100 Days - 100 Dreams: 21

I complain because I have "no time" to draw.
Today I am finding time.
Because my heart needs to Draw.

Subject: Small cast resin polar bear

Art Supplies:
Prismacolor colored pencils
Strathmore Toned Gray sketchbook (5.5" x 8.5")
Black pen

The eye and arm are tentative. Yet one must begin.

The more you look the more you see. And,  yes, I decided from the start to make notes on the drawing. This way I don't feel pressed to create something that might be matted and framed. This practice is for PRACTICE. Learning. Relearning. Sort of like a musician practicing scales and fingering.

I was listening to an interview with Pema Chodron. Her "smile at fear" was worth the time. I am not good at smiling at fear.

This is as far as the drawing is getting tonight. It is not finished. I will keep at this bear until it has no more to teach me. Then I will draw another bear. Or a red leaf. Or a fork.

The subject is not as important as the drawing.

(To be continued.)

Fare-thee-well,
Sue

www.suerowe.com
Facebook Page: Sue-Rowe-Studios

Greetings-

First - Thank You, Veterans!!

Now, on to "lighter" stuff.

Polar On!

Taking up a page in a Strathmore Toned Gray 5.5 in. x 8.5" sketchbook and stealing a pose from a real bear's image I start with a quick scribble with White Prismacolor pencil.

Just to see how the pencil plays with the paper. Sort of "slippery" and sliding on the "medium" tooth of this surface. Not as catchy as I'd hoped, but, what the heck, let's move forward.

Staying with white pencil I blocked in shape of bear. No real thought of real finished drawing. Trying to channel polar bear. Trying to channel polar bear. These bears are large, lanky, fast, and heavily-furred. Drawing to convey bulk and weight. And design. Polar bears are very well designed for their environment. Dense, yet Streamlined. Ears lie very close to head; not the large furry loops seen on black bears. Scribble scribble.

 Now, playing with adding bulk, shape, and a bit of shading. Because I seldom want to convey my bears as realistic beings I am more concerned with getting a spirit in the piece rather than making an exactly anatomically correct drawing. These bears aren't really loose collections of bones twirling in  white fur bags - but I sort of like to think they could be. On to some color!

A little bit of this. A little bit of that. Playing with graphite pencil; Violet, Cool Grey 30%, Lemon Yellow, Olive Green, Poppy Red, Crimson Red, Coral (Prismacolor). Playing playing. Working to get sense of Warm Sun playing across right side of head and most of body. Changing shape of mouth from source image. This is one Calm but Happy Basking Bear. Scribble scribble. Starting to see where the yellow will go. Starting toward making bear's form more solid. Slippery layer upon layer upon layer.

Adding Black to the mix, and fun with Derwent Metallic pencils - Yellow and Purple. And. gasp!, Crayola Sky Blue. Why Crayola? Because it was the first medium blue my fingers touched while searching through pencil bag. (In addition to the pencils stored in the beautiful cloth pencil holder our daughter stitched up I have a few stashes of pencils kept in gallon-sized plastic bags. And two small stashes of really short pencils in old Altoid boxes. (Focus, Susan - back to main topic!)

More layering and pondering. A touch here a wonder there. Knowing that head isn't drawn EXACTLY correctly, but practicing not caring too much. Layer Layer Layer. Longer strokes. Shorter strokes. Experimenting with subtle areas. A few darker marks to lips, eyes, and ears. Lots more Yellow. Lots more White. More shorter strokes. Think "Thicker Fur. Thicker Fur." Trying to decide what my mission is which this bear. Words and sentences come to mind, but I do not add them to the drawing. Hmm. And didn't write them on a scrap of paper or in a notebook. This was probably a mistake. Always try to have a blank piece of paper nearby incase THE Idea strikes. I know that three or four useable sentences floated in and out of the brain. Bye bye, Ideas. But if you care to come back, well, this time I've got paper.

Here is what I decided was the finished bruin:

And, as with so many of my sentences, the above is a lie. Now this "final" photograph shows clear areas that can be improved. And they will be. but not right now. The day holds many other tasks. But this was Fun And Educational to me. And I hope that you learned something, too!

Here be Pencils (sorry, you few that got left out):

Fare-thee-well,
Sue

FB Page: Sue-Rowe-Studios
www.suerowe.com
www.artfairartists.com

Colored Pencil Possibilities

This 30 Bear Challenge came about because I needed bears and I needed 'em FAST. Well, not really fast - but soon.

Materials always at hand? Paper and pencils. Decision time... I love working on black paper. It makes colors vivd just by being.

Cheating? No. Knowledge? Perhaps. And the dancing bruins have been cavorting a bit much lately, so it was time for rest. They, in fact, would take a back seat, so to speak, in this piece. This was a time for Negative Space to shine!

