What are you working on?
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Artyczar
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Brian, I hear what you're saying about cheap paper. I constantly use copy paper, and I could care less. If I didn't use it to sketch some of my ideas on, I don't know how I would survive really. I render stuff on better paper, of course, but I will start out on scrap paper, or little sketchbooks, which are so small, I just use a pen where I make severely messy gestures. I also have a tremor, so those look pretty awful.
I've kept most of my preliminary sketches on this paper, from as far back as 35-40 years and so far, absolutely nothing has changed about them. No yellowing or anything like that. No breakdown, and I wouldn't care if they did anyway, they're just ideas.
I've kept most of my preliminary sketches on this paper, from as far back as 35-40 years and so far, absolutely nothing has changed about them. No yellowing or anything like that. No breakdown, and I wouldn't care if they did anyway, they're just ideas.
stlukesguild
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What I wonder is how, before the time of cheap paper, artist went about sketching. How do you make hundreds or thousands of gesture sketches without access to cheap paper? I have to wonder, because nowadays I don't see how else one will ever make progress.
Cheap paper didn't exist prior to the Renaissance... and even then, it wasn't "cheap" enough to waste let alone for amateurs to play with. Look how Michelangelo, Leonardo, and others used every bit of the paper:
I found this on the Victoria & Albert Museum site:
Until the 15th century, when paper became a cheap commodity, much drawing was done on small wooden panels surfaced with tinted wax or prepared with some kind of white ground, known as tablets. The surface would be cleaned off and renewed, allowing the same tablet to be used again and again.
This makes sense as school children learned how to write on small panel chalk boards that could be erased and re-used again & again.
Cheap paper didn't exist prior to the Renaissance... and even then, it wasn't "cheap" enough to waste let alone for amateurs to play with. Look how Michelangelo, Leonardo, and others used every bit of the paper:
I found this on the Victoria & Albert Museum site:
Until the 15th century, when paper became a cheap commodity, much drawing was done on small wooden panels surfaced with tinted wax or prepared with some kind of white ground, known as tablets. The surface would be cleaned off and renewed, allowing the same tablet to be used again and again.
This makes sense as school children learned how to write on small panel chalk boards that could be erased and re-used again & again.
stlukesguild
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I rarely did more than thumbnail sketches... compositional ideas... in my sketchbooks after art school. While I was in school I drew in my sketchbooks all the time: people in the bars, people at the museum or in the park, copies of old master paintings and sculpture in the museums, etc... Now I tend to work out the compositions on the computer and then I work and rework the drawing on the actual final surface:
Brianvds both gesture and i are very beautiful
complete drawings.
the spiteful cartoon gnome is very nice and funny.
very nice everything you published.
the student's progress is great, I hope this period will pass soon and things will go better.
I find myself doing the gestures and some things you said (what you said about the book draw with the right side. I remember that I started it 3 times that I then interrupted it, and sometimes I went back), discovering things, etc. , before starting the gestures I didn't make up my mind to draw, (the method explained by Stlukesguild would have been useful because I considered each sheet a treasure that I would have wasted, then I found comfortable and beautiful photocopy papers or old notebooks before)
so I'm the thing I still love to draw the most
complete drawings.
the spiteful cartoon gnome is very nice and funny.
very nice everything you published.
the student's progress is great, I hope this period will pass soon and things will go better.
I find myself doing the gestures and some things you said (what you said about the book draw with the right side. I remember that I started it 3 times that I then interrupted it, and sometimes I went back), discovering things, etc. , before starting the gestures I didn't make up my mind to draw, (the method explained by Stlukesguild would have been useful because I considered each sheet a treasure that I would have wasted, then I found comfortable and beautiful photocopy papers or old notebooks before)
so I'm the thing I still love to draw the most
Artyczar
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I feel like taking a little break from those bag pieces until I can get my head on straight. Or something. Now I'm thinking about making a couple other oil paintings--on canvases! I feel just awful about it, but I didn't buy new ones or anything. They are already sitting here blank. So am I really making more firewood? Not more than I already have, right?
The first one is a take on a family picture of my parents, nearly the only one of them hugging. It will be fairly abstracted. The other is a cartoon of a funny horse on top of a giant horseshoe with some thought clouds above and upside down flowers below.
The first one is a take on a family picture of my parents, nearly the only one of them hugging. It will be fairly abstracted. The other is a cartoon of a funny horse on top of a giant horseshoe with some thought clouds above and upside down flowers below.
