Tuesday, November 9, 2010
©2010 Carolyn A. Pappas, Tired Baby. Graphite in 9 x 12 inch sketchbook.
Last night I made another drawing of a baby for practice. I originally wanted it only to be a quick sketch but ended up spending much more time on it than I intended, probably because I almost never draw babies and I’m out of practice. Also, I actually know this baby in person and I wanted to capture her likeness (it’s pretty good but not perfect). I’m sort of sick of portraits after this one though so I think I will try to do some other types of drawings today.
A far as the Art Every Day Challenge is going, I have been faithful to the challenge by doing artwork every day, although I’ve had some disappointing results for some of my drawings. Even so, I am pleased with myself because I’ve done more work than usual and also have more good work as well. In that same line of thought, I decided to join NaNoDrawMo, which is a flickr group based on NaNoWriMo with the idea of making fifty drawings (or paintings) in November. I’m honestly not sure if I will be able to meet that challenge, but I know that I will be more prolific, which is my ultimate goal.
I also thought I’d share some blogs that are new to my RSS reader in the past couple of weeks:
I was busy yesterday with a small family get together. I did get to see my favorite brother cats though. Here are some (rough) sketches, unfortunately done from photos after the fact. I could have taken out my sketchbook when I was there, but whenever I get a chance to spend time with my family all at the same place, I usually don’t feel like sketching so much. I don’t draw cats too often, so maybe after a little more practice, I will be ready to turn some of my reference photos into small watercolors.
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Extra:
- This morning I set up a little flickr gallery of some cat drawings and paintings with notes on what attracted me to each.
- Also, I recently created a facebook page for my artwork so feel free to like my page if you would enjoy updates on facebook.
©2010 Carolyn A. Pappas, The Scenic Drive, east to west. Ink and watercolor, 10 x 13.5 cm.
This is a view of the Connecticut River as seen from the French King Bridge, one of the many special places in Western Massachusetts. I reworked this colored pencil sketch from last year to make this painting. I do a lot of work in ink and watercolor but this was definitely an experiment in a different style for me. It was a lot of fun, and also a welcome change as I haven’t done a lot of colorful work recently.
I’m heading to the post office tomorrow morning to send this painting off to Norway. I’m participating in the Twitter Art Show organized by David Sandum (@DavidSandumArt on Twitter). David had the brilliant idea to leverage a number of his Twitter contacts to raise money for his local library (for children’s books). I thought this was a great opportunity to help out, and I hope my painting finds a good home in Norway.
(Note: I’m @CAPappasArt on Twitter if you would like to follow me.)
Thursday, November 4, 2010
I did some portrait sketching last night of Ujwala Prabhu and Serena Lewis for Julia Kay’s Portrait Party.
In the background, I was listening to the Escape from Illustration Island Podcast. The podcast is geared towards freelance illustrators and I’m not quite used to all the lingo they use, but I have gotten a lot out of the discussions. Some of my favorite artists are/were also illustrators.
Sometimes I prefer listening to podcasts over music in my studio. It feels a little less lonely to hear the conversations go back and forth (and I can only stand so much NPR). I especially liked the latest podcast with Stephanie Levy. I knew she was an American living in Germany, but for some reason I always thought of her as having more of a Chicago, not a Tennessee accent.
©2010 Carolyn A. Pappas, Ujwala Prabhu. Graphite in 9 x 12 inch sketchbook.
©2010 Carolyn A. Pappas, Serena Lewis. Graphite in 9 x 12 inch sketchbook.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
©2010 Carolyn A. Pappas, Ocean Sketch #3. Watercolor in 5.5 x 8 inch sketchbook.
I did a lot of artwork, but nothing really turned out well and I ended up wasting a lot of paper. It’s probably because I am preoccupied about the election. I distracted myself by watching the documentary Helvetica (see below clip). I never really liked the font because it always reminded me of big cities. After watching this, I realize why I think of the city, but the font itself seems more neutral to me.
