Balls

Dot Peeps

Earthquake damage inspection. Dots crawling up and down an icon. “She’s kind of an old lady . . . but she’s doing great.” 

Wait. "She"?

Pear on Rock

Tiny Speck of Rock

You. Must. Watch.

Herr Spachtelmasse

This is about 7-1/2" x 7" and is done with modelling paste, gouache, watercolor, and ink.

Talking Lady

Getting closer and closer to actual likenesses. As opposed to caricatures. This is progress.

Why waxia.

This is done with PR Velvet Black ink using a shredded bamboo stick that I picked up "down county" a few months ago. I dribbled in some Dr Phil Martin's Bombay India Ink, in Terra Cotta, which is some pretty scary gooey stuff.

I am inspired by the exercises and images in One Drawing a Day, by Veronica Lawlor (2011). This book gives you permission to make a mess.

Eta’m chik chuplinik

This is about 6-1/2" x 7", done with gouache on old crumpled Rives BFK paper.

(The sketch underneath: a Pentel Aquash waterbrush filled with Nooder's Lexington Gray "bulletproof" ink.)

Critical Response Process

Choreographer Liz Lerman's Critical Response Process is INTERESTING.

Details are in her book Liz Lerman's Critical Response Process: A method for getting useful feedback on anything you make, from dance to dessert (2003)
 
The Process engages participants in three roles:
 -- The Artist offers a work-in-progress for review and feels prepared to question that work in a dialogue with other people.
 -- Responders, committed to the artist’s intent to make excellent work, offer reactions to the work in a dialogue with the artist.
 -- The Facilitator initiates each step, keeps the process on track, and works to help the artist and responders use the Process to frame useful questions and responses.

The Critical Response Process takes place after a presentation of artistic work. Work can be short or long, large or small, and at any stage in its development. The facilitator then leads the artist and responders through four steps:

1 Statements of Meaning: Responders state what was meaningful, evocative, interesting, exciting, striking in the work they have just witnessed.

2 Artist as Questioner: The artist asks questions about the work. After each question, the responders answer. Responders may express opinions if they are in direct response to the question asked and do not contain suggestions for changes.

3 Neutral Questions: Responders ask neutral questions about the work. The artist responds. Questions are neutral when they do not have an opinion couched in them. For example, if you are discussing the lighting of a scene, “Why was it so dark?” is not a neutral question. “What ideas guided your choices about lighting?” is.

4 Opinion Time: Responders state opinions, subject to permission from the artist. The usual form is “I have an opinion about ______, would you like to hear it?” The artist has the option to decline opinions for any reason.

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Lerman, Liz, and John Borstel. "Liz Lerman's Critical Response Process." Contact Quarterly 33.1 (2008): 16-20.

(adapted from Unlocking the Classroom, 2009)

Cucurbita incognita

Scary feet!
Scary feet!
Scary feet!

My new favorite bass player

Diego Stocco and his Experibass.

Like the Rube Goldbergian aspects of this. Bravo, Diego!

Have some fun, why not

I very much enjoyed my workshop this past weekend: Contemporary Scripts: Lettering for the 21st Century, with Mike Gold. Interesting!

It was hosted by the Washington Calligraphers Guild and they were a good group! All very encouraging and welcoming and patient with me and with the one other noob in attendance.

Mike Gold is a charming man and an expert teacher. He is the senior lettering designer at American Greetings (the five hundred pound gorilla that challenges Hallmark for total domination of the Earth) but pursues more creative challenges in his spare time. Thus, this workshop.

My favorite part of the weekend was watching Mike's eyes and face as he stared down, first, at a big blank sheet of paper and second, how he responded to/answered each partially done line or mark. He was constantly reassessing and rethinking and re-planning as he went, continually reacting to the line he had just made, eyes darting around. It was a delight to see this process in action.

The other interesting part of the weekend was watching how the accomplished calligraphers in the class dealt with (or didn't) the challenge of getting loose and intuitive and wild and crazy. 'Wild and crazy' does not seem to be a part of your standard calligrapher's skill set. Are we surprised?

