'june' ~ acrylic paint and oil pastels on 140# coldpress watercolor paper, 5" x 7"

june's not happy about the hot july weather...  she remembers the mild, sunny days of, yeah, june...   but it was the hot weather that made me stay inside and paint her, so maybe it's okay after all.  ; )

watercolors and pencil in fabriano venezia

for a while now i've thought about doing a post about my drawing journey of the past year; this post  is about that...   i've been learning how to express myself better through drawing, and it has not seemed easy.

pencil and colored pencil in softcover pocket moleskine

i don't think i'm any better at drawing than i was a year ago, but i have learned a few important things.  one of them is that my people/creatures like wings better than arms.

pencil and colored pencil in sennelier journal

and hair - i'm just not into it.

 

watercolors, pencil and soft pastel in stillman and birn gamma

i thought that once i learned how to draw it (how it sat on the head) i'd put it on every head i drew. 

pencil and colored pencil in sennelier journal

sometimes i do, but not often.   and not so often with legs either.

pencil, colored pencil, and watercolors in stillman and birn gamma

i like bodies that aren't human.

pencil and colored pencil in softcover pocket moleskine

these don't sound like big revelations,

pencil and colored pencil in sennelier journal

but it's taken me a while to figure them out.

pencil and watercolors in fabriano venezia

The Critic likes to tell me that if i were a serious drawer i'd draw more arms, legs, and hair.

watercolors, pencil and soft pastel in stillman and birn gamma

no way.

pencil, colored pencil and watercolors in stillman and birn epsilon

i've found myself thinking at times that i can't draw.

pencil and colored pencil in stillman and birn epsilon

what could be a more ridiculous thought?!!  but i've come to see that it takes practice to draw what i feel, in a way that makes me smile.

pencil and colored pencil in stillman and birn epsilon

and this.  it took me a long time to get this: i am a dabbler, a doodler, a jotter.  i am not a drawer of big, complicated scenes; i like little glimpses...  i am a messer arounder...

last week i got a .3 mechanical pencil and i love it for tiny details.  otherwise i use a .5 mechanical pencil and a cretacolor 8B pencil.   that's another thing i've learned:  i like drawing with pencil best - not because i can erase, but because i can smudge.

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“There is only one valuable thing in art: the thing you cannot explain.” 

~ Georges Braque