Last night I watched the Fine Living channel and drew another version of the chrysanthemum. I outlined the shapes with sepia pitt pen and then colored the whole thing in Prismacolor. Later on I that night I couldn’t fall asleep so I put in the blue background and sure enough I was able to sleep. It was nice. I had the weekend off which was very interesting. I was pretty active all weekend and spent a lot of time out of the house. Not working weekends anymore will take some getting used to although I think my lifestyle will be better off for it because I will have more of a routine and a better sleep schedule. Tomorrow I have another day off so I hope to spend a few hours working on painting. I want my life to become more colorful in general.
I had a day off from work today so I took some time to do a little painting. The person I got this flower from called this a “dandelion” but I’m not positive that that is what it is. In any case, I think it is beautiful and I am going to do some more sketches of it. I started off by drawing the outline of the flower petals and leaves with dip pen and then I filled in the spaces with gouache much like kids coloring in coloring books. I painted this on a Strathmore watercolor card so I will be able to send it to someone. I think I was subconciously influenced by the art of Elizabeth Perry (woolgathering) because the outlining reminds me of her work.
Update 9:26 pm: My mother tells me this is a chrysanthemum.
Ruggles has been sick lately. Here are some sketches of him as he was sleeping:
I don’t normally wear heels. In fact, I have never even bought anything like these shoes until a few weeks ago. Needless to say, since I have never owned a pair I have never drawn one either. It really threw me for a loop and I had multiple mess ups before I even got to these two sketches. I never thought that something that looked so simple would be so tough for me to draw! I am happy with how these came out considering, although I think the pen and ink sketch looks very immature with all the outlining.
These days I seem to be so stressed out that I’m having a harder time drawing than when I was in school. I’ve been trying to carve out a little time day by day to do some sketching. I have a day off coming up so I’m hoping to dedicate a few hours to some painting…
A few days ago I went to a Mexican restaurant with Jeet and I wasn’t very hungry so I just picked off his plate and talked. At the end of the meal I took my sketchbook out and started sketching some of the objects on the table. It was super dark in this restaurant and I could barely see what I was drawing, so I think I did a pretty good job. The waitress was pushy and I was concerned that she would clear everything off the table before I was done, but I managed to get everything down by the time she left the check. I haven’t been doing very much sketching lately so I think this was good progress for me. I’ve been feeling that I’m losing practice and I can notice the difference in my speed and confidence. I left the restaurant feeling like I had done something even though the rest of the day wasn’t very productive.
My mother got this rose at church a few weeks ago and I took the initiative to draw it in various orientations on different days, until it withered. It was just an experiment to see how I would draw the same subject differently. I think I like the second one (in graphite) the best. Interestingly, that sketch was the most rushed of the four.
My grandfather celebrated his 80th birthday last week. When I was in Hartford over the weekend I made him this card. Jeet and I have gone to Elizabeth Park a few times last semester and I have always wanted to draw this bridge and pond scene. It turned out pretty well considering that I didn’t make a pencil sketch underneath and I did this very quickly. A big African lady was standing over my shoulder for some time watching me draw. She thought it was so amazing and she showered compliments on me. I have never come across anyone who was so vocal about their praise and it actually felt kind of good.
Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I didn’t have any of my work scanned and I couldn’t even use my father’s scanner for some time because he is rearranging his office. Also, I went to Milwaukee over for the Fourth of July (it was fun) so I wasn’t around. I finally bit the bullet and got a new scanner, the Epson 4490 Photo. I like it so far but I haven’t gotten a chance to play around with all the cool features yet. I scanned this drawing using someone else’s scanner and it looks really small on the thumbnail, but you can click on it to see more detail.
