November Landscape on Black Paper

Out on a walk, I snapped this photo.  The dark shadows, the sunlight in the forest, and the bright foxtails in the field all drew my eye.

I chose Strathmore's black Artagain paper to capture the dark, shadowy evergreens and cherry trees.  I find that working on toned or black paper makes it easier to express the brightness of winter grasses and weeds in the sunlight.  It's fun to shift gears and look at drawing the world from a different perspective -- keeping the darks and adding in the lights.

Here are a few tips for working on black paper:

1. Start with a sketch using a light colored pencil, and use a gentle touch!  It's common to make changes early on in a drawing as you're laying things out, and pressing down hard on the colored pencil makes it harder to erase.

2. Pick out the parts of the landscape that interest you the most.  You don't have to draw everything!  Simplify the scene and be expressive in your drawing. 

3. Step back often!  Even 5 seconds of holding your drawing at arm's length will help you see the big picture.   You'll see areas that might surprise you with their beauty, and also areas that you want to work on.  

Stepping back early will help you include the parts of the scene you feel are important, so you don't end up wishing for a paper stretcher!

4. Use a black colored pencil to create fine, dark lines -- like the small branches against the blue sky. It's easier to add fine lines back in than to work around them in the negative space.
 

I hope these tips help you.

Happy Creating!

Weekly Planner: Collage Papers

A friend recently gave me some beautiful art papers. For this week's planner, I combined some of them with a test piece of watercolor paper that I had used to try colors out on.  

I love the wild & free splodges of colors on test papers, and try to reuse them in other projects. The colors on this piece of paper matched the art papers I had chosen.

I love how laying out the colorful papers immediately transforms the blank page!

My advice when working with collage is to quickly pick out a few papers that appeal to you.  Don't overthink it!  Then lay them out and glue them down when they start looking interesting to you.  Don't try for perfect (it will never happen!).  

I glued my papers down with the heavy duty Yes! Paste, but you could use a glue stick or your favorite paper glue.   All that was left was to add the days & dates.   

 

I hope you have a happy Thanksgiving if you celebrate it!

Happy Creating!

Using Color in Your Compositions

A fruit bowl is the classic still life study, something familiar and easy to begin drawing.  

I created this demonstration for my Pencil Drawing: Colors and Shading class the other day as I ate breakfast at the kitchen counter.

I used Strathmore Toned Tan Mixed Media paper, and started with a light sketch using colored pencil, slowly correcting mistakes and building up areas of color and tone.  You can still see the lines in blue on the bottom of the bowl where I tried to erase but couldn't quite lift the marks.

We've been talking about the color wheel in Pencil Drawing class, and about how boldly color opposites, or complimentary colors, contrast and catch your eye.  Violet and yellow, green and red, blue and orange all are color compliments, and they seem to brighten each other when placed side-by-side in your art.

For instance in this sketch, I find the contrast of yellow-green and pink invigorating. 

I used purple shadows in the bananas to contrast with the yellow. The purple shadows seem to make the bananas brighter and more vibrant.

We've also been playing with layering one color over top of another.  I laid in a warm red over the cool red of the apple in the center. 

 Color can seem daunting at first with so many options, but playing with complementary colors in your drawings can be a fun place to begin gaining experience and confidence in working in color, and a still life is a great place to play with color.

Happy Creating!

What Do You Love?

 The best artworks we create are the ones that are made from inspiring subjects.  Drawing  the things you love to look at & that make you feel inspired, is the fast track to feeling energized when you draw.  As a result, you create drawings you love!

It's a worthy exercise to take a walk in nature and say to yourself, I love ... 

...the way the low autumn sunlight slants through the forest, lighting up the last of the colorful leaves.

...the way the rain makes tree trunks look dark, especially against the orange and golden leaves of oaks and hickories.

...the way I can see the burnt sienna tail feathers of the Red-Tailed Hawk when she soars in the bright sunshine.

...the way the wind catches wild cherry leaves and sends them sailing in the blue sky.

...tiny things like little mushrooms growing in a forest of moss.

Your list may vary wildly from mine, but it's worth it to take the time to make your list, even if you simply state it to yourself.

Your list may change over time, so it's worth your time to repeat this exercise.

