Daily Sketches

I'm getting so many done that I'm not even posting the super-crappy ones.  quantity = success :)

 Waiting for Ethiopian food.  yum.  Jesse is getting more tolerant of my sketching on date night :)

 Forshortening is a b*tch

 Library Story Time - I often avoid drawing people - but I love drawing the backs of people - they don't know I'm drawing them, so I don't feel self conscious.  And I don't have to do those tricky faces.

 My bag - with a minimal color approach.  I might get the hang of this water color thing someday :)

I didn't feel like drawing this day - but I had the time so I made a small box on the page to fill.  Over the fence at my son's school.

Nature Walkabout Lab

I was kicking myself for putting this lab off until the weather turned :)  but I lucked out and today was lovely - it turned out to be more of a playground walkabout instead of a nature walkabout - I couldn't convince Jonas to leave the playground to go on a hike with me - until it was time to go home for lunch and then he threw a giant fit because he wanted to go on a hike.  yes.  We are at that age.

But I found lots of nice naturey things near the playground to draw.

This lab appealed to the alternate-reality-scientific illustrator in me.  I love tiny little details.  I am done with fine tip sharpie pens though.  Bleeds too much.  As soon as I have some spare cash I'm going to the art store and buying a REAL PEN.  It will be exciting.

These are also the last 2 pages in my sketch book.  I started it in May and now it's November and it's all filled up.  I don't think I've ever filled a sketch book in less than a year before.  Of course it helps that it's thick paper - so it's only 40 sheets, but I've also just filled a larger sized book that I keep in the studio for working out painting compositions and random drawings.

Sketches

I've been getting much better at sketching every day - I find myself sketching multiple times a day even.  I suppose the recent inspiration comes from the sketchbook books I've checked out from the library.  The Art of Urban Sketching and An Illustrated Life.  Both make me feel simultaneously intimidated and inspired.  :)

I've also finally set myself up with a "grown-up" set of watercolor paints.  So I'm working on that.  I'm still very frustrated with my efforts there. Someday I'll get the hang of it.

Travel Sketching

For the last 3-4 trips I've taken I've brought along a sketch book knowing that the travel sketching Lab was waiting there for me in the book and I was going to have to do it sometime.  And each time I've been too busy with trip stuff to ever pull the pencil out and actually sketch anything.   Well, we just got back from a 2 week road trip to NY and back - and I finally got a few sketches done.  I think it actually happened this time as opposed to other trips because I've built a habit of sketching already at home.  I didn't get a whole lot of exotic locals or anything - but these are drawings of places far away from me - however mundane they are :)

 quick sketches from the passenger seat driving through NY and PA in the fall - so gorgeous.

Lab 40 - Bugs

Somewhere in an alternative dimension - I am a scientific illustrator.  That is a good dimension.  :)

I didn't follow the instructions very well with this lab.  I was supposed to use the pictures for inspiration to create stylized bugs.  But instead I drew those bugs just like in the photo.  I tried to get a bit stylized with the line weights like they suggested.  And I invented the colors more or less.  But ya.  My alternate dimension self could probably figure out exactly which bugs I was looking at in my references.  So I skipped the cutsie make-up names.

But I also really enjoyed drawing the bugs.  :)

Sketch Catch-Up

I've been looking at other people's sketching blogs.  I have a long way to go.  But I've also found my next book that I'll be going through.  More on that when I get it from the library.

 For now, a couple of weeks worth of sketches.  I'm not getting in every day - but I continue to try to.

 Crazy dried seed pod thing from Antioch Park

The truck and tree across the street from Anton's Tap Room while I waited for Jesse to use the restroom on date night

 I went to listen to my friend Russell play jazz, and I drew the bass player playing with him.

 The trees at soccer practice

 The grasshopper that clung valiantly to our windshield for many miles on the drive to Omaha

 Geese and trees from Antioch Park

These branches were amazing.  All twisted and wonderful against the sky.  I wish I could have finished this, but Jonas was done with this sketching nonsense.

Flower Tutorial

Back to Drawing Lab!  I completed the flower tutorial - which I'd been procrastinating on.  And as usual on the ones I put off - I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.  I've never done watercolor washes over-top of a whole lot of pencil lines.  I was taught to do as few light lines as possible and build depth with the layers of paint - but I really like the look of watercolor over the shading and scribbling.  I still went with the kids set of Prang Watercolors for this (it's so much quicker to grab that than squeeze out little drops of my liquid watercolors and build a palate and worry about squeezing out too much and wasting.  Clearly I need to invest in some professional dry watercolors)  But I did avoid the washable watercolors this time.  And I skipped the Crayola colored pencils in favor of my nice Prismacolors.  So much better.  I don't know why I waste my time with the kids stuff.  (it's just what's always in front of me, because I'm often doing this with the kids ;)
I skipped the steps that involved paint pens, as I have zero desire to own paint pens, and I went light on the acrylic "highlights" at the end.  Wasn't feeling the "take it to a crazy place"that the last few steps seemed to want me to go.  So ya.  I'm happy with this.  It's a pretty flower.  :)

Another trip to the nature center

This week I drew more trees and Jonas and I went to the nature center.

