Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Random Pick

The next lab was the 'Random Pick'.  Making a list of 20 things that I like to draw was an interesting exercise in itself, I know I repeat themes a lot, but I found it almost challenging to think of 20 things I like to draw, because I often draw the same stuff over and over.  (Once I was done with the lab I continued my list and got it up to 47, so that was comforting)

Anyway, this drawing came from the following picks in this order: River, Fence, Cells, Leaf, Squirrel, Map.

Until I got to squirrel I was feeling kind of frustrated with my picks, because they were all kind of background stuff, I wanted a character animal thing for my main focus.  After I finished this and made my 47 things list I went to the random number generator and tried again.  This time I got: Fox, Spider, Grasshopper, River, Fence and Wolf.  Which was way way too many character animal things - so then I felt thankful for my original picks.  And also weirded out that fence and river came up twice.  I did a couple of quick composition sketches for the new picks, but nothing amazing came from it.  I might try this again though.  And maybe soon.  I'm kinda stuck for inspiration for my next painting...

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Machines

Completed the Machines Lab.  Since the instructions wanted you to draw from life, I chose an assortment of objects around my studio to draw.  When I went to turn them into machines, I realized that most of them could be considered machines already.  Oh well.  They are extra machiney now.  :)

I was vaugely annoyed to realize how similar my one with the scissors is to one of the examples in the book.  oops.  darn examples.  Messin' with my creativity.

I'm sure someone somewhere has invented the swiss army phone already - but I personally would really like to own one.

Wednesday, May 08, 2013

Persimmons and Peppercorns

IMG_0036 by Steph Toth Kates
IMG_0036, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

The next drawing lab was collage. I chopped up a Vegetarian Times and made this. So I've recently switched from oils to acrylics for my "real" paintings - and looking at the examples in the book for this lab - I realized that this means I can *paint* in my sketchbook now - which was a very exciting discovery.
This was fun to do - I secretly love doing huge messy fast painting - but I don't love the way it looks, so I don't do it often - now that I can paint on paper I'll probably let myself play this way more often. So the bottom layer is acrylic, then I glued in the collage elements and then added the bird and some texture using oil pastels. (also something that I love playing with, but hardly ever use - again because I feel the results don't look good enough, even though I love doing it. Have I mentioned that this drawing lab thing has been great in that way - I get an excuse to play with all the fun stuff and not worry too much about the result being "show able" It's really nice. :)