A fellow yoga student has asked me to paint portraits of her dogs. It’s to be a Christmas gift for her husband. This week I worked out the preliminary drawings. I haven’t had the privilege of meeting my subjects, so I am working exclusively from some photographs.
Here is Daisy:
Daisy’s canine sibling, Reggie:
It was pretty fun making the sketches and I’m almost happy with the results. There will be a few tweaks when I do the final line drawings that will get transferred to the watercolor paper.
Today I am pondering a painting subject that illustrates wintertime. Pretty quickly I settled on the humble chickadee. It is an ever curious, constantly moving little bird. Today our backyard chickadees are flying back and forth from the tube feeder. Each bird selects and grabs one sunflower before darting up to a tree branch where it consumes its quarry.
Fortunately for me, Bill has shared two photographs of chickadees suitable for my planned painting. But working out a composition that uses both birds is not coming easily to me.
Chickadee 1.
Chickadee 2.
My first try at a composition is awkward and unsatisfactory to me, so it won’t even get shared. I decided to make ink sketches of these two photographs, which will get them familiar and warm me up to the task.
On an 8 by 8 inch piece of paper, the little chickadee, which measures barely 4 inches, can be drawn at its full size. First, I worked out the placement using pencil, then inked the contours lines, adding value with various types of marks. My sweet subjects, black and white IRL, were rendered with ease.
This one is very curious indeed.
This one is demonstrating his love of sunflower seeds.
My two chickadee drawings are numbers 42 and 43 in the 100day project.
Now I need to figure out a scene that will serve as a setting for the two birds.
Earlier this year I shared some work made following a tutorial taught by Montreal artist Shari Blaukopf. She is an urban sketcher and watercolorist who offers a wide range of online lessons through Teachable. Today I finished painting A French Village Scene, which is the final lesson in her course by the same name.
https://learn.shariblaukopf.com/courses/
The challenges were multiple: perspective drawing, sketching in ink, and completing the scene with watercolor.
Here is Shari’s reference photo. She took it while teaching in France this year.
I labored over the perspective drawing for 2 or more hours. Perspective drawing doesn’t come easily to me, and I wanted my work to be believable, if not 100% accurate. When satisfied, I inked the important lines and erased the pencil marks.
I was forced to take some liberties with the scene, because my paper was not proportional to the original. Mine is wider.
I did most of the painting before our Thanksgiving trip to Wisconsin. Returning home, I was keen to finish this and get it off my workspace. Other projects, both started and planned are stacking up awaiting my attention.
Here is my (almost) final painting.
It’s a truism, at least for painters, that they must take some time away from a work before deciding that it is finished. So that’s what I will do. Even looking at it now, I see a few areas that need more work.
It feels like months since I worked on the 100 day project. But I have new inspiration that pushed me into making a sketch today.
Bill took this photo earlier in the year.
I have no idea how he got our grandson to pose AND to smile. There must have been a story to go along with this image. I’ll have to ask about it. Anyway, the photo touched my heart and motivated me to get out my pencil, eraser and Micron pen.
Here is my initial pencil sketch.
I worked on it sporadically over a few days, trying to get all the proportions and subtleties of the face accurate.
Today I inked my lines, refining shapes as I worked.
I used number .05 and .005 Micron pens, adding light hatch lines to indicate contours and shadow. The boy has a multitude of freckles, which I felt unable to render with any degree of delicacy. So, you get to see Henry freckle-free.
I believe this drawing brings me to Day 41 of the 100-day challenge. While I feel no particular urgency to reach 100 pieces of art before a year has passed, I’ll continue to plug away at the project. Bill continues to offer up excellent photographs for my artistic consideration.
I have been busy painting dragonflies on my hand-painted backgrounds. The process is really fun! I have also been researching dragonflies. They are amazing animals.
Did you know that some dragonflies can live for six years? That is pretty good for an insect. Granted, up to four years are spent as naiads, in water. They look kind of like shrimp. Adult dragonflies have six legs, yet they cannot walk. They use their legs to snatch prey in flight, which they then tear apart and eat while still flying. If you were the size of a fly, you would find dragonflies terrifying.
So far, five of my panels have dragonflies on them.
In addition to Jacquard textile paint, I am using watercolor pencils and Micron pens. The paint is thinned with FolkArt floating medium, which permits better blending and lengthens the drying time.
Here is a mock-up of the quilt layout I’m considering.
If I go with this layout, the finished piece will be 28 x 36 inches.
Two more panels need dragonflies, and then I will consider painting some details on some of the backgrounds.
Daily Fiber 