graphite and colored pencils

thank you to everyone who left a comment in the last post...  it's a little weird to pick just one name, because truly,  i'd love to send everyone a sketchbook.

 terry, you're the winner...  it sounds like you will use it well.  : )

this little book lives in the bag that i take out walking.  it's made by sennelier and was brought back to me from paris by kathy, who is a present giver extraordinaire...

  it has the smoothest, creamiest paper in it imaginable, but until last week i hadn't used an 8B pencil  in it. 

then i saw a face in  a rock and  decided to use the 8B pencil so i could smudge the shadows in;  and, the face in the rock also had this kind of nose, which i've never really drawn before.  that  face is the one on the top right, and believe me, the rock one was much cooler, but wow!  did i ever get hooked on 8B smudgy faces with this kind of nose!!

when i got home i experimented on different kinds of paper from my scrap drawer.  the faces above are on a piece of paper cut from an old moleskine sketchbook...

smooth bristol...

and an unknown paper in a book with a japanese price tag on it.   i think someone gave this to me but i can't remember!

also in the japanese book...

i wanted to share these because they're super easy to draw...

here are the basics of what i use...  a mechanical pencil to draw the face initially (and you could do away with this and just start with the 8B), an 8B pencil to go over everything with (and make some lines heavier than others), a tortillon/blending stump to smudge with, and colored pencils.  i'm showing cream, sand, and light umber prismacolor pencils - they're the main colors i use for shading.  for cheeks and lips i use salmon, pink, red, orange, etc...

as you can see, i'm drawing the eyes about halfway down the face.  for the eyes, it's basically a line for the upper eyelid and a black spot for the iris/pupil.  the eyebrows go down and become the nose, and the mouth sits about halfway between the bottom of the face and the nose.  after you draw over everything with the 8B (or any dark lead) pencil, smudge away!  if you don't like it, erase!   add some light color with colored pencils - smudge some more - whatever!   it truly is fun and easy...

otherwise i've been out walking a lot;  seeing so much...   nature is endlessly impressive to me.   i can't imagine a human-drawn mandala more beautiful than this.

at the green shrine tree today, setting the cans back up, adding new stuff.  the sawdust in the foreground was created this summer by ants living in the tree.   it's a lot of sawdust.   i'm impressed...

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"To keep your process flowing, to feel the enjoyment of creation, you  first need to go where it is easy.  Easy means ripe.  Go where you are attracted, whether it be toward a detail or a large shape.    While you work on the part that is easy, other parts will mature in you, and they will be ready and waiting.  You move step by step, from the easiest to the easiest.  It is never tedious or tiring because there is no need to force anything.  Depth resides more in surrendering to spontaneity than in hardworking struggle.

~ Michele Cassou and Stewart Cubley, 'Life, Paint and Passion'

watercolors and gouache in stillman and birn 'delta', 5  1/2" x 8 1/2"

thinking back, i remember that i started painting these creatures when i was pondering 'wild ponies' -  human wild ponies, that is.   we're the ones whose motto could be "don't fence me in", and we give a silent cheer when we see the bumper sticker "question authority", hee!   but  i also know another kind of wild pony...   they don't exhibit outward signs of rebelliousness, but they have twinkle in their eye and they seem to have a bottomless well of kindness within.  i admire that kind of wild pony tremendously...

i'd like to give away one of stillman and birn's newest sketchbooks/journals.    it's a 5 1/2" x 8 1/2"  hardbound 'beta', which means that it has extra heavy (180#)  white paper in it.    the painting at the top of the post was done on the same kind of paper in ivory.  i *adore* this paper and these books.  you can paint with watercolors (or acrylics or ink or whatever) on both sides of the page and there's no buckling, no showing through on the other side of the page.  

from the side - it's about a half an inch thick.

if you'd like a chance to win all you need to do is say so in your comment, but i must have your e-mail address for your name to be entered.   most of you have an e-mail addy associated with your google account, but if you don't you need to e-mail it to me.   i'll draw a name next sunday and post the winner's name in the evening.  international readers, please feel free to join in!

i really have been drawing a lot of 'wild ponies'...  they're not easy to photograph because they're lightly painted;  i've painted a lot more than this but they didn't want to be photographed, lol.

these are in my 'daily book'.  i used mostly albrecht durer watercolor pencils to paint them.

at the top of the page is a  pogo print of a topo map of this area.   i take a pic of the map, make a pogo print of it, then mark where i walked that day on the pogo print.  i love doing this...  : )

edited to add:

if you don't receive an e-mail response to your comment i don't have your e-mail addy...   so send it to me, lol!

