drawing – Page 2 – Daily Fiber

Sketching Sunday and a Finish

Posted on February 16, 2025 by Laura Kate

My art association is planning to hold a second fundraiser by selling 6 x 6 inch artwork created by their members. To kick it off, there will be an open studio today. I want to support this worthy organization, so I will be participating again. Last year, I focused on small subjects for the small canvas. Going through my reference photos in search of suitable subjects, I came across this little sea turtle. It is something I dowloaded from Unsplash several years ago.

Cute and easy, I think. I like that the turtle has made it to the water’s edge. Just another little push and she will be launched.

To reframe it into a six by six size, I compressed the image and did this pencil sketch.

Today I will take this drawing to the art center and turn it into a watercolor painting.

On another subject, I managed to finish the landscape painting of a seaside cabin in Iceland. This painting was an exercise in water reflections.

Reference photo:

The weather is completely clouded over, so no shadows to paint. My painting:

It’s on a not-so-big piece of cheap watercolor paper (although it is 100% cotton.) So I didn’t fuss over the many windows in the cabin. I will need more practice on painting reflections, to get a more consistent effect over the entire water surface.

drawing

Sunday Sketching: Klimt in pencil

Posted on February 2, 2025 by Laura Kate

I’ve become interested in the landscape paintings by Gustav Klimt. As I learn more about his work, I came across this photograph of Klimt in his garden with a cat.

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/art-bites-gustav-klimt-cats-2444770

This research resulted in a quick pencil sketch based on the photo.

drawing

Sunday Sketch Colored Pencil

Posted on January 12, 2025January 12, 2025 by Laura Kate

For today’s sketch, I wanted to try to draw a photograph of a sunset that Bill took during our trip to Italy several years ago.

This is the view from Medieval Assisi, which sits on a hill well above the surrounding landscape. He had shared it with me during our joint “100 Day Project,” back in 2023. I had never quite finished making 100 pieces of art out of Bill’s photos. This one I had wanted to turn into an art quilt. I had even done a fabric pull in anticipation.

It seems like an impossible task when I think about it now. But the first step is always to get a good drawing, from which to make a pattern. For this drawing I used graphite and colored pencils.

There’s no way for pencil to get the lustrous glow of a sunset the way a photograph can. But I did manage to render the shapes reasonably well.

drawing

Sunday Sketching – Pencil Portrait

Posted on January 5, 2025 by Laura Kate

I’ve decided to do some sketching every Sunday this year. It helps me understand my subjects better and gives me an opportunity to work on values and composition.

Today I pulled up a photograph of AshLynn, my great niece. Her mother is a children’s librarian. Last July we were at story hour. I was snapping away with my cell phone and was charmed by Ashlynn doing an exercise called Flitter Flutter.

Waving her chiffon scarves while looking back at her beloved Grandma.

Ever since I have been wanting to render the scene in watercolor. My first step toward that goal is this quick sketch.

What are you working on these days?

drawing, Living Life Well, painting

This Week’s Work

Posted on November 2, 2024 by Laura Kate

I am following simultaneously The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron and Watercolor is for Everyone, by Kateri Ewing. Here are the exercises and practice paintings I completed since Sunday.