Just a quick post about not doing as much art right now. It’s the best of reasons: Francis kidded Tuesday around sunset, and this year she had triplets! She has given me the little billy I was hoping for, with two future milking nannies. All three are now on the bottle, which is the fastest I have been able to get an entire sibling group to accept the bottle. At only three days old, their little stomachs cannot hold much per feeding, so right now I am going out every three hours to feed. Now, for the obligatory baby goat photo – these three are not posing for me, so this is the best I can do right now (after more than two days of trying – I have quite the collection of photos of their rears).
first goat kids of 2022
While I will likely be sketching these cute little dirt monsters soon, and even the out of focus photos help with that, I just wanted an excuse to post the goat kid photo, because I know a few of y’all love to see them and aren’t on Facebook. Enjoy!
I am still on my charcoal drawing kick, and still enjoying both process and results. Today, I finally finished up a simple (not the same as easy though) still life of a pair of apples, which is one of the tutorials I bought last month though I took the reference photo and made a different crop, which results in a different finished piece. (Y’all may recall I enjoy using apples as a still life subject.)
I actually started this late last week, but decided I wanted to take my time and see how well I liked the end product. The answer is, “I like it.”
Apples 3, 12 by 9 inch charcoal, in sketchbook
Since this started out as an exercise in my bedraggled, almost-but-not-quite-full sketchbook, I cannot offer the original for purchase, although I would be happy to redo it on better paper that doesn’t have two corners curling up. I did scan and upload it to my Pixels store, so print are available all the way up to 60 by 45 inches. Have I mentioned recently how much I love my scanner that I bought with stimulus money the other year?
The charcoal drawing I did prior to Apples 3 is not as impressive. It’s another study for portraiture, and also in my sketchbook and not available for purchase. Here I was focusing on the nose and mouth of a face. The reference photo seemed a little off to my eye, and my drawing seemed to bring that out. Oddly, I still like it enough to share here.
Nose and mouth study, 9 by 12 inches, charcoal, in sketchbook
I still need a bit more practice before I can claim to be able to do portraits of people, but in all honesty I have drawn worse than this. If nothing else, this is a marker on my journey to draw and paint people.
As I was looking over my art catalogue last night for something to feature today, I realized that I had forgotten to blog about two drawings I did last year. What a perfect way to remedy that – by spotlighting these two pieces!
Horse head in charcoal
First is one that anyone who knew me growing up would expect: a horse head. The reference photo I found is of a beautiful chestnut mare, likely a Quarter Horse, looking out from the darkness of a barn or stall. I call it Bridled, and recall spending the better part of an afternoon working first to get the background dark enough, then on getting as much of the highlights and shadows right to my eye. This was also the first time I used the Strathmore 500 series charcoal paper, with its laid texture, and the result was pleasing enough I later purchased another pad of it. My only gripe is the paper feels so lightweight after working with multimedia and watercolor papers, but charcoal works need to be displayed behind glass anyway.
Bridled, charcoal on paper, 9 by 12 inches, $80 USD
The original piece is available – you can purchase it through Daily PaintWorks, which uses PayPal, or in person at One Stop Feed Store in Crescent City if you are local – and it is uploaded for art prints at my Pixels store in various sizes. I’ll probably look back at this in a few years as “not my best,” but right now I am pleased with how it turned out. I drew this in June of 2021.
Pansy pair in graphite
Prior to that, February of 2021 judging from my notes, was this page from my sketchbook that I worked at until I could call it done. Rendered in graphite, which accounts for the greyness, and now a bit worse for the wear after a year of me carrying my sketchbook about, this scan is record of how it looked immediately after completion. Looking back, I am glad I scanned it before moving to the next page, as I went back to this and traced it over transfer paper to paint in watercolor which ended up as my Johnny Jump Ups painting I’ve blogged about previously.
Pansies Pair, sketchbook page
Since I not only left the page in my sketchbook, but used it to transfer the lines to another paper, the original is not available to buy, but since I did scan it, prints are available of it at my Pixels store. Its original size is 9 by 12 inches – perhaps my favorite size for a sketchbook because it is so portable – but the scan was good enough to print larger. It is also available as puzzles for the folks who love a good puzzle and are willing to work on one in greyscale instead of color. I have too many cats in the house to attempt an actual, physical puzzle, or I would give it a go just to see if time spent playing MicroSoft Jigsaw translates into the real world.
Now, for part two of my unplanned month of drawing that bled into the last day of 2021, and continued to the first day of February, and lasted the entire month of January. (Wow, that makes it sound really long!) Considering it is still in progress, I guess we are now well beyond the month idea, so perhaps I should call this a season of drawing? One big advantage drawing has over painting is how quickly it can be set aside to go do something else, and considering I have two nanny goats due to kid in the next month I think it is safe to say I’ll be working with dry media until probably mid to late March because one of the pure JOYS of having my goats is bottlefeeding the kids each spring. Even if I want to take a break from monochrome charcoal, I have soft pastels (I often call them dusties), pastel pencils, regular colored pencils, and even oil pastels, though the oilies will smear if a cat walks across before I’ve sealed it.