My skills with birds still leaves much to be desired.  Especially since I really enjoy painting birds.  I drew the owl  in pencil then added Crayola washable watercolors at home while making art with my 2 year old.  I am beginning to realize that working with washable watercolors, well, sucks.  I need to make myself a small palate of real watercolors to work with while I'm with the kiddos. Trying to build layers with a medium that washes away when it gets even slightly wet is very frustrating.

After we drew animals indoors we went outside and I sat on a rock and tried to capture the various textures of bark on these trees.  But by this time J had had enough of my boring drawing business and was ready to run around, not sit still.  You can see the lines of frustration as I tried to convince him to just give me a few more minutes.  Rushing and frustration did not help this drawing at all.

Today at the playground he was more patient with me.  I decided to challenge my fear of leaves and actually go for a leafy tree instead of the half dead ones I usually favor.  My pencils were all dull and I've lost my pocket-knife so I went with a fine-tipped sharpie pen and it worked out ok.  I'm not much of a cross-hatcher usually, so it was fun to play with a different technique.

New Name

I've changed the name of this blog again.  I was watching 20 feet from Stardom and one of the singers mentioned "taking it to the woodshed" and I realized that's what I'm going for here.  Somewhere quiet and out of the way to practice this stuff, over and over again, until I have it down pat, so I can pull it out and use it whenever I need to.  So now the blog is Woodshed Art :)

And along those lines I've set a new goal to draw daily.  I've set this kind of goal before, but to make it stick I'm going to start with setting a timer for 10 minutes every day.  As Flylady says, I can do *anything* for 10 minutes.  (that's my mantra at the gym, might as well use it for art practice too.)  And starting with today I did a 10 minute drawing of these budding branches that I dragged home in the spring.  I keep them in a vase on the top of a shelf because I love the way they twist all over the place.  I only got one of the branches done in the 10 minutes, but I made myself stop when the timer went off.

And here are a few unfinished trees - I kept getting dragged away from my drawings by needy children :)  Now that school has started I hope to get to finish a few more drawings!

I knew when I was drawing the second one that I didn't have much time, and remembering my other unfinished tree, I attempted to sketch as quickly as possible.  Definitely a skill that I need more practice with :)

Sidewalk Crack Drawings

Finally got this lab done from the Drawing Lab book!  I was pleased when I realized that we weren't going to be drawing on top of the photos of cracks, but just using the crack photos as a springboard for our own drawing.  Then I ended up being very true to the photos. :)  I found this lovely wizard, but every time I tried to draw something that wasn't in the cracks it just seemed wrong.  This is a crack wizard and nothing else.  I still didn't capture him as well as the photo did.  But it was a fun drawing.  Then in another crack I found the goose who seems to be kissing another goose - but it's ephemeral - a reflection?  a ghost?  I tried to make the one goose look very solid and the other fade away.

Another Tree!

At Antioch Park - Jonas watched ducks and hiked around through the drainage ditch under the bridge while I sketched this tree.  The light kept changing as the sun went behind the clouds and I wanted to get those strong shadows - so I kept having to move around the drawing while I waited for the sun to come back.

I'm not particularly happy with my treatment of the leaves - There were a lot more of them than I got in here and the ones I have included look like goo blobs more than leaves.  Need to work on that :)  

First Attempts - "after"

I'm more than halfway through the book now - so I decided it was high-time I start to do some drawings.  Just from reading the book I feel like I'm already doing much better - though I still have much room for improvement.

 This is the tree and bush in my front yard.  Here I created a value sketch first (on the left, squeezed in on the page of very bad slide drawings from the playground)  From there I did the drawing on the right.  The approach of drawing a box on the page instead of trying to fill the page I got from the author - I love it.  Mostly because, especially in this 5x7 sketchbook, I can never seem to fit my drawing in - so even though I keep overshooting the box - I've still got room to grow.  Also leaves room for notes.  I used 3 different pencils here - HB, 2H and 6B.