I encourage you to make a list of the things you love, and then use that list to suggest ideas for artworks when you're looking for inspiration.

Happy Creating!

The Love of Tiny Things in Nature

I find myself drawn to the tiny things in nature like small flowers, acorns, insects, & fungi. 

I spotted these beautiful shelf fungi on a recent walk through the Widlflower Reserve at Raccoon Creek State Park and snapped photos with my phone.

Back in the studio, I made a light pencil sketch on a piece of watercolor paper, using the photo above for a reference.  I added layers of washes.  After the first washes were dry, I added some pen and ink marks with my fountain pen

I added more watercolor details using a small round brush.  And, I used a bit of white gouache for highlights here and there.

I finished the 5"x 7" painting with a few colored pencil details.

Realizing that tiny things inspire me helps me to focus my art on the things I love.  

I enjoy hiking in the park, snapping reference photos.  The paintings I make back at home feel like a celebration of my time in nature.  They capture a memory of a place I love.

What do you love?  What inspires you? 

I hope you paint or sketch it to deepen your enjoyment of it.

Happy Creating!

Sun Prints

This fall when I was out hiking, I collected leaves from trees, ferns and weeds. Back at home, I pressed them in books to flatten them.  I tried to collect a variety of shapes and types of leaves to use in sun prints, also called cyanotypes.

Below is the two-part mixture product I used to make my sun prints.  

The process takes a bit of preparation, requiring you to add distilled water to the powder in each bottle, then wait 24 hours for the mixture to activate.  After 24 hours, you mix equal parts of Part A and Part B, stir it up and paint it onto whatever you want to use for printing.  

In this photo, you can see examples of paper cyanotypes I made.

After trying paper sun prints, I bought some 100% cotton napkins and painted them with the cyanotype mixture.  

You have to let the mixture dry before printing, and you have to do all of this in dim light, away from the sun.  I set up a painting station and drying rack in my pantry and kept the napkins in the dark while they dried.

Finally, I was ready to make sun prints!  

I laid out a napkin on a drawing board, arranged the pressed leaves, and put a piece of glass over the top to keep the leaves from being blown away by the wind.

After 20 minutes in afternoon sunshine, this is what the napkin looked like.

The cyanotype mixture changes color from yellowish green to bronze in the sun.

The final step is to rinse the print in cold water, which will set the print so it is no longer sensitive to light.

You can see the yellow-green mixture washing out from the areas that were covered by leaves.

You rinse until the water runs clear, then hang up your print to dry.

Here are two of the four napkins I printed.  As time passed, and the afternoon sun moved closer to the horizon, I had to expose the napkins longer, up to 30 minutes.  But I could always tell when the napkin turned bronze in the sun that the print was done.

You have to be careful when laundering your cyanotype fabrics not to use bleach or detergents with phosphate.  Also leaving them to soak too long can wash out the blue dye.  Hand washing is recommended.

But that's worth it for the thrill of creating things for your home that reflect the beauty of nature!

Happy Creating!

Fall Leaf Study

Fall leaves are terrific subjects for sketches in your nature journal.  They're fascinating, but limited in size so you can spend some time in the details without feeling lost.

Here's one I drew on a recent hike in the park.  I'm always picking up nature treasures like acorns and leaves. Halfway through our walk, we stopped at a spot with a convenient picnic table where I sat and sketched.

I started with a pen sketch.  It was a little wonky and imperfect, but I just kept drawing.

I added layers of colored pencils in canary yellow, goldenrod, burnt sienna, sepia, dark brown, grass green, black and white for the veins.

 

I invite you to take a walk in nature, find a small treasure or two and make some sketches.

Give yourself the gift of time spent admiring the beauty of nature as you sketch.  It's a satisfying way to slow down and absorb the calming effect of nature and your own creativity.

Don't judge your drawing as you make it.  Simply focus on what you see, and let your hand follow your eye as you draw.  

You're not a camera!  Your job is to make a sketch, to explore and experiment, not make a "pretty picture."

Slowing down makes the experience more calming and pleasant.  You'll notice more, too.

Happy Creating!

Playful Inspiration

Like a sketchbook, this little weekly planner is a place where I can experiment and play.  

