Patiently

January 11, 2013

My long-term theme being "draw whatever, wherever" but especially new things (it just happens to be my eating theme, too -- I tried sweetbreads in December! Yum!), I took advantage of some impromptu hospital visits to get in some sketching. My innards aren't functioning quite right, unfortunately. It's scary having your body parts examined and I always find my drawing pad a great relief at such times.

January 7, 2013

These studies are from Queensway-Carleton Hospital's Rooms 9 and 10 as well as my doctor's office. I think they are very studious! I'm sooooo glad I have more patience now. I was really hyper when I was younger and it was so hard to stick with this kind of thing. But it really pays off artistically to do it. Better late than never, I hope.

December 20, 2013

Happy Second Anniversary, Bus Blog!

Practice makes perfect. Or something. (December/January 2013)

One of my favourite Ottawa artists is Blair Paul and he offers an introductory landscape course at Ottawa School of Art, which is where I took Anatomy for Artists in the fall. It starts this Sunday and I don't own most of the paints required on the course materials list. I guess that don't have common colours? More money to the art store, dammit. Well, I always chose paints by their looks. Only since I read a small book on Colour Theory in December have I more intention when choosing colour. (Did you know you can gray a colour by mixing it with a complimentary colour -- not by adding black?? Weird.)

I started going over fundamental elements of drawing and colour once the Anatomy course finished up. It's been really eye-opening. Yesterday I learned that pencil crayon artists often work on both sides of transparencies. And that scratching colour from a top layer of colour so an under-layer shows through -- something I always thought was kinda rebellious, something the kids dreamed up on their own -- is a respected technique known as sgraffitto.

Since leaving school I avoided instruction. I'd learned the hard way that I was impossibly impressionable. Flitting from one technique or idea about how to do things to the next, I was at the mercy of the last person I talked to or book I opened. Looking at other peoples' work was equally disorienting, and discouraging, too. Soon enough I just shut everything out and tried to muddle along on my own. And  now, at 37, I have done my own thing long enough that I don't get thrown off course as easily anymore. What a relief that's finally over. Impulse control - wonderful!

That's not to say that after ten years my own thing is particularly developed. I remember deciding in my twenties that the reason I must be having so much trouble dreaming up content was that I just hadn't lived enough. So I resolved to do some living before getting back into art seriously. That was another good decision, I think. Now I have some solid ideas and I'm excited about working on them.

But those unopened art instruction books, courses not taken, silenced conversations, and artists' work not viewed together left a big hole in my art stuff. I can't do many subjects and I've come to grips with only a few techniques. On the plus side, I have at least tried most things and I've developed a bit of the other things that matter, like commitment and discipline.

January 2013

So I'm working through some art books and magazines. The Sierra Club Guide to Sketching in Nature by Cathy Johnson was really good. I read a few others but that one, lent by my mom-in-law, was my favourite. More of a complete lesson on drawing for beginners along with the focus on drawing outside. She also got me a subscription to International Artist for Christmas. I'm mostly done The Sketching and Drawing Bible, also lent by my dear MIL.

At right are some remedial exercises I have been doing courtesy The Complete Guide to Drawing. Guess who I borrowed it from. :) Sorry for the terrible photo. Too big for le scanner.

I have also been practicing with Sennelier oil pastels. They're gorgeous, paint-like, but with no mess. That's useful for my non-ventilated home studio that has to be kid-safe and totally non-toxic. After reading about the dust problems of using chalk pastels, the set of Neupastels I bought last November (and fell madly in love with) has been set aside for a future where I have a suitable space. The picture at the top of the page is me sorting out flesh tone mixtures.

I wish I had a chance to get my brushes out so I'm less rusty this Sunday. I haven't painted since, oh, was the last painting I did really circa January 2011?

Happy New Year! Let the studies of trees and rocks commence!

Shh! She is sleeping

A.

This wee wisp of a girl, much fattened and nimbler now since the moment pictured here, was born in the spring along with a hundred other babes who, through their birth and their mother's attachment to the internet, form the offspring of the April 2012 Birth Club. Little A's mum was my Secret Santa. Of course, though she seems chuffed by the gift, really the pleasure of putting this pastel painting together was mine.

