I was looking at a photo of the inside of someone’s house and I saw this saying on a poster on the wall. I did a little reading and found that it was on a British propaganda poster made just before WWII. Right now it is the perfect piece of propaganda for me. I seem to be very depressed lately and when that happens my usual tendency is to just mope around and do nothing. But this time, I have been trying to keep working on my art and trying to be as productive as I can. This weekend I’ve done more artwork than I usually do:
Magnolia, staedler pigment liners in kraft paper sketchbook, 2008
Guest House View, Dhanbad; dip pen and watercolor wash on 5×7 Strathmore watercolor greeting card, 2008
Onion Sketch (EDM 179), graphite in kraft paper sketchbook, 2008
Apple Still Life, Neocolor II crayons in 10×7 watercolor sketchbook, 2008
These are my offerings for EDM 24: draw a piece of fruit, and 91: draw an apple. I really tried to capture the shadows and reflected light in these sketches. I’ve begun to really like my kraft paper sketchbook and I’m surprised I have never gotten one before. I think working on tinted paper definitely adds a new dimension to drawing. In the above piece, I used my Neocolor II watersoluble crayons. About a year ago I bought a tin of 15 but I only used it once or twice. I really haven’t gotten the hang of it yet honestly. I felt like I spent most of my time scrubbing out the crayon marks with my brush and the wax congealed into little puddles that I wasn’t happy with. This medium will definitely take more practice for me to get really comfortable with.
Apple sketch, Prismacolor colored pencil on kraft paper, 2008
Tangerine sketch, Prismacolor colored pencil on kraft paper, 2008
Bananas Under Shrink Wrap, Black Pitt Pen and colored pencil, 2008
These are my contributions for the recent wrapped in plastic challenge. This was a very interesting and challenging challenge for me. Lately I’ve been intrigued with doing multiple drawings of the same subject/theme. I am more fond of the banana sketch because I like the black and white drawing with the simple yellow colored pencil. I could have gone crazy and done all kinds of shading, but I like the sort of cartoonish quality of this sketch. I tried to just suggest the plastic by doing a few lines and I think it worked out well. I didn’t put so much forethought into the other sketch. I had these taffies sitting on my counter for awhile and I just grabbed them and did the sketch.
I’ve been feeling better since getting my wisdom teeth extracted, although I’m still on a liquified diet. I can’t wait to be able to eat a real meal with lots of chewing involved!
Salt Water Taffies in Baggie, Sanguine Pitt Pens, 2008
Brown Paper Bag Drawing, graphite in 9×12 kraft paper sketch book, 2008
Brown Paper Bag Drawing 2, graphite in 9×12 kraft paper sketch book, 2008
These are my contributions for EDM 92: draw a brown paper bag. I had gotten this kraft paper sketch book months ago but I had never christened it until recently. I thought this would be a good use for it, because it is similar to the material of the bag itself. I did these in graphite and I spent quite a lot of time on them, although I could have spent quite a lot more if I wanted to be even more accurate.
The first drawing I did by first blocking out all the large areas of the folds and then lightly outlining all the areas of shadow. Then I filled them in kind of like a coloring book. In the second drawing, I sketched out the large folded areas first and then did all the nuanced shadows by observation, without first outlining them. I like my method for number 2 better because it was more fun in general and I don’t normally like a lot of planning. In both drawings I worked from left to right to avoid smudging the pencil. I do have a habit of skipping all over the drawing but I was very disciplined in these cases.
I have been doing quite a lot of drawing lately, compared to my usual standards. I am not sure how much I will do during this week though because I am getting my wisdom teeth extracted today and I’m not sure how I will be feeling.
Green salad, marker (5×7)
I just happened to be at my parent’s house yesterday and I was eating salad for lunch so I decided to wait a bit and draw it before I ate it. Normally I don’t like the idea of drawing a plate of food because it would get cold, but I didn’t mind with a salad.
Generally, I have only been doing small sketches these days, but I am happy with that because I have other things to worry about right now. I am hoping to do some more watercolors next week after my sister’s wedding when things are quieter.
I haven’t done an Everyday Matters Challenge in ages, but when I saw this one, I immediately thought of this bell and wanted to draw it. I have to say, this isn’t my usual style and I almost never touch pastels but this was an experiment all around. The bell isn’t really blue—it is a bronze bell that my mother has had for ages. But since I was experimenting with the medium, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to experiment with colors as well.
This is the first drawing I have made in awhile. I have just been so busy lately that I’ve forgotten about my art, which is discouraging for me. But soon I will be done with school and I am really looking forward to that. I did this sketch for the mother’s day card I made for my mom. I have some artificial sunflowers in my bedroom and I drew those because it has been raining way too much these days. Once it stops raining I hope to go outside and do some more sketches of real flowers.
I drew this last week one night before I went to bed. During the week I sleep on the couch at my grandparent’s house and I had all my junk on the coffee table. I was reading Karl Marx for one of my history papers and I had all kinds of notes strewn about, as well as my water bottle and my purse. I was thinking of Everyday Matters Challenge #9 when I drew this. The topic was “organized chaos” and chaotic is definitely how I am feeling right now. I have a month left of school before I graduate and I still have a bunch of things to finish. To keep myself feeling sane, I have all my assignments on a big list and I cross things off as I complete them. At least then I feel like I’m accomplishing something.
After getting all mopey this afternoon, I decided that I’d better do something, even if it was just a sketch one of the everyday matters challenges. So I decided to draw the magnolia tree in the front yard for edm challenge #59: signs of spring. When the flowers on this tree start to come out, I get cheered up because I know it is going to start getting really warm. (One year, the tree started budding in November because it was unseasonably warm.) I used my new Caran d’Ache Neocolor’s, which are really like hi-tech crayons. 
I wanted to see what they were like with water so I smeared some on with my fingertip. It was kind of fun and I can’t wait to do some more stuff with them. I dug through my childhood sketchbook and I found this drawing I did of the same tree back in 1998 (I was fifteen!). Looking through my old sketchbook was enlightening and I could see a definite upward progression in my skill level during the two years that I kept it. It was encouraging to see that I was improving even then.
I’ve been fascinated with self portraits ever since I learned about Rembrandt when I was in grade school. I have actually done quite a bit of them in the past (see the bottom of this post for links). These two drawings were for Everyday Matters challenge #56/57, but I usually draw self portraits when I don’t have anything better to draw. 
I pulled a chair up to the dresser mirror and sat there to draw these. It was kind of uncomfortable, but the best I had at the time. I look very different in each one though—I think my mood changed or something. Since I didn’t have a lot of art supplies with me, I did these sketches in ballpoint with no pencil whatsoever which is why my proportions are a little off. Truthfully, I am happy with how they came out considering that it’s damn hard to draw self portraits in the mirror. I can feel myself improving with each drawing I make though. For the past few weeks I have been making a huge effort to draw every chance I get. I am happy that this effort is paying off.
Here are some more examples of my self portraits: my first decent sp, drawn in 2001, nose and lips, from a different angle, drawn in shadow, just my mouth, just my eyes, just my feet, with eyes closed, sideways.