In any event, for my piece at the top (12" x 20") I started with an enormous Chinese sumi ink brush to make the big fat marks. I finished it with some very spidery and thin lettering in the crook of the "n". (Yep, that's an "n".) The sumi brush is a nifty object and the marks it makes are nearly alive, all on their own. I really want one of those brushes but cleaning it is absurd. (How do they do this in China? Are they left sitting in the ink? Dunno.)

The bottom piece (10" x 14') was made quickly, standing at the table (rather than sitting down), using a ruling pen and some skanky brownish black ink+watercolor goo I had mixed up. It was the last thing I made, and hurriedly, on Sunday afternoon. Go figure.

Tool Report: Kid Palette

Portability? Yeah, I guess so!

I found this kid palette at Plaza Art and remembered reading about in on RozWoundUp, on one of her palette pages. It's called the Jack Richeson Mini Watercolor Set 8.

So I snagged one (shoulda gotten five of 'em), took it home and soaked it until the pigment pellets that it came with were soft enough to dig out. I then filled it with some DSmith tube paints and let them "set up" over night. (I put eight colors in. Roz gets eleven by putting three more in the slot between the circles, where the microscopic brush originally snapped in.)

Anyway, the following morning I had a new carry-around-every-day toy to play with! Keen!

The Kid is also available from Wet Paint Art here. The closed dimensions are about 1-3/4" by 2-1/2".

The pix below show The Kid with my other two travel/sketch palettes.

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Orange El

This is in my new Clairefontaine Douceur de l'écriture Papier Velouté. N'est-il pas grand?

Jugs in German

This is 11" x 2" and is done on a scrap of Stonehenge "Kraft" color paper. I am using Pilot Iroshizuku Kiri-same ink ("Autumn Shower") grey ink in a pen rigged with a "fude" nib. And for the color I am just beginning to use the new Schmincke Horadam Aquarell pan watercolors. So far I really am enjoying these because of their opacity. Almost perfect on the Kraft paper. These are more like the opaque wc pencils and more like gouache than they are like my good ole DSmith watercolors squeezed from the tubes. I like the Schmincke pans very much so far.

Me and Andy, and Andy

This sketch is about 7" x 7" and is done with wet watercolor pencils on Stonehenge "Kraft" paper. The original is a glazed terracotta panel entitled Madonna and Child with Cherubim, made by Andrea della Robbia circa 1485, and donated to the NGA in the 1930's by Andrew Mellon.

Character and Personality

Begin by selecting people whose movements are lively and animated. Don't draw just anyone who crosses your line of vision. Instead, single out those who strike you as being interesting characters. Observe a single figure; take him or her apart mentally and imagine what kind of a person he or she is. Then decide whether or not you like the look of the person. Whatever your reaction, accept it and use it as the basis of your illustration. This approach will enable you to effectively define and convey the character and personality of your subject.

So says Paul Hogarth in Drawing People (1971), Chapter 3: Drawing People in Public Places, p. 23. The image is from that chapter and is entitled Mid-morning tea at Bentley's, Westmorland Street, Dublin 1969 and is delightful.

Me too.

Wednesday's 'Daily Drawing' from Chris Piascik. Says and shows it all for me, particularly that yelp exiting the "I". Yowzer.

Pot o' Cranesbill

This is about 5" x 7", done with wc pencils and gouache, on Stonehenge "Kraft" paper. Simultaneous musings are blurred out. "Do not adjust your set."

Map Art Extraordinaire

Isn't this great?

See more of Ingrid Dabringer's map art here.

She explains it here.

Barnes Salute (and RIP?)

Here is an interactive and narrated tour of four rooms in the Barnes Collection in Philly PA, by the NYTimes. It's one of the most remarkable museums around. It closed last month, in preparation for it's move to its new digs downtown.

SETI Blinky

Nose Swan in Kansas

This is about 5" x 7", ink and watercolor pencil and gouache on S&B Delta paper.

Punto Com

This is about 5" x 5", pen and ink and gouache on Stonehenge "Kraft"
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Wordplay. Keep these in rotation: absolutely, all, all in all, altogether, comprehensively, consummately, entirely, exactly, exclusively, flat out, full blast, fully, in toto, just, perfectly, quite, thoroughly, top to bottom, unconditionally, unmitigatedly, utterly, wholeheartedly, wholly

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