Discovering a Cityscape

The above is my attempt at exploring an exercise we did in the first creative drawing class this session.  The assignment was to draw the topline of a cityscape across your support paper. From that line you were to continue drawing and painting and design your own cityscape with the use of line, value , texture and shape. 

I drew the entire cityscape on drawing paper with graphite, first. I used drawing paper from my sketchbook.  Because I was intrigued with Amber’s crumpling of regular paper, here, I decided to crumple my drawing and then glue it to watercolor paper.  I then painted my city scene. I had read that I could draw on tissue paper with waterproof ink and glue that to a painting and decided to try it with this piece. The window and the figure were drawn on tissue paper and then glued to the surface of the cityscape. Whoops! I tore it in places. Will need to be more careful in my glueing process in the future.  I think I could have encouraged a few more tears, however, as they may have been better incorporated into the painting that way.  Once the tissue paper dried, I painted on top of that surface, also. This layering, crumpling, painting is really opening a door for me. Such fun!

“Hold That Tiger”

This week my creative drawing class is working with distorting a grid to discover how they can create something different and unique. This is done, first by gridding a photograph with equally spaced lines, vertically and horizontally. When they begin on their support paper or canvas, they distort the same number of vertical and horizontal lines as they used on the reference. Their next task is to figure out how to place the image being transposed into their newly created grid spaces. I chose a tiger as my reference and changed my format size to long and narrow. My grid included curved as well as straight lines and my resulting distorted grid drawing looked like this:

The artist can choose to include the grid lines in their final piece or erase them and go with the image. This drawing became this:

And because I could not resist, how about a little “Tiger Rag”?:

Have a great weekend!

Indiana: The Black Walnut Tree

The above painting is of a huge black walnut tree that sits at the top of the long driveway where I painted last summer. It towers! All the branches, pictured here (even the upright one on the right), are the same tree. I stood off to the side and took the reference photo for this painting, looking upward.  There are branches that have broken off and branches that seem strong and full of life. Makes me wonder what this tree has been through and the changes to the surroundings while it stood. I hope to try a portrait of the entire tree in a vertical format some time in the future.

Painted on crumpled and toned masa paper. You can learn how to do this from a previous post here.

New Student Art

By Dianna Burt

By Jane Knipscheer

By Jill Scott

The above drawings were rendered by three of my students during their first week in beginning drawing. They are examples of blind continuous line drawing.  I have mentioned, previously, that I have a soft spot for drawings of this nature.  I think it is because they reveal to us that we can actually draw, each and every one of us, if we try to “see” and “feel” the edges of our subjects.  I like them because they are the beginning of many artists’ journeys.   They speak a simple beauty.

I have posted some new artwork created by my students and fellow artists in this last six weeks on the Student Art 1 Page here. They are from two classes.

 One class was beginning drawing. We studied continuous line, cross contour, negative space, perspective, texture and value.

  The second class was titled Creative Challenge which was a study of composition. We discussed and worked on developing a center of interest. We discussed elements of good composition in regards to the figure and portraiture as well as still life and landscape. We also discussed attracting attention with the use of repetition, simplifying, exagerration, movement, emphasis, and contrast.

By Dave Bogenschutz

Thank you to all of my students for allowing me to post your work and for sharing your special insights and talent with me!

Echostain’s Blog has just featured an artist who uses her continuous line drawings in her finished work. You can find this post here.

Indiana: Roadside Trees

My Granddaughter received a camera for her birthday. I have had the joy of teaching her to use it and take pictures of things she sees. Recently she went on a trip with her Mom to visit one of her Great Aunts and took her camera with her. From her seat in the car, she took a series of pictures of trees along the roadside. I asked her if she wanted to delete them. She said, “No Grandma. They are beautiful. They are our trees!”  I thought about that for awhile and decided that I had forgotten a time when I lived for a little time in the southwest. I remember missing the trees and the smell of the damp and the shadows the trees created on a landscape. I remember returning to this area and all I could see for awhile were the trees. This looks like much of Indiana along the roadsides in the country, here.  There is a simple beauty to the trees year round. I would have to agree with her. They are beautiful.

I painted the above scene on masa paper. I did not do a drawing, first. I just painted what I saw and felt from the discussion she and I had.  I wonder if her visions and thoughts about the trees she sees prompted the painting she did a few weeks ago:

Makes me wonder.

Nocturne

I am still exploring masa paper, so new to me.  I took the reference photo for this painting the night I was trying for a photo of Biskit.  I was drawn to all the overlapping shapes. He was sleeping on one of those cat stands, suspended in dreams.

I have probably broken every guideline of watercolor while I painted this by using the white and muddying the tree trunk. I did not mind at all and just let this painting lead me.