Decisions, Decisions

Art is really about the decision-making process. It's amazing how many different ways a piece can go and still work, but what a finished piece communicates can be so varied, so disparate, depending on the decisions one makes during the process.





SWAK
Graphite on Bristol Board
November 2008
Source photograph courtesy of the lovely Kerianne.


The decisions I made concerning this piece are as follows:

*I needed some pieces for the 9X12 Works on Paper show coming up. So the choice of ground was pretty much well-decided since everything for that show either had to be on paper or made of paper. At this point it was just a question of which paper. I chose Bristol Board because it's sturdy, it was white (I have drawing paper, but it's a creamy-white, and I was planning on this being a graphite piece, which is another decision right there), the vellum surface wasn't too textured for my pencil work, and most importantly, it was what I had available right here. Funny how that works out.

*I wanted a large margin of white surrounding the finished drawing to act as an ersatz "mat". None of the pieces in the 9X12 show are to be matted and/or framed -- they just have to fit in a 9X12 envelope. There's a LOT of work hanging in the show, so having a good-sized border around the image would help to draw attention to it by giving it a bit of visual "space". It's very easy to go into sensory overload at the show, especially since everything is hung very close together. This, of course, gave me a size limitation which leads to my next decision --

*I really, really dislike the thought of folding up my artwork to stuff it into an envelope, so naturally, the piece was going to fit onto a 9X12 piece of paper, minus a generous border, which meant that 8X10 was out, as it would not give me the space I desired. I also wanted it to kind of be a more standard-ish size for ease in subsequent matting and framing. I chose 5X7, almost arbitrarily but not quite: I have a 5X7 template from some scrap Bristol. Having these templates to draw around makes it very easy to figure out where the edges of your piece are supposed to go, and I highly recommend them.

*Given the limitations already decided upon (small size, graphite drawing), I decided I wanted a more intimate piece. I personally believe that drawings tend to be a bit more intimate than paintings, especially smaller pieces. When I saw the original source photo I ended up using as a reference for this piece, I knew I had to draw it, and this provided the opportunity. Given the small size, I had also knew I had to crop in quite a bit, so I knew I'd be homing in on the incipient kiss. The source photo has a beautiful sense of emotion to it that I hoped to distill a bit by narrowing the focus to where one almost couldn't see the faces. I kind of wanted a sense of facelessness overall, just capturing the very lowermost portions of their faces, but I couldn't get a good crop that would exclude the boy's eye, keep the girl's nose, and maintain that gorgeous negative space between the two. In retrospect, I could probably knock off about an inch from the top and the right side for an even tighter crop, but what's done is done. Although I still have an eraser . . .

*And a very quick, tiny sketch, approximately 2" tall and 3" wide. Not very proportional to the final piece, but it showed me the approximate placement where I wanted everything to go. Emphasis on "approximate".





*I decided to lightly cover the picture plane with a light layer of smudged graphite so that I could work up to the lights (by erasing) and down to the darks. Interestingly, a large section of the girl's shoulder shows this layer, illustrating how much I did have to go either way to get the lights and darks.

*I really liked the soft, lost edges occuring at the boy's chin as it recedes into darkness, so I definitely worked to emphasize that.

*The last decision actually came as something of a surprise to me: originally, I just wanted to have a dark section of negative space between the two faces. That's it, just a dark shape against which their features would pop out. But as I worked on it, I considered having a couple/few spots that were slightly lighter, to indicate a fall of hair. I waffled back and forth on it while I worked, and finally decided to go ahead and do it. Now, honestly, I think it could have worked either way, but when I did it, DAMN! It really made the whole piece fall into place, giving it a great deal more intimacy than it originally had, so I'm glad I did it.

*Title: I really have a preference for either short, one-word titles, or very, very long, almost-complex sentence titles. I wanted something succinct, since this is a small piece, and perhaps indicative of the sense of closeness, of the incipient contact about to occur. Unfortunately, the best I could do was "SWAK" (translation: Sealed With A Kiss). Either that or "Ohhhh, What's THAT Taste Like?", which is a line from the film Drop-Dead Fred, and I really didn't think it would communicate quite what I wanted. (Although, if it had been up to my husband, he of the dignified look and puerile sense of humor . . . let's just say that there's a reason why I no longer ask him for help with titles.)

All in all, it was a pleasant road to travel down, and the results please me. Would that all my decisions were this easily made!

Welsh Police Helmet

I've been a little busy recently, but here's something that I've just finished for the upcoming 9x12 Works on Paper Show.




Derwent Drawing Pencils on black Strathmore Charcoal Paper.

It's part of my husband's hat collection. The man takes up more closet space than I do. Er, that is, he would take up more closet space than I do if I had closet space.

