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

100 Days - 100 Dreams: 3

DREAM ABOUT CUPS ~~~~~~~~

A few years ago I needed a new way to think about drawing and writing. Sketchbooks aren't "precious" to me, but they mean "work." If you looked through my sketchbooks you might not think this, but this is so.

Tin Bins is an all-purpose eatery in downtown Stillwater, Minnesota. It's built within an old grain elevator. It serves lovely pastries. And good hot beverages. My daughter and I started spending many early mornings there. I began to amass a stash of tall while paper "to go" cups. I would use these to water plants, as paint brush holders, that sort of thing.

One day - no, I have no memory of "why," I decided that the PAPER these cups were made of was too good to waste. Taking a scissors and trimming top and bottom I then pressed the Once-cups under a Plexiglass sheet on my work desk. Ta da! Strange partial disks ready for whatever might happen.

What happened is an on-going accidental project. Because the paper is not a rectangle, and is just a junky old cup, my brain feels more able to play with whatever I'm using to cover the surface.

Here are just a very few:

See? It's O.K. to admit to mistakes! It's O.K. to draw lines just to see what happens! Maybe to Dream a little landscape.

Another:

And another:

Yes, many hold words of personal motivation. That's peachy. I need a mild command more often than I'd like to admit. And if it comes from a flattened cup so much the better. But some are more artsy. You never know until one is finished!

There is a small box filled with these objects now. I've shown them to a few people. Some are impressed. Others - not so much. LOL.

It doesn't matter. The cups, well, not Not-cups now, have their own power and reason for existing. They have truly been re-purposed.

A small dream is to present them in an informal exhibition. I have not thought this though at all, but I know that putting the cups on view might suggest people look at common objects in an uncommon way. Or to show how one thing can turn into another thing, simply by looking at it from a different perspective.

Tea or coffee, anyone? One sketch, or two?

Fare-thee-well,

Sue

www.suerowe.com

Facebook Page: Sue-Rowe-Studios

Drawing Challenge - Day 1

German Shepard Dog in straw hat. No problem - ha!

She started out with lots of straight lines. Robotic.  And the eyes from her photograph glowed a strange tan and light blue-green. I kept debated whether to add those colors - just for fun. Still deciding.

As with many sketching exercises, one must try to decide when to stop. Yes,  the drawing, erasing, drawing, thinking, changing, figuring, drawing, smoothing, adding little details could go on for days. Seriously.

One must decide how much Time one is willing to put into an Exercise.

This took perhaps a couple of hours - off and on.

I learned to look at noses again. Bear and dog noses are much alike AND oddly-shaped.
I learned to add and subtract.
I learned more about shapes and values.

 Not enough, but a start.

Working with a simple Number 2 Graphite Pencil takes one back to basics. Pressure and easing up equal Darkness and Light. And, yes, this day the trusty rubber eraser was used early and often. This was "I have no pride day." This was Trying to "Remember Some Rules About Drawing Day."

And the habit of writing notes stays with me.

I'm starting to like that nose. It gave me fits. You do not know.

And whether this will become a Finished Drawing I still don't know. But it IS a drawing, and that's what counts.

Fare-thee-well,
Sue