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This winter seems more harsh than I remember in recent years. I like that in a way, because it makes me feel nostalgia for the winters when I was a girl and we got hit with tremendous Nor’easters just after moving back to New England.  Stacked Wood. Photograph ©2013 Carolyn A Pappas.  Treasures. Photograph ©2013 Carolyn A Pappas. I was so blessed that we didn’t suffer any damage or power outages from Sandy. She was not so kind to many other people however, including some of my family, so I am sad about that. Work was called off on Monday, giving me more time with Cate (which I am so thankful for). I did get a lot of work done around the house, and on some projects I’ve been working on.  Pumpkin Stalk 1. Pen and ink on 140 lb hotpress paper, apx 5 x 4 inches. One of the projects that I finished was a 2013 Pen Sketched Calendar, which I now have hanging in my cubicle at work. It was made up of small 10 minute sketches of nature subjects around my home. I have been thinking of some more projects that I can complete in many little steps, as I don’t have large blocks of time anymore.  Pumpkin Stalk 2. Pen and ink on 140 lb hotpress paper, apx 5 x 4 inches. These are two similar sketches that I completed over the past couple of weeks, one of which I used in my calendar. Feel free to download my calendar and print it off for your own use, as I have licensed it through Creative Commons with no restrictions.  The morning light. Photograph ©Carolyn A Pappas  ©2012 Carolyn A Pappas, Pumpkin Sketch. Watercolor in small watercolor moleskine.  ©2012 Carolyn A Pappas, Leek. Watercolor in small watercolor moleskine journal. The CSA is almost over and now it’s getting colder. Every morning this week I have considered wearing a coat, but have decided against it. Soon, wearing a coat won’t be an option for me. Soon, I will also be turning on the heaters at night and digging out my down comforter. For three weeks now I have had hives, and swelling. When my hands swell, then it is awkward to hold a pen. When my feet swell, I have a hard time wearing shoes, and walking is tough. My prayer for the fall is that I return to good health.
“right now” staying focused on the present, mindful and in the moment, an image from the week, with no words or a few words, that acknowledges the “right now.” Inspired by Ann. I had a lot of fun painting this impromptu still life in my small moleskine watercolor journal, inspired by a harvest of peppers we received from the CSA. It’s similar to this watercolor sketch, also of veggies from the CSA. It was exhilarating to paint quickly with no pencil sketch underneath–I need to do it more often.  ©2012 Carolyn A Pappas, Peppers. Watercolor in small moleskine. We worked on still life in my second colored pencil class. As a warmup, when people were still filtering in, the instructor gave us an object in a bag and we were to draw it only by feel (no peeking). I got a pulley and I didn’t recognize what it was, which I think made it more fun. Afterwards, I drew it again while looking (on the right).
We took the rest of the class to draw a still life. We were supposed to concentrate on the plane changes and the instructor wanted us to sketch out our drawing using only straight lines. This is not the way I normally work, so it felt unusual, but I did my best. I was the only person in the class who drew the whole still life instead of just zooming in on one part. I took it as a challenge to try to piece all the elements together. I didn’t have the time to build up a lot of intense colors, and I never would have drawn this subject on my own, but I think it was good practice. In the end, we all pinned up our drawings and looked them over. It was so interesting to see how everyone approached the still life in different ways. When I was younger I used to make many small drawings on one sketchbook/journal page. One day my art teacher was looking through my book and suggested that I make my drawings bigger, to “fill the page.” Ever since then I’ve been making larger drawings, and I’ve noticed that they have more impact. Even so, I tend to just plop my pencil down on the page without much thought. I also tend to leave a lot of white space, which can be good at times, but I think I generally underuse my paper. It is a design aspect that is easy to overlook, especially when I scan and crop most of my sketchbook pages. Below is a photo of one of my sketches so you can see the whole page.  ©2012 Carolyn A Pappas, Beets. Graphite in 8.5 x 11 inch sketchbook. I spent about a half hour on it, but could have spent way longer drawing every little root. I also scanned it below so you can see the detail better.  ©2012 Carolyn A Pappas, Beets. Graphite in 8.5 x 11 inch sketchbook.
Recently, I made some updates to my website. I added a static homepage with a painting and a concise artist statement. I wanted to give my site a more professional overall feel and I noticed some people were confused when they landed straight onto my blog. I’m planning on changing out the picture every so often with a current one. I also reorganized my portfolio page according to medium instead of subject matter. Updating my portfolio with new work is going to be a major focus of mine over the next few months. |
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