XO

prismacolor pencils on stick

it seems more like three decades than three weeks since i last posted...  i've drawn on a lot of sticks, stones and rusty stuff since then!   we had a great, busy time

and we walked so much! 

 my sister, carole

on trails around here,

  near mill creek falls

in eastern california,

and on the coast.  carole had a pedometer so i know that we walked 8 - 10 miles several times, and 4 - 6 miles per day *many* times.  surely my leg muscles are stronger than they've been in years!

me on a driftwood log, 'big lagoon' off hwy. 101, northern california

we walked and walked...

pacific ocean near crescent city, CA

and saw a lot of these - plural!

a western red cedar not far from here...

 carole standing next to a redwood in 'redwood national park'

carole drawing in the redwoods at mill creek campground near crescent city, CA

the large mossy shape on the left is a redwood stump...  my favorite thing about being with the redwoods is that everyone marvels over and loves trees in their presence...

around here we started two new shrine trees... 

we did so much, saw so much;  i think there were two days out of 21 when we just kicked back and rested.  and did laundry.

 carole and me

on our way back from the coast we visited roxanne, who took this pic.  we were modeling our new scarves for her - and roasting, lol!

i printed out a a bunch of pogo prints;  i completely filled up the 'daily book' i was working in.

albrecht durer watercolor pencils in stillman and birn gamma, 4" x 6"

and i drew a lot of these beings;  i just keep drawing them and drawing them!

the day after she left i went out walking, but instead of taking colored pencils (for drawing on sticks, etc.) i took my daily book and watercolors.  i finished decorating all of the pogo print pages that were left and have started in a new book...

thank you to *everyone* who left kind comments to my last post - i appreciate them!  i wish you all a beautiful fall (or spring, as the case may be).   here the fall light is so incredibly beautiful now - i just want to be out in it as much as i can...

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“The meaning of the work is in the doing of it.”

~ Cy Twombly

watercolors in stillman and birn 'delta', 5 1/2" x 8 1/2"

i think this'll be my last post for a few weeks...  my sister's coming from virginia for three weeks, and while we don't have a definite plan (my go-with-the-flow is prevailing over her must-have-itinerary  ; ), we've got ideas about all kinds of places to go and things to see...   or maybe we'll just hang out here the whole time!  

thank you to those who've written asking if we're safe from the fires.  we're safe...   the closest fire is about 50 miles away,  it's just really smoky.  when the fires (everywhere, not just in california!) come to mind i visualize them calming right down...   it beats feeling helpless.     if you live in california and want a good site for keeping up with current wildfires, check out the cal fire (CDF) blog.  there's a lot of info there.

okay, see you in a few...  

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“I am unable to distinguish between the feeling I have for life and my way of expressing it.” 

~ Henri Matisse

'the acrobat's daughter' ~ oil paint on collaged canvas board, 4" x 6"

a few weeks ago i bought  'je suis le cahier: the sketchbooks of picasso'.   the thought of looking through picasso's sketchbooks was, well, tantalizing to say the least.  it is his drawings that i love best; when i saw the picasso exhibit last year in virginia i was mesmerized not by his paintings, but by his line drawings.  

between 1894 and 1967 he kept 175 sketchbooks.  this book doesn't begin to cover most of them, but there is a sampling from different periods in his life. some of my favorite pages are his preliminary sketches for the painting titled 'family of saltimbanques',  which takes me back to the painting at the top of the post!  i painted 'the acrobat's daughter' shortly after i got the book, with picasso's images of circus performers floating through my mind...

charcoal and graphite in stillman and birn 'gamma', 11" x 14"

an inaccurate drawing of one of his drawings!  the man could draw, i tell you!  the reason i'm showing it here is because i sprayed it 

with this fixative, and it really does seem to prevent the charcoal and graphite from rubbing off on the opposite page.  it's the most non-toxic fixative i've ever used; it has three ingredients - water, grain alcohol and casein.  it smells faintly of grain alcohol so you can spray it inside with no worries.   since it has water in it, you have to spray on several light coatings if you're spraying paper.