I did this one today at the Nelson-Atkins sculpture garden.  Just a cheap #2 pencil from the bottom of the diaper bag - but I'm much happier already.  I feel like I got a fairly interesting composition, and my lights and darks are well balanced.  Those leaves look kinda ginko-y to me even.  But once I've got the hang of this nature drawing stuff I'll have to start working on my architectural drawing.  The building in the background looks like crap.  :)  Straight lines.  Why do they have to be so hard?!

Nature sketching - "before"

These are "before" photos.  Before I started reading the Sketching from Nature book.

This tree - I had no idea what to do with those leaves.  Minimal shading.  No background.  Pretty blah.

 

This is a drawing of the view out my front window last winter - which is a view of the empty lot across the street.  Which makes for a compositionally challenging piece.  There isn't really a focus - I started a touch of shading on the ground - then didn't like it and abandoned all attempts and putting in any values.

Sketching

My favorite drawing exercise so far from the Drawing Lab book was the zoo trip near the beginning.  I enjoyed it so much that I've repeated it several times whenever we've gone to the zoo or the nature center.  I realized that, while finding funny pictures in the swirly lines is great and all, I really want to work on being able to draw from life better.  I have visions of gorgeous plein air drawings.  So I did a quick amazon search and grabbed the first book they recommended (though I grabbed it from the library, because that's the way I roll) It's - The Sierra Club Guide to Sketching in Nature.   I'm loving it.  Just by magic it turns out to be written by a woman who lives in Missouri, so many of the sketches are of the landscape around me - handy!  I'm about half way through -- and so much of it is stuff that I already know - composition, line, value, rule of thirds, etc. etc.  But I'm loving it anyway, because, even though I know this stuff, it's good to be reminded about it.  The first whole chapter was just supplies.  And much like I will read through the list of basic kitchen equipment and cooking techniques in the beginning of every cookbook I buy, I read through this whole chapter.  Even though it's stuff I know, it's fun to drool over all the pencil types and conte and paint and colored pencil.  And there's always that little tip that I stumble across that I never thought of - like the author always sharpens her pencil with a knife instead of a sharpener.  She spends a few paragraphs describing how much better it is to do it this way (then of course tells the reader to do it however they want) so I tried it today - and she's right!  I love sharpening my pencils with a blade!  I'm never going back. :)

Anyway, I will include some nature sketches in here in the near future.  I'm hoping for great improvement :)

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...

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.

Persimmons and Peppercorns

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. :)

Doodling on Steroids

Doodling on Steroids, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

I listened to the Emergence RadioLab Podcast and doodled this drawing. This was a fun lab, as I enjoy doodling and I enjoy podcasts :) It was also nice to combine so many different drawing materials. I was pleased to discover how well pencils and chalk pastels and charcoal pencils work together. There is colored pencil and sharpie in there too.

Numbers game

Numbers game, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

I picked two numbers and the related words were Rabbit and Sunglasses. So then I got to think of a way to make that into a drawing. Sunglasses just wasn't doing it for me, so I made the sun come through the glass and my rabbit is jumping out of the way. I don't love it, but it was fun to play with watercolors.

I skipped the "drawing on steroids" lab because I'm really excited about that one, and I want to do it, but I just haven't found the right time yet. Today was not that day, but I needed a warm-up before I got down to real painting today, so I skipped ahead. :)

Paint Blob Drawings

Paint Blob Drawings, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

Similar to the random squiggly line drawings - make a paint blob, find the picture. This snowboarder was my favorite. Click to see the others on flickr.

Random Line Drawings

IMG_0529, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

Scribble a line and find the pictures. As I was working through this exercise I was anticipating working on redoing my website, which stresses me out a lot - I hate making websites. So these images came out rather stressful - it was rather cathartic really :) click the photo to see the other's on flickr

Paper Dolls

Paper Dolls, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

The final project for the Inspired by childhood chapter was making paperdolls - this project had a lot of steps, and I was tempted to just draw something in markers and cut it out - but I decided to go ahead and follow the instructions - and I'm glad I did - the marker to gesso to smudging watercolor pencil with a papertowel process actually turned out to be pretty neat - and while these are certainly not masterpieces - they were fun to make.

 Not having an iconic illustrating style like the author, I had a very hard time figuring out how I was going to draw these dolls. In the end I fell back to the stiff "my head doesn't really attach right to my body" style that I developed in college for costume design classes. So then they also ended up in funny costumes. I made a dad, a grandma/nanny, a boy, a baby and a pet fox and octopus. Jonas worked on this project with me, and, as usual, I think his paper dolls came out much better.  He chose to disregard the last set of instructions and finished his dolls off with watercolor. :)  According to Jonas the one on the far right is a helicopter.