Upon Reflections and the Wunder Grid

One of the things I enjoyed most about Liz Steel's online course, Sketching Foundations, was that she really encouraged people to look at their own work and reflect. Many people chose to post their work to the Flikr group, an option I resisted, knowing that I would spend way too much time looking at other people's work and comments. I wanted to spend my time drawing and painting. None the less, Liz gave feedback on each of the 12 lessons based on the work she saw posted by her students, so I was able to benefit from her general comments and more importantly, reflect on and apply the comments to my own work.

As much as I believe that everyone has to develop her or his own style, I do think that, without some reflection, it is very easy to keep doing things the same way, making the same "mistakes" and not really progressing much. So looking at my own work, I could see that I often chose organic subjects at close range that could look wonderful even if they were drawn and painted inaccurately. I love a flowy, spontaneous look with splashes of watercolour. All good.

I also noticed that I usually avoided scenes where any complicated or accurate perspective was involved. I  know that a big part of my motivation for drawing and painting is to record things as I travel. I want to be able to urban sketch and paint on location, either at home or on the road. I know in my head, that learning to see as an artist, in a visual or graphic way is important but I have often felt that I really struggled when I look at a complex scene and try to figure out how it all goes together.

All this to say that Liz's lessons on using a variety of tools and methods to quickly (or slowly) set up a sketch, proved to be revolutionary for me. And I don't say that lightly. Using watercolour pencil set up lines, measuring by squinting and holding out the stereotypical pencil to the scene and most importantly looking through a clear plastic grid has set me on the path to much improved perspective. I can honestly say, I feel like I can draw anything now.

So let's be real here. Setting up a grid in my sketchbook and looking through a plastic grid at a scene is very slow and, at times, torturous. I literally look at the scene, down at my book, back at the scene and so on for minutes on end.  I truly feel like I am reteaching myself to see, as it relates to lines on a page. As slow as the set up is, I reach a point where the watercolour pencil sketch literally reveals itself to me and I put the grid down, draw with  my ink fountain pen and very quickly get to the part I love most, the colour. Once the hard work of the set up is done, the ink and colour are just a gas! The other lovely side effect of the grid is that it is a great tool to help with composition and framing. Bonus.

I have to admit that my sketches are a wee bit on the tight side, but I am not worried at all. Once I get better at the set up, I have every confidence that I will get faster, more fluid and freer. But for now, I'm so loving the feeling of being able to look at any scene and feel like I can have a go.

So here are the latest works. Thanks Liz Steel!
http://www.lizsteel.com

Kitchen in Watercolour

Living Room

Living Room in Coloured Pencil

Where've Ya Been, Girl?

Well, to be honest, I've been abstracting shapes, feeling edges and trying to teach myself to see as an illustrator. In short, I've been taking Liz Steel's online Sketching Foundations course, from Australia no less. As a TVless, flip phone toting luddite, I have to say I love the internet. Instant connection with cool people doing and teaching fabulous things all around the world.

So here are a few examples of Liz's lessons on abstracting shapes and feeling edges. These were done on fairly crumby paper so the watercolour did not take too well. The idea was to look at still life items in terms of seeing shapes,  relationships of shapes  and spaces between shapes rather than seeing recognizable objects.

A New Class - Revisiting Basics

9B Pencil and Wash

Ink and One Colour Highlight

I've just started a 12 week online course by Australia's Liz Steel called Sketching Now. In the first lesson, she has us re-examining the materials in our kit and working on some basics. This assignment was to draw the same still life twice, once using pencil and a matching monochrome colour and ten again straight to pen with just one colour focal point. As much as I love colour and pen, I was surprised how much I enjoyed the smooth flow of a 9B pencil and the exciting dark shadows in paint. Quick, wonky, fun and satisfying.

Shrivelled Rose Hips

We have had a remarkably warm and dry fall this year. (I heard with horror that it snowed in Calgary today!) This morning,  I got up to the coziest yellow glow in the house as the sun shone on all of the brightly coloured leaves in my garden. The witch hazel stands directly in front of the kitchen window and casts an unearthly glow on our table. And the burning bush in the courtyard is as fluorescent red as it has ever been. And the big leaf maple leaves at the back are sailing down for their 5 seconds of freedom and glory.

My favourites continue to be the tree peony pods with their huge glossy black seeds and of course the rose hips, now all shrivelled and cratered. Originally they were a luminescent orangy red but now they have dipped into the deep purple red and, in places, almost black range.

A Small Diversion - North Shore Celtic Ensemble Concerts

The North Shore Celtic Ensemble has been a big part of our lives for the past number of years. My daughter has played her fiddle with the group since she was in grade 5. She is now in her final year and we are also celebrating the 15th anniversary of the NSCE with the launch or our new logo. The poster design is based on our new logo and we just love it.

If you are in this quadrant of the globe in late November, come to the concerts and help us celebrate this amazing group. 

Hope to see you there!

Inspiration Melanie Reim Style

Waiting in the ferry line in the rain.

I signed up for another unit of Danny Gregory and Koosje Koone's online Sketchbook Skool. The theme this time is storytelling. Each of the 6 instructors talks about and shows their style and take on this theme. This week's instructor was Melanie Reim, a New York artist/illustrator from the Fashion Institute of Technology. I found her crazy lines and flowing attitude to drawing very appealing. She is particularly interested in people, gesture and communicating stories in lively places where no one stands still! So in the spirit of line and people, I gave it a whirl. 

Brigit relaxes with a book by the fire.

Humans on the beach…..

….and surfers

Tree Peony Pods

I can see from the file where I keep the scans of my drawings that I am fairly obsessed with tree peony pods. I have lots of variations on this theme. It is something about those super shiny, grape sized black seeds emerging from the split in the pod that I find fascinating. At first, the pods are soft, fuzzy and green, but as they dry, they go through various colour changes, from green to yellow to red to brown and finally to a hard crusty black. I just love them.