Happy Birthday to Adrianne!

Not much to say here.  I liked the photo my daughter took of her and her new adopted dog.  The challenge was trying to get the close up view of the dog to look identifiable.  A lot of pencil strokes later...  In fact many more than I anticipated having to do I got the look I was after, but I might have to tinker once I study it for a bit.  I just finished this and you know how it is.  I'll see something that isn't right and need to go back in.

It's been bothering me that I haven't done a finished watercolor yet.  I want to get that done today, but time isn't on my side.

Across the Street

This is a clearer picture of the sketch I originally posted

Zach. More drawings

Still didn't get much of a better shot, but this shows pretty much the whole drawing.

This Blog is difficult to work with at times.  I wanted to enter this post quickly because I have to go to work.  My usual process is to enter the Title, upload the photo, go to Post Settings and attach labels for the search engines, and then type  my Blog.  I will add a caption in the photo as I think about it.  However, I've noticed that when I enter a caption for the photo before I blog, It won't allow me to exit the caption mode and type in the Composition field.  That is what happened today.  I had to re-post this whole thing.  Now that I'm out of time, I can only say this about the actual drawing.  I did this for my buddy Zach for winning the Season Championship in the Golf Club we belong to. (Sounds expensive, but its just a club that allows you to play around the NW with other golfers).  It started as a sketch, but turned into a rather successful drawing.  I spent some time with the shading, building layers with the 2H, HB, 2B and 4B pencils, but the paper and my patience weren't quite adequate to achieve more of a seamless, 3 dimensional quality.  I will take a better photo of the drawing, and re-post this when I get a chance.  Part of the drawing was cut off in my haste to get this done today.
Overall, I'm very happy with the drawing, but eventually, I want to work with Graphite and better paper to get more of what I'm after.  More later...

Adlai Sketch

First and second stage of the drawing

Click here to Enlarge Drawing

I decided to stop here on this sketch.  It became apparent that I was not going to capture the likeness entirely so it's time to move on to the next thing.  I'm happy with this as it is, but somehow he looks heavier in the drawing than he really is.

Adlai

I woke up early to get something done this morning.  I was able to start this sketch of my friend Adlai Alexander playing guitar at one of his concerts.

Hospital Parking Lot Study

First let me say that this picture is from a movie scene.  I was not imposing on someones private moment.  I saw this scene in Junebug, and wanted to capture the intensity of the moment.  In my rush to get it on paper, I ignored the obvious compositional challenges.  Had I been more deliberate I would have printed out the picture from my camera and composed it before proceeding. Instead I used the digital frame to paint from, and couldn't get my lines correct.  

And now I realize that I've just confessed to taking someone Else's idea.  This solves the question of whether I should try another more finished painting of this scene.  If I were to succeed in bringing this to the paper it would never be completely my own.  So I will probably move on and take what I learned from this.  I think it works in segments but not as a cohesive piece. At least as a study.  Lastly, I'm relieved that I found some time to get something done.  I had to get up at 2:30 AM to do it...but I did it.

Study

By the way, I have yet to  watch the entire movie, but it looked good. About an Art dealer trying to sign an eccentric painter from the south.

Sketch for Night Scene at Woodstock Park

First sketch for WNS

I started this sketch weeks ago after I posted the night scene reference photo.  I thought I should post it because I've found that action can give me a little kick start. I used my daughters Oil pastels for this.  I found them to be cumbersome to work with because I have trouble blending them.  I know I'm not using the right paper or technique, but I much prefer traditional pastels.  I plan to pick some up this weekend.  I don't know what happened to the huge stash of pastels I had years ago.I used to keep them in a little brief case.  Must have been tossed out when we moved.  That surprises me because I hate throwing out art supplies more than I hate throwing out old shoes. One might think I grew up in the depression era the way I save old crap....but I digress.

Ongoing Struggle

This has begun to resemble a self portrait.

I'm still struggling to get this current project done.  It has hampered my ability to paint freely because of the time constraints.  The timing of this project was unfortunate, because my schedule had changed and I got very busy.  Add to the fact that I haven't done a commission in a very long time and, well...  maybe the expression of angst in this attempt is a reflection of my own in getting this finished.  It was supposed to be a smile. Oh, and not to mention I thought I had it nailed down awhile ago and had to completely retool.  I keep coming back to certain images no matter how I try.

Old Cartoons from 2009

One thing I don't like about the Templates, is that I cant find a way to write above the photos I have already posted unless there is type in place, so it ends up as a caption like this comment here which ends up looking unbalanced....

   I'm still working on the commission, so here are some old caricatures from 2009. 

"The Grab" drawing for 49er fans.

I decided to draw a picture of "The Grab". 49er faithful will know what I'm referring to.  It took me some time to get the logistics right.  I may or may not go into further details with the process.  It was pretty straightforward.  Get the angles and dimensions correct and go from there. This panoramic photo sort of shows the progression.  And here is the final, or close to final drawing.

MOVING FORWARD: Lecia and Adrianne at Sauvies Island

First I have to say that this photo doesn't show the entire piece, but in order to get the details to show, I had to leave out part of the sky.  (I purposely avoided cutting the landscape in half in the actual drawing).
This last Tuesday I underwent surgery to repair my hernia.  I knew I would have the opportunity to get a fair amount of drawing and painting done.  So I took on another watercolor on Wednesday. It did not go well.  I was disappointed in my effort,  so much so that I didn't even want to post it.  This gave me cause to evaluate my ability to construct and execute paintings satisfactorily.  So on Friday I looked up a photo I had been wanting to paint from the moment I saw it. ...The photo for this drawingwas taken by my daughter Grace at Sauvies Island last year.  Grace has been able to capture some great scenes on camera, and I think this is one of her best.  In fact, both of my daughters have a very good eye for photography and I have added some of their photos to my list of potential pieces. (I am going to use a clause in my personal creative contract here that allows me to use anything my immediate family has photographed as  reference material). anyway...
I decided to literally go back to the drawing board in order to re-establish my  fundamentals. The first effort was Charlie Neal.  A good start, but not entirely satisfactory.  And now about this drawing.

Charlie Neal

A couple of weeks ago I asked my nephew,   Frank, (Charlie Neal) to send me a photo that I might use for a painting or drawing.  He sent me two, and this is the first one I chose to do. I am trying to focus in on fundamental drawing with attention to composition and value.  After somewhat of a grueling session, I was able to finish this drawing.  I would have liked to work a little larger because some of the details were hard to work on. The drawing itself is satisfactory, but I was not entirely happy with the likeness. He is manning a  50 cal. , one of my personal favorites.  By the way that's not the barrel in view on the right although it might appear that way.

Drawing. Angle and Perspective

Adrianne's Mischievous Self Portrait

I'm not sure why I came back to draw this reference photo. Some time ago I attempted to do a  watercolor of it, which turned into the "Green" painting ...