Turning a Bad Photo into Good Art

The image above is not a good photo.  The lighting is dull, and there's too much clutter distracting your eye from the beauty of the creek snaking through the hilly woodland. 

Yet, photos like this one still have an artistic purpose.  They make good reference photos for art, especially when it's too cold to sit outside and draw in person!

I started with a sketch of the main elements in the scene, and began adding in areas of color.

The photo was taken just before 6" of snow fell, so I wanted to get the white-gray appearance of the sky. 

I turned the pencil on its side to create a soft, uniform area of color for the snow clouds.

With the sky and the icy creek laid in, I began adding detail to the woods - the weeds & grasses on the forest floor, the distant trees, and the details in the tree trunk on the left.

I stepped back to study the composition, and felt it needed more vitality on the right hand side.

I added in the wobbly tree on the right, and am happy with the sketch. 

As the artist, you get to decide what you include in a drawing.  You can edit out the parts you don't like and add in bits you prefer. Choosing to draw the parts of a scene that inspire and excite you is more fun, and creates a better drawing.

Happy Creating!

Choosing the Right Colors

I bought myself a new set of Derwent Drawing Pencils.  The natural colors and high quality are what drew me to them (and the fact they were on sale).  I've been looking for more colors from nature.  I always seem to reach for colors that aren't in my box of pencils.

The day they arrived, I got out white and tan paper and swatched the set, noting in my mind where I had seen each color out in nature: the earthy red of the blueberry twigs, the olive green of winter grass, and the sage green of lichens on fallen branches.  Everywhere I walked, I saw the colors of these pencils repeated in nature.

Overall, these colors are more muted than most of my colored pencils. 

Here's a close up photo of blueberry twigs, a lovely match for the autumn red pencil.

And here's my sketch of the twig and some opossum tracks in the snow.

Opossum tracks always charm me with the little thumb sticking out at an odd angle.

I stopped by my neighbor's house, and got to meet her charming horse, Axle.

The earth tones --woodland, chocolate, apricot & ruby earth-- mixed with white and black expressed the wintry scene and beautiful Axle.

When I can't find the exact right match for a color in my kit, I look for two or more pencils that come close and mix them by coloring one over the other(s).  

Repeat this process until you get the color you're looking for. I mixed Prismacolors in poppy red, Tuscan red, Crimson red & white to try to match Derwent's autumn red (the color at the very bottom). 

When you feel like you want to create but don't have the energy or time for a full drawing, swatching the colors you see is a great exercise.  Simply pick a couple of colors you see around you or in a photo, and try to replicate them with your colored pencils.  

A perfect match is not the goal! 

Exploring is.  

Experimenting with colors will move you ahead in your observational drawing skills.  You will begin to notice nuances in the colors you see around you.

Happy Creating!

Holiday Illustration Workshop with La Scarlatte

I've been feeling inspired by artist Pauline Teunissen, 

who calls herself  La Scarlatte.  

You can find her on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/@LaScarlatte

and on Substack here:https://lascarlatte.substack.com/

I joined her for a Substack workshop on Thursday afternoon entitled Drawing Winter Botanicals.  We drew and illustrated holiday-themed plants like holly, mistletoe and juniper using Neocolor II crayons.  You can see a replay of the class on LaScarlatte's "Creative Coccoon" Substack.

Pauline shared these reference images from Unsplash (https://unsplash.com/), a source of free photos for creatives.

It was delightful to sketch plants in a community of other artists and to learn tips from Pauline.

As we sketched the Mistletoe, she pointed out that if we followed the natural branching pattern of a plant, we could invent our own designs to suit the composition.

It was inspiring to follow Pauline's technique for using a collection of reference photos and combining them into one composition.

If you feel inspired by these photos, I hope you'll create your own drawing!

Happy Creating!

Osher Figure Drawing: Cowgirl Rising

Recently, my Osher Lifelong Learning Institute class at CMU was fortunate to get to draw model Robin.  We took inspiration from artist Donna Howell-Sickles, who creates mixed media paintings of cowgirls.

Robin took on the role of Howell-Sickles' cowgirl in her poses, expressing pluck and strength.

My class experimented with using bold colors in our artworks, as Donna Howell-Sickles does in her paintings. And we practiced drawing a 4-minute gesture of Robin's long pose on newsprint before creating our final drawings on good paper.

Here are David's drawings, first the 4-minute gesture:

...and his final drawing:

I love how he used his red pastel to dramatic effect.  Using a color in more than one spot in your composition helps to connect the elements of the artwork, creating unity.

Many thanks to model Robin for an inspiring drawing session!

If you'd like to see more of Donna Howell-Sickles' art, check out her website here:

https://www.donnahowellsickles.com/

Happy Creating!

Nature Journal Update: Colored Pencil Drawings

Here's a flip-through of some recent nature journal pages, from hikes in the woods (above) to sitting at the breakfast table (below).

What we draw we connect with. How could I be anxious when I am connecting with my sweet, snoozing cat?

Nature journals are great for recording discoveries -- like the page above remarking on my discovery of a place on Hawk's Hill that reminds me of a favorite place I used to sketch years ago.

I hope you take the time to make some sketches and written observations in your nature journal!

Happy Creating!

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!