If someone asked me five years ago whether I enjoyed drawing and painting still lifes (still lives? which is it?), I'd probably glare daggers at them. But then, up until a few years ago, I'd never done a still life.

I think it's the whole working from life thing. I like working from life, and prefer it far more than working from a photo.

Now if only someone could convince Ewan McGregor to come over and model for me. I far prefer the figure over still life, any day.

(Well, Mister McGregor? Are you ready to pose a la odalisque and flash me that incandescent smile?)

Ducks, Water, and Pixels

I've been working sporadically on this these past few days. But I've been experimenting with other painting styles and techniques, so I swear I haven't been just goofing off!



I wanted to try some other techniques and tutorials, and obviously wouldn't be able to do them on a piece that's already in progress! I'm so impatient sometimes.

I found it very interesting that I paint very differently digitally than when I'm painting traditionally (whether oils or acrylics). But on some levels, I really feel like I'm taking to it like a duck to water. Okay, I may not be swimming pretty like a water ballerina, but at least I'm dog paddling! I've always struggled with painting, it doesn't come as easily to me as drawing does. So I'm quite (pleasantly!) surprised by my initial forays into digital painting.

Sadly, I've been kinda neglecting my sketchbook lately. I guess I really need to work on that. And maybe a few things for the upcoming 9X12 Show.

My computer is a wicked, wanton strumpet. Or maybe I am.

A Few More Hour's Work

And more progress on the digital portrait.

Here's after about a couple more hours' work -- I thought I'd show it with and without the sketch side by side for easier comparison. Having the sketch on top really showed me that I needed more darks. I've been trying not to be so hesitant with this portrait -- hence all the crazy colors, I guess.




And after a couple more hours of work, I've pretty much dispensed with the sketch -- it was covering more than helping. I'm still bringing it up, but less and less as work continues. I've also blocked in something remotely resembling the final background:





I'm hoping to be finished with it in a couple more days. If it doesn't finish me first.

Nah, I'm having fun.

Digital Painting! Mothers, lock up your computers!

Just to show I'm not being a complete bum: I've been playing around with the GIMP for digital painting, and have a couple progress shots of what I'm doing so far.

Without sketch:





With sketch (as a multiply layer overtop):





Trust me, they're less rubbishy than the oil paintings I've been doing lately. This is after about two and a half, or maybe three hours? I'm not sure, I haven't exactly kept track.

Just to prove I haven't just been sitting around baking cookies.

Ooh, cookies.

Um, gotta go.

More Drapery

From drapery week. Graphite on sketch paper. I spent an hour and a half on it before I started to lose the light.

Drapery, sans Figure

I miss school already -- having just moved into our new house, and considering its distance to the campus -- well, there's no way. Short of teleportation.

Anyway, one of the things I've done this summer was to spend about a week studying drapery. I'd much prefer if the drapery were, well, draped around a figure, but one must adapt. Usually, in the figure-drawing class, we only get about twenty minutes per pose (thirty if we're extra-special good!), so I usually end up blocking in the figure and spending the majority of the time trying to capture the folds of the fabric. Twenty minutes just ain't enough to do it, sadly -- this little study took nearly two hours, and is a great deal smaller than what I normally work when I draw the figure.




Derwent Drawing Pencil (Chocolate) on manila paper, 7.75" x 10.5"


Although I must say, it was kinda nice to work with something that didn't need a break.

Update

Well, no new art to post as of yet -- most of the summer was spent *waiting* for our house to be ready to move into, and did I mention the waiting and waiting and waiting? And of course, the waiting was done while most of my art supplies were packed.

But hey! It's all over and done with, and we're all moved. Most of my supplies are unpacked now; I just have to organize things. However it's a little difficult as we have to worry about giant hordes of tiny attack frogs.

Yes. Tiny frogs. A few nights ago, as the husband went outside to smoke, a couple of the itty-bitty little frogs charged him and managed to make their way inside. We were able to capture one of them rather quickly, but the second one eluded us for quite some while. When he reappeared we evicted him as well, but he had been out of sight for long enough to emplace hidden cameras, or *shudder* do things to our computer (just what he did to our computer I dare not imagine!).

Seriously -- they're tiny. About an inch long. And bright green.

And they're so freaking cute!

The first time we saw one, it hopped onto the husband as he walked out the back door, startling him. Here's the culprit, hanging around on our back door:



And here's one I saw this morning, on our kitchen window, backlit by the sun:





And of course, the little blighter pooped on the window while he was there:



And yesterday I saw a frickin' huge moth on our patio door:



He hung out there for quite awhile, even letting me put my hand close enough to him so I could show his scale:



And, since this is really supposed to be an art blog, here's one of my daily sketches I did back in June:



graphite, watercolor, Derwent InkTense pencils, and acrylic.

