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I made the first drawing in August of 2009, of my precious toy. The second one I made today. Months and months of not drawing…

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original blogpost: at my site

I took a drawing workshop on Saturday at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. It was a lot of fun and got me all excited to start taking more classes! The end of the 6 hour class we played the portrait game. This is the portrait that was created collaboratively by 5 artists. we learned about facial proportions

we drew the rest of a face

I drew both sides of Fredrick Douglas

we practiced drawing negative space

and used gesture to quickly get the feel of objects

drawing a teapot 10 minute study of teapot

first 10 minute study of teapot

15 second gestures of teapot

after class, I had drawing fever and went home and kept right on drawing using the vine charcoal and graphite sticks

i practiced using gesture, fast moving Xiao Mao was a good model

Sagis was a good model as well

I thumbed through the National Geographic to find faces to draw…

We talked about the magic of drawing. It was refreshing to hold charcoal and get my fingers dirty while I made marks on paper. I usually draw with pen, so this was a nice change.

Looking forward to my next art class….whenever that may be!

I started a drawing class yesterday, and I think I’m really going to like it. The only down side is that it is an hour and 15 minutes from my house, it starts at 9:00 am, and I am not a morning person. But I made it to class on time and loved it.

One of the exercises we were given to do at home was to choose an object to draw, set the timer for 20 minutes, and draw it; then stop when the timer goes off. We are to repeat the exercise 3 days in a row, and on day 4 we are to set the timer for 18 minutes. Throughout the 4 week class, we will continue decreasing the time by 2 minutes every 4th day until we are down to 6 minutes.

I decided to draw a stuffed rabbit that I crocheted many many years ago – and here is my day 1 sketch. I did the whole sketch with a 2B pencil. We haven’t learned shading yet – that comes next week. I’m fairly pleased with my first attempt. And I was able to finish it in the time allotted.

Feb07Art, originally uploaded by CaptElaine.

I was going to write on the black board, one of my grammar pet peeves…. people who use ‘then’ incorrectly in a sentence. Education these days obviously doesn’t care much for grammar and writing skills… and so people say and/or write ‘then’ when they should have used the word ‘than’. Then is used for TIME and is an adverb… so for example you might say “do step one, THEN do step two”. Than is a conjunction, and is used as a comparison between two items. I like mustard better THAN mayonnaise.

Feb06Art, originally uploaded by CaptElaine.

Spent the morning picking up trash in the local National forest… this is the third year our Jeep club has participated… it’s hard work but worth it. Got to see a Blue Heron today, and lots of Egrets… the Flamingo isn’t seen here, more a Florida bird… but I added him for a touch of color.

Sound
mixed media on paper
5.5 x 7.5 inches
©Ann Thompson Nemcosky

I have so many ideas that I want to try. And since I am working on my hundred painting project this year, knowing that I have that one clear goal, I feel a sense of freedom to play with these other ideas without commitment. I know, that sounds strange. How could such a huge project free up my thinking for other works? But it has. So there it is.

This is a drawing where I experimented with mixing media. I began with a water soluble graphite pencil, a blue gray watercolor pencil, and a brown Neocolor II crayon on hot press paper. I scribbled in my medium and darker values then washed it with water. While it was still wet I squirted it with water from a spray bottle. After it dried I went back in with a graphite pencil. One idea down. About a thousand to go.
Blogged at http://nemcoskyart.blogspot.com/2010/02/mixing-it-up.html

EvanPikePhotoPainting WIP, originally uploaded by CaptElaine.

I bought this photograph from Evan Pike evanpike.me/ last year, he was gracious enough to grant me permission to do a painting based on his photograph… I started work on the painting this week and thought I’d share what I’ve done so far… first ‘mistake’ I made was wetting the paper where the river was to be… which made it impossible to get the sparkles on the water… DARN! I’m going to continue and see what else I learn, and then with lessons learned try again. Suggestions and critique welcome.

Feb05Art, originally uploaded by CaptElaine.

Rainy and COLD in Columbia, in the 30’s up there… sure was good to get home to Charleston and 65 degrees … I’m about tired of the rain… we’re drowning down here…

on break at work today, my friend sue handed me a picture of her little cat bella and said, “here, draw this.” so, to kill the time between shifts, i pumped out this quick sketch. thought it was neat, so here you are.

Check out ‘More Than A Days Work ‘ and please comment so I know somebody out there is looking and may relate etc.

http://winnasworld.blogspot.com

Feb04Art, originally uploaded by CaptElaine.