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kiki smith, brooklyn museum

for fellow lovers of kiki, here's a link to an interview with her.  you have to download it (audio only), but it's worth it...

watercolors on khadi paper, 6" x 6"

i've been doing a lot of what i think of as comfort painting.  i can feel something brewing inside (art-wise), and when that's happening i feel more or less stalled out creatively... so i just draw willy nilly stuff and paint - like a cat staring at the wall!  he's probably watching a spider, ha ha.

watercolors in my daily book, a  4" x 6" stillman and birn 'gamma'

i saw an insect like this is katherine dunn's 'creative illustration workshop' a few weeks ago and i've drawn a bunch of them since!  comfort for sure!

watercolors and albrecht durer watercolor pencils in my 'daily book'

very comforting!

watercolors,  watercolor pencils, & gouache in my 'daily book'

i think the woman on the left may be wondering why her hat is sitting so low on her head, or what that colored pencil's doing over there beside her - or maybe what the creatures on the other page have in mind! (not to mention that cup hanging over her head)   i painted her face with a  heavy layer of white gouache first to see how i liked it.  i didn't... it was too much white.  so yeah, i'll just blame her whole wonkyness on that.  ; )

it's smoky here from forest fires that are far away.  and hot! 

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via tumblr

carmella's dream ~ oil paint and graphite on collaged cardboard

as i paint more  with water soluble oils i'm reminding myself to keep it simple, keep it fun...   when the urge to 'get better'/more polished creeps in i shoo it away.  because oils seemed so outrageously fun to me from the beginning, i wanna keep it that way...

 for a while now i've been wanting to do a post about shinhan watercolors and miscellaneous other watercolor stuff...  

 i found shinhan watercolors last winter when i was looking for a nontoxic naples yellow, and i've bought a lot of colors since then.   they flow beautifully and they're very inexpensive at dick blick.   i've read some reviews claiming that they're not lightfast - and then i've read others claiming that most of the colors are, so i don't know what the story is with that, but since i'm not concerned about my paintings lasting for hundreds of years it isn't an issue for me.  and besides, i'm mainly using them in my journals where they'll see very little light.

here are some of my favorite colors...   from the top: juane brilliant no. 2,  looks very much like salmon (the color).  i use it all the while on lips and cheeks.  next is shell pink - sigh...   i swear i could eat this color!  below that is lavender, which is a beautiful lavender-ish periwinkle blue.  then leaf green - almost a chartreuse, wonderful for leaves.  and greenish yellow - this is so beautiful!  an olive green but prettier.  and finally, davey's grey - a deep grey green.  these three greens have become my favorite greens...

i also use them like gouache and paint right out of the tube with them.    they work great like this.

this is sennelier's warm grey (# 705 on blick's color chart) which is the only other buff titanium (in watercolor) that i've found besides daniel smith's.  i might've gotten a bad tube of daniel smith's buff titanium because it's downright gooey, but  whatever the case, i was happy to find this user friendly version!

and my fav watercolor brush...  hands down, after trying quite a few,  the raphael kolinsky red sable, series 8404.  it holds a lot of paint, the tip is fabulous, and it's springy - not floppy.  i have no words for how perfect i think this brush is!

my zecchi paint set with other half and full pans added, and lots of gouache and shinhan watercolors squirted on the lid.  i've been loving painting with this set this summer.  my travel brush is a  #4 escoda, series 1214 brush, and i also stick in an inexpensive filbert for when i really wanna push the paint around.  i don't like the escoda brush nearly as much as the raphael, mainly because it's not springy. 

for fellow face painters, in case it's useful, the main colors above that i use for skin are: zecchi raw sienna (middle row, second from the right),  zecchi flesh tint (middle row, fifth from the left), sennelier warm grey (just left of flesh tint), and for darker shading,  zecchi raw umber (middle row, far right).  for cheeks and lips i use lots of the reds, oranges, and pinks - the shinhan juane brilliant no. 2 sees a lot of action, as does the shell pink!

and not shown here, white and ivory albrecht durer watercolor pencils...  if i want to paint a face white or ivory first i use them, because once they're dry  the color is permanent.  which means that they won't cause red on the cheeks to become pink.

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“10 rules for students and teachers” from john cage (via tumblr)