After that I did a few sketches of the ocean, and tried to stay off the news. Until tonight of course, and then I won’t be able to unglue myself from the radio and the internet.
©2010 Carolyn A. Pappas, Pear Trio. Graphite in 9 x 12 sketchbook.
Yesterday I had a bit of a mishap. Do you know the sketchbook I was talking about wanting to finish last time? Well, it got finished a little sooner that I had hoped thanks to a spilled cup of tea. Thankfully, the pages I had already worked on were spared. I was really mad at myself after that though.
I still want to do a lot of sketching throughout November, even though I won’t be trying to finish this new sketchbook before the end of the month. I feel like I need a bit of discipline, or accountability if you will, so I decided to join Art Every Day Month, organized by Leah Piken Kolidas. I have plenty of creative ideas (maybe too many), but I am lacking in terms of execution. I hope to use this month as an opportunity to get some work done. I am planning to post a lot of sketches as well as WIPs.
Sidenote: The pears from Harry and David are better than any of the pears you can get around here (Massachusetts). I highly recommend them.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
©2010 Carolyn A. Pappas, Sketchbook page, 10-30-10. Pencil in 9 x 12 inch sketchbook.
I’m sorry about the issues I’ve been having with my feedburner feed recently. The first post was my mistake, but I’m not sure why it sent out another email for an old post this morning.
I have a lot of things that I want to do before the end of the year, so I’ve been writing elaborate to do lists but I think it has been more discouraging than anything else. I have a particular sketchbook that I am dying to finish, so I am going to be doing a lot of sketching over the next few weeks to get it wrapped up by the end of November. I think that should be manageable. So I’ll probably be posting a lot of my sketches, mainly pencil sketches. This particular sketch was done with a (blunt) 4B pencil. There are a lot of lakes and ponds in my area, and I am particularly intrigued by what happens at the water’s edge. I like the tangle of twigs, leaves, pine needles and such.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
©2010 Carolyn A. Pappas, Olivia in the Blankets. Ink, watercolor and colored pencil, 5 x 7 inches.
I had another opportunity to draw Olivia, one of my favorite Whippets, this time in ink with watercolor and colored pencil. My first sketches from this past February were done from life in ballpoint pen. When I was making these sketches I was trying to practice and basically figure out how their heads were constructed. When I made this recent piece I used a photo reference and I wanted it to appear more flat, as if the shapes fit together like puzzle pieces.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
©2010 Carolyn A. Pappas, Ogunquit River #1. Ink and watercolor, 5 x 7 inches.
This is a small (5 x 7) painting I did from a photo I snapped during my trip to Ogunquit, Maine this past August. This area is a salt marsh where the Ogunquit River meets the ocean. It was really interesting to see how this same scene changed with the tides (it was close to high tide when I took this).  I am thinking of remaking this into a larger (11 x 14ish) painting, although I’m still considering if I want to do it in ink and watercolor or some other medium, like colored pencil. I want the grass areas to look really textural, because that is what originally attracted me to the scene. The grass was long and matted and it looked very soft, although I’m sure up close it was anything but.
I love finding new artists! A reader emailed me a link after I posted On Water and I wanted to share. Amy Arntson paints really beautiful and large watercolor paintings of water. I especially like her painting Dark Water 1.
©2010 Carolyn A. Pappas, Kolkata Rooftops #1. Ink and marker in large handbook sketchbook.
A few months ago, when undertaking my massive organizational project, I found some photos in an album that I thought I threw away a few years ago. I debated chucking them right then and there, but decided to hold onto some of the photos in case I can develop them into later works.
This drawing was a great opportunity to practice some perspective skills. I snapped the photo from a huge window in a Kolkata shopping mall. I was then rudely interrupted by one of their many security guards. Kolkata is filled with Victorian style buildings with a lot of character and architectural detail, but an unfortunate lack of maintainance. If someone powerwashed all the mildew off and repainted the city, it wouldn’t look nearly as bad. All the decay is more interesting to draw though.