Because I'm seldom smart enough (or too lazy) to do thumbnail sketches of possible compositions, I just grab a pencil and hope that an idea will come. Leaping into the dark end of the paper... Scribble scribble - come on bears. The composition begins on left and proceeds - bear by bear. No thinking - just shapes. It's an odd sized sheet - 7 1/2" x 13." I like working on long and narrow - in fact the very first original bear sketch I did was a group of bears drawn with graphite pencil on a long and narrow sheet of white paper. Remind me to post them someday?!?). O.K. - five bears will fit just fine.

At this point I don't care about perspective - just filling space with shapes. Truncated triangles with ears.   That's accomplished. Bring on that COLOR!! Go for The Glow! Starting again from the left side I simply grabbed colors that appear and I know should Pop. And with Spring and Easter eggs in mind - well - you can see where we're going. For a while I debated bringing range of bear shapes out into whole space, but that seemed safe and boring. Just MY thought. So on to the Fun of arbitrarily choosing and using those lovely Prismacolor tones. for some spaces I did choose  specific colors, but mostly, if a pencil yelled "I'm Spring!" it was in. Did erase a few bear lines, and each bear is mostly a solid color - deep green, indigo blue, dark red, etc. But the "atmosphere" was where the challenge continued. Some portions are a single color; others, three or four layers.

More choices/decisions?  Using ivory, white, or other bright colors to outline areas. Though often using  blended shapes I admit to being a frequent  outliner... Scribble scribble, blend blend. Final decision - float bear on right in color. why? Just because.

This piece might be a study for more "important" work later on, but for now it stands (sits?) on it's own as a new way for me to work.

Go for the glow!!

Check out my Sue Rowe Studios Facebook Page for previous 30 Bear Challenges? And maybe words or images to inspire your day? Happy Dreary Rainy Grey Spring Day here! This color is about as bright as today is going to get!

Fare-thee-well,
Sue

Back to Mr. Bossypants

Greetings on yet another Winter Storm Warning Day. Tonight the white stuff is pretty much done falling, but is by no means done being on the ground. At this point the plowed banks are high enough that it's getting difficult to see if traffic is coming at lots of crossroads.  "Life is dangerous." But we keep reminding eachother that we are one day closer to that mythical season called Spring. Yup. And daylight's staying till a tad after 6 P.M., so we do see the tinyest bit of hope. On to art!

For all you drawing types, I thought it might be fun to show the pencils used in the creation of "Mr. Bossypants." Through the years the Primsmacolor brand colored pencils have multiplied not unlike rabbits around here. Many were purchased at full price at art supply stores, but we've lucked into MANY at garage-sales, thus balancing out prices per pencil to a more reasonable amount. Last summer I lucked into a full little-used set of 24 still in metal case, for fifty cents. Have yet to put them to use, but it's nice to know that they are waiting in the reserves.

Here, again, is the bunny (phase 1):

He was blocked out, in outline only, with a regular old HB 2 pencil.

Pencils matching local colors on original photo were located in the pencil stash. Also, a mix of warmer and cooler colors to play with while layering. It's all about the layering.... (Note: see that slash of Indigo Blue between ears? At the time I'd THOUGHT it was the right tone to put down there. Wrong..., but even with numerous attempts at covering the area with more appropriate colors that blue would not be denied. LESSON: some colors cannot be second-guessed. Go easy with the cool colors at first, especially with a warm subject.)

On to the pencils used for "Mr. Bossypants." Unless noted, all are Prismacolor brand.
In no particular order:

*Indigo Blue
*Black Grape
*Plum (Pedigree/Empire brand)
*Dark Umber
*Dark Brown
*Sepia
*Sienna Brown
Yellow Ochre
*Goldenrod
*Bronze
*Artichoke
*Gingerroot
*Cream
*Blush Pink
*French Grey 90%
*French Grey 70%
*Warm Grey 50%
*Warm Grey 20%
*French Grey 10%
*White

Also, tortillions, or blending stumps, sizes #3 and #4:

I don'd often use blending stumps when drawing, preferring more often to use the pencils themselves. However, with this subject  these paper goodies were quite useful.

My thought on art supplies in general is: Use whatever you need to use to get to the result for which you are questing.

An artist does not need to have everything ever created in the filed in which you work, but it doesn't hurt to have a number of goodies on hand. I VERY seldom use those pokey things, but I was glad that they were waiting in the studio.





So, after layers and layers of the above pencils blended with the above stumps, and a few trips to the mirror, and conferring with husband and daughter, and looking at photo to make more and more  similar shadings, the bunny known as "Mr. Bossypants" came to be. Most pencils seem hardly to have gotten any shorter, though they were sharpened early and often. Blending stumps were sanded down from time to time. And, yes,  a hunk of trusty rubber eraser was put to use a time or two.

And here, once again, is the final bun-neh in all his flat furry glory:

Yup, that Indigo Blue is still haunting me... Oh well, lesson learned? Hoping so!

And, Yes, it's time to get back to the bears. And hoping for Spring!

Fare-thee-well,
Sue