Often a color and a texture -- like a watercolor wash in ultramarine blue -- is the starting point for an entire double-page spread.  As artists exploring possibilities, all we need is a starting point!

I have been walking by a grove of sassafras trees every day, and have felt inspired by their bright, flaming leaves against the blue sky, their twisted limbs dancing among the foliage.

The things that catch our attention and inspire us show up in our art when we play.

After the watercolor washes dried, I added days and dates in ink and filled in the main events of the week.

Aside from ultramarine blue, I used yellow ochre, and a mixture of azo yellow and alizarin crimson for the sassafras foliage.  The limbs are a mixture of ultramarine blue and burnt sienna.

What has been attracting your artist's eye lately?

What medium, colors, & textures interest you?

That's all you need to start an experimental sketch.

Happy Creating! 

Nature Journal Update

I've been working in this nature journal lately, loving its brown pages.  

Brown pages have a magic trick that lets you use dark and light media to show highlights and shadows, quickly creating depth.

Here's a flip through of my journal over the last few weeks. On this page, I used colored pencil, ink and watercolor to sketch a colorful grove of sassafras trees.

Autumn is a great season for collecting treasures from the land and bringing them indoors to sketch.  I picked this apple from one of our trees.

Maple keys and squirrel-chewed hickory nuts make interesting bits to study.

I taught a nature journaling class for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in October.  We went out on campus and found loads of things to sketch.

And in my favorite park, Raccoon Creek State Park, I found a quiet log in the woods where I sketched this lake scene.

Even indoors on cold days, you can make observations in your nature journal. This is an entry about moving my potted plants indoors for the winter.

The trick to filling pages in your nature journal is simply taking the time to sit and observe what's going on in nature and your life.  

Use any art material you like, and record what's interesting to you.

 Happy Creating!

Late October Nature Walk

What a beautiful day for a walk in the park!  David and I hiked down a familiar trail. As usual this time of year, I was drawn to fallen leaves, to finding one with beautiful color, & interesting details.

I didn't have the time to create a longer, more finished drawing, so I decided to simply sketch the hickory leaf with a black colored pencil. How satisfying to map out the stem and follow the curves and toothed edges of each leaflet.  

I especially love the nibbled parts and the bug holes. They give the drawing a sense of reality and individuality.  These broken bits are a record of the leaf's growing season and tell its story. 

The trail was gorgeous on this windy day -- I soaked in the last flush of autumn color as we head into November.

Here's a sycamore leaf for you to draw if you like, complete with bug-chewed holes and other interesting spots!

You can also take a walk wherever you are and collect a few small natural items to draw. Find a park bench or other comfortable spot to sit down and really look at your items.  As you sketch, you can look at the details that tell its life story.

Happy Creating!

Using Homemade Ink

Several years ago, I made ink from the hulls of black walnuts I gathered locally.  You can read about that process here:

https://betsyblissart.blogspot.com/2023/12/making-black-walnut-ink.html

I've been playing with homemade ink, using a dip calligraphy pen, and I'm getting the hang of using this old-fashioned, low-tech writing and drawing method.

Like gathering wild herbs for tea, slowing down to write & occasionally dipping the nib pen into a bottle of ink brings me delight. I feel a thrill of inspiration as I scratch away with my pen.  

Maybe the next step will be trimming a goose feather to make a quill!

What type of art material brings you joy? It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks of your favorite art supply, only what you think.  Test out supplies in your collection that maybe you've overlooked. Find the ones that create a little spark of excitement or a sense of newness.  Let your intuition guide you into using your newfound art supplies.

If you'd like to make your own Black Walnut ink, this is a good time of year for roving in parks and woods. Seek out Black Walnut trees and you're likely to find the nuts around the base of the tree.  When they first fall, they are lime green and smell almost citrus-y.  As they age, the outer hull softens, flakes off and turns dark brown to black.  You may find piles of the hull pieces left by squirrels who feast on the nut inside.  I recommend using gloves to collect the black hulls as they stain whatever they touch.

You can read more about the process I used to make the ink here:

https://betsyblissart.blogspot.com/2023/12/making-black-walnut-ink.html

Happy Creating!