Saturday, December 6, 2008
End of an Era, mixed media (ink, watercolor and colored pencil) on 5 x 7 watercolor paper, 12/6/08
In October, I stopped by the old apartment to sign to take my name off the lease and I saw these leaves in the parking lot. It was a wet day and the leaves were damp. I took them home intending on drawing them and over the next few days they dried to a crisp, curling up at the edges and looking even more interesting. I couldn’t help but think of my relationship withering and drying up as well. That is what I was thinking of when doing this piece. I am not one to use a lot of symbolism in my art unless something especially strikes me. Interestingly when reading through my bloglines, I came across this post by Ces. It seems like others think of their issues with love when painting leaves as well…
Simba, graphite in 9 x 12 kraft paper sketchbook, 12/2/08
As a child I only had dogs in the house, so I don’t think of myself as being well versed in the ways of cats. I sketched this from a photo taken on Thanksgiving. I am planning on making a painting based on this but I’m realizing that I need a lot of practice with cats before I start! Katherine Tyrrell has quite a bit of information about feline art so I think I will give it a good once over as well.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Justin, graphite in 9 x 12 sketchbook, 12/4/08
My friend Justin let me use his photo for my experimentations. This is a preliminary study as I need to do some practicing first before starting what I want to do. This will be one of many iterations needed to get it right.
Pointsettia, dip pen and wash, Carolyn Ann Pappas 2008
Pointsettia (WIP), ink, Carolyn Ann Pappas 2008
After some thinking about my priorites I’ve decided to switch back to a blogspot blog from Kouklacarolyn.com on WordPress. I’m looking for something easy and fairly low maintenance. And it didn’t help that I started having major issues and was looking at the prospect of doing a lot of research to get it fixed again. I don’t want to spend more time maintaining a blog than actually making artwork. To me, that just defeats the purpose as the whole reason why I started blogging is to push myself to create more artwork.
The above pen and ink and watercolor wash was done for my 2008 Christmas card. I based it on a reference photo on WetCanvas which I cropped. I’ve never made a Christmas card before even though it is something I’ve been wanting to do for a few years now. I wasn’t sure how to reproduce the drawing so I just got 4 x 6 prints done at Walgreens. It actually came out really good and then I stuck the photo on a red blank greeting card with those photo mounting corners. I even bought silver and gold Pitt pens. I am feeling so crafty!
