While organizing through my art supplies during my move, I found a number of watercolor fruit still lifes that I had completed last January as a practice exercise. I will show you all of them later on, and I’m thinking of making more because it was such good practice.
Thanksgiving is going to be really hectic for me this year, but I can’t wait for my relatives to meet baby Cate. She is truly the best gift I could have asked for. I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving with your families as well.
I sketched these leftover plums the other day after baking one of my favorite fruit desserts, plum crumb (recipe below). It has been a really long time since I ever sketched something in colored pencil for practice. I felt rusty and I want to start sketching using colored pencils more often. Here, I used four different Prismacolor pencils: magenta, tuscan red, indigo blue and yellow ochre.
Plum Crumb
Toss 4 cups quartered fresh plums with: ½ cup brown sugar, 3 tablespoons flour, 1 teaspoon cinnamon. Arrange in an 11 x 7 baking dish.
Crumble together and spread over plums: 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon baking powder, ¼ teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon nutmeg, 1 beaten egg.
Then drizzle 1 stick of melted butter over the top and bake at 375° F for 45 minutes or until golden brown and bubbly.
Some ten minute sketches of a belt that fell off a sweatshirt of mine. My Noodler’s pen and bulletproof black ink seem to work well in my Moleskine cahiers. The ink dries quickly without feathering or smudging and the pen slides over the surface of the paper.
I may actually find myself filling these books up with sketches! I am not a big fan of the paper in the Moleskine cahiers because it is so tissue thin that drawing on it is uncomfortable for me. It wrinkles easily and it is see through. It is only possible to draw on one side of the page because otherwise, the drawings on both sides will be spoiled.
I have been able to deal with this issue by cutting a piece of Bristol board to insert behind each page so that I can draw without ink bleeding through. I can also scan my drawings without seeing through the pages.
A few weeks ago I ordered the Noodler’s Flex Nib pen after reading a number of reviews online (see reviews from Nina Johansson, Cathy Johnson, and Roz Stendahl). I actually ordered two pens, in Lapis Inferno and Vulcan’s Coral, mainly because I wanted to be able to use two different colored inks. Also, so many people are going gaga over these pens that they are selling out very quickly and I wanted to make sure I got what I wanted.
My main reason for getting this pen is that I wanted something that could replicate the lines that you can get with a dip pen, but portable. As you can see from my sketch (click to enlarge), a large degree of line width is possible, which is really different from the Lamy fountain pen I use for writing. I am still not really used to controlling the flex and I find that I have to concentrate and go slower than normal when I want a thicker line. The pen is also sensitive to the angle at which you hold the pen. To get more flex you need to hold the pen more horizontally to the paper.
I did find the instructions that came with the pen a bit odd. Besides the bizarre drawing of “The Nib Creaper,” the instructions are one solid block of text that I had to reread several times before figuring out how to fill the pen. I had previously watched a video showing the pen assembly, so I was able to figure it out, but I wished there were some kind of diagram as well as the text. I still had some trouble filling the pen the first time (I got mostly air and very little ink), but I had better luck the next time. Once I fill the pen a few times, I think it will be easy for me.
For detailed info on this pen, I recommend the videos that Brian Goulet has posted to his blog Ink Nouveau. I haven’t tried it yet, but the whole pen can be disassembled for cleaning. The nib and feed can also be adjusted to allow for more or less flex and ink flow according to preference.
Some people complained about the smell of the pen (from the resin material that the pen body is made from), but I don’t mind it. It is noticable, but I think it is a pleasant smell, like scented soap or something similar.
I purchased Noodler’s Lexington Gray and Bulletproof Black ink to fill these pens. I will write a seperate blog post about these inks after I test them further. The sketch above is of the two pieces of pottery that I made in my recent workshop and a mini ceramic pitcher that I bought at the Old Deerfield Craft Fair last weekend. I bought the pitcher just because it is cute, and I’m still not sure what I will do with the other two dishes.
About halfway through May I quit my drawing project, because I got bored with it and wanted to do my own thing. I realize now that I don’t like being “told” what to draw. Instead, I started a new watercolor floral painting. I’m still working on it, but I might not post it because I’m not sure if I like the progress thus far. The plus side is that I spent quite a bit of time making a preliminary line drawing and working out the composition, SO if it comes out horrible I will still be able to start over again on a fresh piece of watercolor paper.
Here are some other random pages from my sketchbooks (with my remarks) to show you in the meantime. Yesterday, I also posted this sketch of a rhododendron blossom on Sketching in Nature.
I sketched this dried up tulip (below) and chatted with my husband as he changed the oil and the brake pads on my car.
This morning I tried to go outside to do some sketching, but the mosquitoes were too much so I had to come inside early. I don’t think I can go out again until I pick up some bug spray.
On my way inside I picked up this flower sprig and sketched it indoors. It came from a large tree covered in these purple blossoms. I have no idea what it is called though.
I feel really good to be making progress after such a long time doing nothing. I’ve still been working on Every Day in May, having only skipped two days because the topics weren’t something I had access to (and I didn’t feel like drawing from a photo).
One benefit of this project is that I’ve been able to quickly fill up the remaining pages of my Pen and Ink | watercolor brand sketchbook. The paper of this book didn’t really suit me, as it disintegrated with washes and buckled a lot.
The top painting was done in the old sketchbook and the bottom one was done in my new watercolor moleskine. Even though I know there are people who complain about the watercolor moleskine paper, I am a lot happier with it. The paper surface is much better to work on, and there is less buckling (as you can see from the scan).
I needed something to get me back into the swing of things, so I thought I would participate in Every Day in May this year. Granted, I started a few days late, and then it took me a few more days to scan the drawings, but I am all caught up now. I don’t think I’ll scan my drawings every single day, but I’ll do my best to get them up in a timely manner. I’ll have them all posted in this flickr set.
The other day I was uploading some work to flickr when I got sidetracked and started sorting through some of my groups. I was in so many groups on flickr that it was becoming unwieldy, and many of them didn’t even apply to me any longer. In the process, I (re)discovered Stop.Draw.Run, which I joined months ago but never participated in until now. The whole point is to sketch for ten minutes and then stop. Now that I am placing a higher priority on sketching, I thought that it would be the perfect group for me, and I already use my timer for sketching.
I have a certain 6 x 6 inch square format sketchbook that is perfect for this activity. It doesn’t have the nicest paper — it is too thin and scratchy for me. But I definitely won’t feel guilty about burning through the pages. Here are some sketches I made yesterday (each about five minutes).
I’ve been trying to get a good amount of artwork done in the mornings before I turn on my computer or otherwise get distracted. This morning, I drew some pears while listening to people on talk radio go back and forth about Chinese Mothers. I am so glad I didn’t have a “tiger mother” because I would have hated to get roped into playing piano or violin. Painting and drawing is much nicer in my opinion.