Mei-Lan born in Atlanta, headed to China today… along with Tai-Shan from Washington DC…I hope they do well there and learn to speak Chinese without too much trouble.. Mei-Lan was taught hand signals to help her in the transition of languages…
When I was instructing dog obedience classes I used to try to get people to understand that their dog’s did NOT speak English, that we needed to teach the dog what certain words mean, saying Sit louder does not convey a meaning to someone who doesn’t speak English or to the dog…. hopefully Mei-Lan handlers in China will understand that she doesn’t speak Chinese yet… but she’ll learn.

so, i haven’t been drawing, or sketching a lot the past week, as demonstrated by my lack of posts. i’ve been working on a bunch of other little projects, one of which is scanning into the computer a lot of older sketches… here’s one of those. i always kind of dug it.
Image file size as too large and causing the page to time out however, you may view the image on the original blog by clicking this link

Feb02Art, originally uploaded by CaptElaine.

Watercolor class tonight was a study of skies, marsh and fog… when I finish them I’ll post them… this is really a fun class… the teacher is teaching us to play with the water and color…

And Candlemas day, and Imbolc and St Brigit day. Did you know there was so much significance to February 2nd? This day marks the half way point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. So no matter what the groundhog says, we are now half way to spring.

We spent most of this past weekend putting together Valentines for a Valentine exchange that Kiddo is doing this year. She made loads of beautiful Valentine cards with collage over watercolor backgrounds. Little pots of mixed watercolor were left over, so I looked for something with color to use up some of the paint. This apple was a handy subject and fun to paint with these watery colors. They are Stockmar watercolors that come in a little bottle. You only need the smallest dab of the liquid color to mix with water. The colors are very intense and the little bottles last forever. (No, I don’t work for these people, I just really like Stockmar’s art supplies for kids.) I do think it is important to give kids good quality art supplies, otherwise their experience making art just becomes frustrating and they may lose interest altogether. The apple was done in my hand made sketch book.
Still having paint left I drew in watercolor my poor geranium for Everyday Matters challenge #257, draw a house plant. I have been wanting to get back to doing these challenges. My hand.book journal dedicated for Everyday Matters drawing challenges has been neglected far too long. This geranium lives on our front porch during the summer and winters inside where it becomes leggy and pale. When it gets moved outside again it never fails to revive into a bushy plant rewarding us with lots of soft pink blossoms.

blogged at http://nemcoskyart.blogspot.com/

“Birds and Bamboo” by Judy Beck Lobos
22.5″ x 15″ watercolor on Arches

NEW!!! Sumi-e Watercolor classes!

Here’s the information about the classes taken from the gallery website:

Grebinger Gallery in Lancaster, PA is very excited to offer (for the first time ever) classes where students can learn the Asian art of Sumi-e painting. Sumi-e, literally “ink painting” originated in China is described best as an art form that strives to capture the essence of an object or scene in the fewest possible strokes.

Our four week class will begin with studying and practicing the brush strokes necessary for creating a “bamboo” painting. “Bamboo” being the first of four traditional sumi-e techniques called the the “Four gentlemen.” Students will complete several compositions in the four week class.

Class will be held four consecutive Tuesday morning beginning 3/2 thru 3/23 from 10:00-12:00 Class fee is $125.00 for the four weeks, with an additional materials fee of $45.00 per student.

Instructor for sumi-e class is Judy Beck Lobos, Lancaster Watercolor and Sumi-e Artist.

Class sizes will be limited to 4-6 students. Call us at (717) 569-9335 with any questions or to register.

Also, if you do have questions, please feel free to email me directly (beclobo@comcast.net) or leave a message here on this post.

I’m excited about this opportunity!
I’ll plan to keep you all updated on the classes and hopefully post some photos too.

Hello Everybody! If you have a chance come by and wish me a belated birthday!

http://carolottaway.wordpress.com/2010/02/02/i-turned-2-and-i-missed-it/

Pruners.

A quick sketch in my pocket sized sketchbook.

Sgfrancis

Feb01Art, originally uploaded by CaptElaine.

I love this tiny Bijou Box I got from eBay in England… you can’t buy them here in the states? I wonder why? The box came with only 8 colors, I tossed the tiny brush and added 4 more… for a very useful box of 12 colors.

Jan31Art, originally uploaded by CaptElaine.

Lazy day around the house today… cold snap made us not want to venture out too much. Last page in this hand*book, I started it on 10-01-2009… another reason I like these journals so much… lots of pages.

Jan29Art, originally uploaded by CaptElaine.

Just a couple of quotes today… as the sky turns grey and ugly… I crave bright colors.