Very miserably for me, though, I won't be continuing to use chalk pastels. I was obligated to buy them for art class and did so reluctantly, only to find them a hugely sympathetic medium. So natural to use, especially for an aspiring colourist. However, they let off a dust that is very fine and, whether the pigments are toxic or not, is difficult to filter and to clean. No one needs that in their lungs.

So now I am trying oil pastels! Stay tuned.

Left-handed insight

November 29, 2012

Only one art class left. Sad to leave the situation that has allowed me/taught me to make easily the best art I've ever done.

The blog is quiet lately because I feel quiet about art these days. Not sure why. I do a lot of it, but it feels a bit too in-my-head to talk about right now.

November 22, 2012

One thing I would like to share. Our teacher, Aida Alves, taught us to draw with our non-dominant hands. It's oddly freeing. The picture at the top of the page was drawn (base drawings) with my right hand. First layers of colour, also right hand. All the movement was done with my non-dominan, left hand. It's easier to hear what the piece needs that way. Flaky, but truth!

Lined up feet

November 20, 2012

Felled by flu last week -- and I missed the foot class! Yup, the foot. That limb of ill omen (well, for artists), and the major reason I signed up for anatomy art class. My feet are absolutely wretched. I fought back by doing lots of foot studies at home.

The poorly-photographed green person below is from the previous class devoted to the torso. My teacher told us we weren't allowed to use brown so I crept back into the land of colour. In the doing, I realised my Grumbacher pastels were absolute shite. Even my teacher said I needed a trip to the art store.

November 8, 2012

And we all know how that turned out. That's right. Expensively. $136 in one sweet hour of goggly-eyed lust.

Did you know you can buy marbling kits, tie-dye t-shirt kits, and face-painting kits? Yes, and you can pay for them, too! Along with washable, non-toxic finger paint, on-sale watercolour paper blocks, black pastel paper and a Faber Castell black marker (fine point) because I only had it in brown.

I'm a glutton, but at least I was spending on my little girl and not just myself.














I also bought the Prismacolour Nupastels I was supposed to get and MY WORD they are awesome. Like butter. Here's a pillow.

November 18, 2012

Personal best

Caroline, October 25 2012

Since I started Bus Drawing out of necessity, my attitude has been to draw what I see, anywhere, anytime, with whatever I've got on hand. My art class is changing all that.

I'm rediscovering traditional art supplies like charcoal, pastels, big sketchpads, easels and kneaded erasers. They are all so easy to use since they are designed for artists and perfected over centuries. I'm also exploring traditional colours: all the old favourites -- burnt sienna, raw umber -- and standard drawing techniques, like hatching, shadow blocking, and the like. My art class gives me things like time, teaching, and developmental exercises, too, for all of which I am fervently grateful.

Theo, November 1 2012

Mostly, it's just so easy to draw in this environment that I'm focusing on improving my work artistically (I'm not totally sure what I mean here, but hope the gist comes across!) instead of on contextual challenges (like sitting on a bus or drawing a moving target like my children) or technical challenges (drawing with markers in small books when I would prefer to do large format work with brushes, inks and paints).

At the same time, those 1.5 years on the bus were so difficult that my technical abilities grew enormously. I am constantly amazed in art class by how easy it is for me to do assignments that would have had me sweating pencils a couple of years ago. I'm not trying to say I'm the greatest or anything, just that I can't believe that a relatively short term of drawing on the bus did for all of my art, not just rapid portraits.

Art class is three hours of sheer joy every week. May there be more and more and more.

His right hand

November 2012

November 2012

Though my husband and I got together in 2005, I've rarely made a study of him though I've always wanted to. The larger portrait isn't quite right -- too Arnie -- but I did a good job on the drawing above. A devotee of the computer, Jeff writes software by day and at night he can be found writing ever more code, gaming or reading online. As someone with fingers in all sorts of pots, I admire his dedication.