itoya Art Profolio, slipping loose sheets into the pockets. Also inspired by recent comments on the EDM list about a "bonus round" of travel drawings and drawings from your home town. Seems like we also had a challenge to re-do a previous challenge using a different medium? Anyway, this Knoxville landmark is one of my favorites.

Back Yard

Minnie the Mooch
"She calls it 'Hi-dee-Hole' "
(Chip Calloway)*

Bluebird and chipmunk in the back yard. I started with quick line sketches, and then had to look up reference photos for colors (ain't Yahoo Image search great?!)

*with apologies

(Further details: 0.05 Staedtler pigment liner & Faber Castell Polychromos colored pencils in Moleskine sketchbook)

"A's" first snow

Little Miss "A" in colored pencil - work in progress (approx 16" x 11"?). I had a hard time getting this to photograph clearly, so it is really very blurry. Hopefully, this gets the general idea across. Her skin is probably 20 plus layers of colored pencil, and her coat is already that much and more in some places. Still a whole lot of work to do (notice that I haven't started her scarf or shoes!) I think I'm going to keep the background sketchy and vague, to keep the blurry feel of a snowfall ... we'll see!


Closeup of her hand and coat - a lot of work still to do just on the embroidery! Colored pencil is very slow work (for me) although I find it to be the most relaxing of all the artwork I do. I may have it finished in time to give it to her as a wedding present or something :-D

Dopey: EDM Weekly Challenge

The Everyday Matters Weekly Challenge this week is to draw a toy. Not being much of a toy person, I considered drawing my skis, my bike, my jeep ... then I remembered my old Dopey doll somewhere up in a cabinet. Not really my style of drawing, but it was fun to visit with ole' Dope a while. Dopey is a well worn, truly dirty and loved old toy! Molded plastic face with soft head and body -- Gund Mfg Co, ca. 1958-60.