EDIT: You know those little green frogs? One just attacked my nose. I'd be traumatized if I weren't laughing so damn hard.

Forest Sprite Sketch

One of my daily sketches:




Watercolor, InkTense pencils, graphite and gel pen.

The reference photo is courtesy of magikstock

It's actually the second attempt at this pose. Sometimes my sketches are pretty good. Sometimes they really, really suck. I'll try not to post the sucky ones online *grin* but I had a lot of fun with this sketch, and I can foresee myself working on a more finished version of this sketch in the near future.

Everyday, a Little Something

I try to sketch something everyday, even if I can't get in a good drawing or painting. I started this habit during winter break, and got some pretty nice sketches out of the experience, but it fell by the wayside as soon as school started up again.

Now it's summer time, and I've started up again, in a new book. Some of the sketches are crap, some are "meh", and some are pretty good if I say so myself. I try to get the ones that are decent-looking posted online, either here at this blog, or in the scraps section of my deviantArt site.

Of course, the lack of sketches in today's post meant that everything I've sketched since my last posting is rubbish.

Bellydancer Sketch

I've been busy recently with non-art related stuff, but I've been trying to get in one sketch per day. Usually I spend no more than twenty minutes on a sketch -- sometimes less than ten if it's a simple pencil sketch.




This particular sketch was a bit of a challenge -- partly because I started with a dark, random blotch of watercolor to sort of prime the paper. The reference photo, courtesy of elflands-workshop, was particularly lovely and I wanted to do it justice. As a result, I ended up with one of the most mixed media pieces I've ever done (ink, watercolor pencils, watercolor, graphite, gel pen, colored pencils, and acrylic), and I spent a bit more time than I normally would have on a simple sketch.

But I'm happy, and that's what counts, right?

Male Figural Sketch

Another one of my daily sketches, and this one's not nude!

Erm, not that there's a lot of detail anyway. It's just one of those quick little twenty minute sketches. Graphite, InkTense pencils, India ink, and Prismacolors. The original photoref can be found on this site.

Some of my daily sketches

Uploaded three new sketches to my scraps at deviantArt. They're nudes, otherwise I'd post 'em here.
http://winteryvisions.deviantart.com/art/05122008-sketch-86275178
http://winteryvisions.deviantart.com/art/05132008-sketch-86275374
http://winteryvisions.deviantart.com/art/05202008-sketch-86275625

April Showers Bring . . . Lots of Shows, Apparently!

So -- the show I was frantically preparing for has come and gone, but meanwhile it seems like everyone and their dog has a show this month! In the span of about a week I've attended three receptions! Even the show I was in had its reception earlier this month. What is this, June for weddings and April for art shows?

Anyway -- I ended up primarily hanging drawings at our Emerging Artists show. It was a serendipity that allowed a friend of mine to end up posing -- fully clothed! -- in our figure drawing class, and she was an awesome model. I don't think there was anyone that day who didn't come away with good drawings of her. Paintings take me far, far too long, and I'd rather take the time to consider how I REALLY want things to look and work on my skills besides. I will say this, though -- it was hard for my drawings to compete with the paintings that the other artists hung. Bigger doesn't always mean better, but it sure as hell helps.

Another Quick Post, and a Congratulations to --

-- my buddy, Ari, for winning Best of Show (2D) in the student show last night. Despite the rigors of a tornado drill, a fire alarm, and lightning streaking across the sky, she managed to kick all of our collective asses with this gorgeous piece of hers that can be found here.

(I knew I should have switched the tags on our pieces! She got more money than I did!)

Great job sweetie!

Quick Post with Underpainting

Thought I'd show what I had so far on the underpainting front. The figure is underpainted in purple (dioxazine violet mixed with burnt umber and titanium white). And yes, what you're seeing is the image painted over two canvases, each measuring 20" X 16".

Still got a ways to go.

And a closeup of the face:

I'll post more when I have more progress. Or when the nice men in white coats come and take me to my new studio with padded walls. Wheee!

Cartoon

I've been busy recently trying to get work done for an upcoming show. The good news: I have an upcoming show. The bad news: they won't let me hang nudes.

Now doesn't that sound all kinds of perverted.

So, between schoolwork and house-hunting, I've been frantically stretching canvases, priming canvases, measuring frames, and so on. I much prefer drawing, because I'm a great deal more competent at it. But drawing requires matting and framing in order to be presentable. A painting on canvas needs only to have its sides neatly painted, either in a continuation of its painting, or in a solid color (such as black, or the background color of the painting in question). Right now I can't afford to mat and frame five or six pieces. But with a little effort, I can make my paintings ready to hang.