Inspiration for charcoal drawing
Enough rambling – back to the drawing spree I am still currently doing. A couple weeks ago, I got an email on a list I subscribed to for a free tutorial offering the “legacy class bundle” for a discounted price. I thought it over, then decided the sale price was fair and bought a whole huge heap of video tutorials, and decided to start with the drawing ones. While I am bouncing around as to which one I do any given day, depending on my mood, here are the first pieces I’ve drawn with the tutorials. I should probably mention the artist who made the tutorial bundle does photorealism. I call what I do just realism, as I don’t actually try to copy a photo down to the tiniest detail, but there are all kinds of small tips and pointers littered throughout the videos’ run times that can benefit me even if I don’t go as detailed as she does.
First a rose
First, I just had to start with this rose in charcoal. Seriously, what is not to love here? I enjoy drawing and painting roses, and apparently people enjoy seeing drawings and paintings of roses, and a single white rose against a mostly-black background is about as dramatic as you can get without using color. To be honest, sometimes the monochromatic charcoal black on white can be more dramatic than color (when the stars align just right and and the picture feels like it just flows out from the pencil). This is in 8 by 10 inch format, and the very first page of a new sketchbook, plus I put it in the top corner instead of centered on the page so the original for this will not be available to buy … but I can do it again if someone wants me to, and in different size or aspect ratio. I do have prints available at my Pixels store, but I didn’t upload it to RedBubble because I am not sure my charcoal work looks as good there.
Single White Rose, 8 by 10 inch charcoal (in sketchbook)
Fun flamingoes head study in charcoal
The very next day I wanted to do another drawing, and picked a reference photo for a different tutorial. It was a video on how to transfer an image from a printed photo onto your art paper, so this is me taking the tips and general method from the rose video to make these two flamingo heads. Flamingoes are definitely one of my favorite birds to draw and paint, and this image just caught my imagination. This time, I centered the 8 by 10 inch image on my not-quite 9 by not-quite 12 inch sketchbook page, so if anyone wants to purchase the original I can remove the page and trim it down with no problem – if you live outside my area you can buy through Daily Paintworks. Or you can get prints in your desired size at my Pixels store.
Two Flamingoes, 8 by 10 inch charcoal on heavy paper, $80 USD
Update: This drawing is now officially an award-winning artwork, taking 2nd place in the 2022 Creative Arts Festival for monochromatic drawing.
Kicking up my heels with a horse drawing
Those of y’all who have known me a while are already wondering how long it took me to go completely off the tutorials to do my own thing … and the magic number was three. Two days after drawing the flamingo heads, I decided it was past time I did another horse in charcoal. It took me a while to pick out a reference photo, but in the end I went with a galloping filly. I decided to try using hot press watercolor paper instead of multimedia or charcoal/pastel paper, and that goes back to the tutorial series. It is the first time I’ve used watercolor paper for something other than watercolor, and it is also the first time I’ve heard of using a dry media on paper for water media. I think I need to try a few more times before I can say if I like it or not, but it does have a different feel than normal dry drawing paper. This one is an actual 12 by 9 inch pad of paper, and the original is available for purchase through Daily PaintWorks. Prints of various sizes are available at my Pixels site as well.
Frolicking Filly, 12 by 9 inch charcoal on paper, $80 USD
Practice for a portrait
I mentioned at the start of this post that my drawing kick kicked off on New Year’s Eve, and that is because I drew the winner of December’s frame giveaway that evening before bed. Since Murphy’s Law governs more than just the army, the winner wants her portrait to go into the frame she won. I am still knocking the rust off my people-drawing skills, and there is a series for that in the big legacy class bundle. First things first – an eye study since the eyes are the main feature that will make-or-break a portrait. I had my dog-eared almost-full old sketchbook within reach, so this is one I am not offering the original … and I have not uploaded it for prints either. About the only place I could see this in a frame and on a wall would be the waiting room of an optometry office. It is still “good training,” as we used to say in the army.
Eye study, 12 by 9 inch charcoal, in sketchbook
So this brings me current, as of today. I have tutorials on drawing the nose and the mouth to work through, then one on doing a whole face. After that, I may feel brave enough to try my hand at Dorothy’s portrait again. Yes, again – I did try early in January and was not satisfied with the result (which made the sale on the tutorial videos quite timely for me). I may be very much behind my self-set schedule for getting this out, but as I remarked to my husband yesterday, I won’t call a piece done until I am satisfied with how it has turned out. If that means I need to redo it until I get it to my satisfaction, well we did that in the army as well!