OliveOyl
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As usual...looking forward to seeing what you do! It’s funny that I’m working on family photos, too. In my case, they came from (one of the many) of my mother’s photo albums, so they‘re really more HER memories than mine. In the next two, there are people in them that I have absolutely no connection to. Don’t even know who they are are or where the pictures were taken. Or when. Just using them for their clothing, really....flowered 1960 dresses and groovy sunglasses in one, and red lumberjack shirts on rumpled men in the other. But lots of sun in both. And come to think of it....maybe that’s REALLY the star of the photos.
I'm still working on studies of my Carl Weber print (1907). Haven't quite finished with the third, an 8x10" oil, and I'm seeing things I hadn't noticed previously. Today I've started on a portion of the 12x20--the size of the print, and hope to get some blocking in, some reference lines and color adjusted. I've taken the print from behind the glass. It's so much easier to see! Working to get space and atmosphere in this piece. Weber did it, I can too!
Still on the 16 x 20. Sadly finding several areas that need adjustments re placement and size of objects. I thought I had a reasonably close image (NOT a forgery--hardly even a COPY at this rate, more like the original is sort of a model 
). Was going to even ask how you all SEE.
I'm seeing so much on the third and fourth study that I didn't see/comprehend on the first two... IE. 2 house roofs: I had to adjust ridge line on both and lower one, change the color--I KNEW the one was dark, I painted it a light blue, now it's dark. Trees 1/2" too tall--maybe not a problem. Seeing massive tree trunks veering left, rather than right (into the the painting). Also adjusting horizon line and water areas.
I really like the print, damaged as it is. Maybe if I had taken it out of the frame in the first place, when I first started marking this canvas I would have made a more accurate rendition. I didn't want to risk further damage.
). Was going to even ask how you all SEE.I'm seeing so much on the third and fourth study that I didn't see/comprehend on the first two... IE. 2 house roofs: I had to adjust ridge line on both and lower one, change the color--I KNEW the one was dark, I painted it a light blue, now it's dark. Trees 1/2" too tall--maybe not a problem. Seeing massive tree trunks veering left, rather than right (into the the painting). Also adjusting horizon line and water areas.
I really like the print, damaged as it is. Maybe if I had taken it out of the frame in the first place, when I first started marking this canvas I would have made a more accurate rendition. I didn't want to risk further damage.
Artyczar
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After rearranging my studio a bit yesterday, and after decluttering the garage on Saturday in order to make room to bring my entire storage unit back here, I guess I'm going to paint a little bit today on two new small oil paintings (24' x 18' and a 20' x 16')--might as well call them "whimsical," as much as I hate that word, but they are truer to my style and heart than those bag pieces were. Or, at least I'm feeling them more. I feel like I'll be getting more back on track.
I've also been slowly writing my new summer newsletter, which takes some time. I send them out every season, and summer just started yesterday. My self-inflicted deadline is to have them sent by next Monday (the 29th) with these two WIPs in it. Maybe one will be finished, I don't know yet. And maybe by then I can drum up some more newsworthy words. That's the point of the newsletter after all.
I've also been slowly writing my new summer newsletter, which takes some time. I send them out every season, and summer just started yesterday. My self-inflicted deadline is to have them sent by next Monday (the 29th) with these two WIPs in it. Maybe one will be finished, I don't know yet. And maybe by then I can drum up some more newsworthy words. That's the point of the newsletter after all.
stlukesguild
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I'm hoping those "small" paintings measure 24" x 18" and 20" x 16" and not 24' x 18' etc... Otherwise, your idea of "small" is quite different from mine.
stlukesguild
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I'll be running out in a bit to pick up some light-bulbs. I just took it easy yesterday... "Father's Day" and all . I'm probably going to begin by just loosening up with some gestures and sketches before I think about actually working on a painting surface.
. I'm probably going to begin by just loosening up with some gestures and sketches before I think about actually working on a painting surface.
laf.art
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. Been waiting for the 100cm squares to be restocked in the local shop - still no luck so I got this 120x80cm and here's where I am at thr mo
I think it needs some balancing, but glad you like it
HalifaxCB
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Speaking as someone ho is just getting back into work after months off, I think it’s just really common, particularly in creative work, to step away from it for awhile and let the psyche rearrange itself.
This a piece from last year I never finished, so I’m starting back with it.