I do have something to show for my absence -- a full sized cartoon of the painting:




Charcoal and carbon pencil on brown paper, 40" x 16".

I've never really done a full-size cartoon before -- usually I'll have a sketch in my sketchbook, and I'll take it over to the artograph at the school and use that to enlarge the image so I can transfer it to the canvas. This time, though, I wanted to work out the composition at size instead of fiddling around on a smaller area. It's actually pretty liberating: I don't have to fudge on some areas that would be too small on a 5x7 sketchbook. I also know where everything is going. Sometimes, working in the sketchbook, I won't get the proportions of the composition right, so when the image gets enlarged, the composition gets thrown out of whack. What I mean is that I'll scribble a haphazard box to work out my composition in, but the box (picture plane) doesn't have the same proportion as the canvas I end up working on. So, the arrangement of elements I worked out in that box doesn't work well on the canvas.

Closeup of the figure's face.

I'm still working out exactly what I want and where I want it in the composition. I'm anxious to get started on it, but I know if I don't finish the drawing and know where everything is going to be and what direction I'm going in, I'm going to flounder somewhere between 60 and 75 percent of the way through the painting. Happens every time. You folk who work so spontaneously and on the fly -- you're lucky dogs. Nyah.

This is a little scary for me -- I'm still afraid that I'm going to irrevocably screw up and have nothing to show for it. I'd cross my fingers, but it's rather hard to hold a brush that way!

Next time I'll post some of the progress on the painting itself.

Naked

I'm currently working on a number of works for an upcoming show in March. The show is for those students who did well in the Fall Portfolio Review at my college, and it's off-campus at a local community arts center. I am so totally cool with that. I love to show off my art.

However.

And it is something of a however.

Not a but. Because, as it turns out, but(t)s are a bit problematic.

The people who run the venue are a bit on the conservative side. Prof B. -- who was the one who informed me that I was included in the show (yay!) -- also informed me that they specified no nudes.

Ulp.

I am, primarily, a figural artist. I love the figure. If I could take figure drawing classes every day for the rest of my life, I'd probably be quite happy. It's hard enough that people are reluctant to purchase nudes even though they understand it's artistic, and even admire the image. But to have a venue that won't show nudes, and not because of local ordinances -- that's demoralizing to me.

And they're not the only ones shying away from the nude. I've heard that one of the local colleges won't accept nude figural work for an inter-college show. What the heck is up with that? One of the things that is usually required for a college submission portfolio is figural work. The nude figure has a long and exalted history in art education. And for a college to refrain from hanging figural work . . .

I'm glad -- and lucky! -- that the school I go to is willing to hang nude figural work.

Anyway, if you're still with me, and you remember what I wrote at the very top, I mentioned I'm working on a number of pieces for the upcoming exhibition. I have a body of work, but that body is naked.

Oh, excuse me. Nude. *wink*

Here's something from my sketchbook that I'm going to expand on for the show:

Look Ma -- no breasts. I'm sure she'd be so proud.

On second thought, she'd probably try to have me committed. She's more into staid portraits and still lifes.

First Post

What the hell am I supposed to say? "Hello world"? Um-hm. And I'm sure my shouts and cries would be drowned out in the hullaballoo of the blogosphere.

I thought about it for awhile, what I should post in my initial foray into blogdom. For the longest time I resisted blogging simply because I'm a very private person. But, believe it or not, in my own way, I do crave something of an audience. I'm an artist, and I like showing people my work. I think showing one's work is a very important part of the artistic process. (Or maybe I'm just a show-off.)

So then, a post about this being my first post: Well, I suppose I could just pop one of my pieces up here and say (metaphorically, of course), "Ta-DA! Here's my work!" But that kinda rubs me the wrong way. Blogs, to me, are about writing, even art blogs. And when I write, I like to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. So here is the start of my blog, and I should have a cohesive beginning. Well, I hope it's cohesive. And I really didn't want to start in medias res as if I'd been here all along. I haven't. But I'm here now.

About me, in a nutshell(which makes me the nut): I'm an artist, I live in north Texas. I draw. I paint. I occasionally sculpt very poorly.




A green man sculpture I did about a year or so ago, unglazed stoneware, painted with acrylics.

So, pull up a chair. Pop in occasionally. Look at my art. Comment on it if you feel moved to. And on my end of things, I'll post images of my work as well as works-in-progress. I'll even write about my experience with art. Actually, getting me to shut up would be a bit of effort.

As you can see, I'm still moving in, still learning the ropes. Excuse the mess. At least you can still see the floor.