"Experiments in Drawing" - drawings from life and a color experiment

Here are a few things from yesterday's drawing attempts.  The one at the top with all the colors was one I did using a Caran d'Ache set of Oliver Jeffers colored pencils from Jerry's Artarama.  There are 10 pencils in the set and they aren't really colors that I would necessarily associate with a portrait, but I decided to try using different colors than usual.  I LOVE the colors and I had such a good time with them even though I might have gone a bit over the edge.  

The ink drawings are two-minute life drawings and I don't really know what I was trying to do in the one on the left, but I look at it and smile.  I guess I was using too much water with the ink - my pen was an Itoya Calligraphy Doubleheader.  They are just great.  Not made anymore, I fear, because I have not been able to find them anywhere but Amazon, and they don't have many left, so I laid in a supply!  

For the rest of the art day, I painted two 7 x 5" two-stepper pieces in oil and left them alone until tomorrow to see if I still love them.  I guess so much for my watercolor Wednesday, but it will return one Wednesday soon.

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog!

 

"Fooling Around with Radishes" - original acrylic, wax pastel, colored pencil, graphite and oil pastel panting

Some of my radishes from earlier in the summer made it as subjects for an 8 x 8" painting on Gessobord.  I thought they were pretty and just arranged them first this way and that.  I then drew them loosely with graphite, then painted with acrylic and topped the whole thing off with wax pastels, colored pencils, and oil pastels. The kitchen sink, you might say.  

This exercise in using mainly drawing tools convinced me that I'm basically a drawer - okay, draftsman, sketcher - not so much a painter - and am always trying to figure out ways to use oil paint in my drawings on board because they won't need to be framed under glass.  My latest idea is to cut oil sticks (not oil pastels, but actual oil sticks) into smaller pieces to make them easier to work with for drawings.  The main reason I seldom use oil sticks is their size.  Years ago, Winsor & Newton had 'slim' oil sticks, I think they were called, and they were great, but then they were discontinued, which was such a disappointment.  I find it really difficult to use these bigger sticks.  They're just too fat!  So now I'm going to try and draw with smaller pieces of this medium.  My oil stick 'collection' includes R&F, which is just wonderful,  Sennelier,  Winsor & Newton, and Shiva.  Surely I can find a way to make this plan of mine work!

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Drawing Practice - Original charcoal figurative drawings

 

Every day I draw something - here's from yesterday.  The day before that it was two or three landscapes.  I'm kind of hooked on the male torso from ancient times - someday, maybe, I'll do it perfectly.  Maybe.  The first of these is an improvement on a drawing I did in a drawing group.  The last is a copy from a book - and I admit it needs some work.😀 Thanks for stopping by and looking at my efforts!

Guitarist Doodle - mixed media cowboy drawing

I had a chance and took advantage of it to quickly sketch this cowboy playing his guitar.  I drew it with a black Sharpie, and occasional outlines with a Tombow pen and a little bit of water, then I added colored pencil.  This sketch is done on 8 x 6" mixed media paper.  Thanks for looking!