Pencil Shavings

365 Days of Art - Day 135 - Subtracting

 On Day 135, using some of the techniques that I have been using with pastel, I threw myself into the graphite powder with more daring.  I rubbed the powder into the paper to get the tone as dark as I could.  Then I took my kneadable eraser and lifted out bits of highlights to start forming a face.  There are a few interesting marks and directions started that were never completed, but over all you can see the features emerging out of the gray cloud of graphite.

I really like this technique.  I can see lots of interesting ways that I can use this and I'm looking forward to trying them out.  I enjoyed adding in some detail with an 8B pencil, but mostly letting the face evolve by subtracting, taking away the graphite until I found what I was looking for.

I think this is going to be fun.

365 Days of Art - Day 134 - Taking a Powder

There is never enough time to experiment with stuff that is new, or that you didn't have enough time to explore fully before.

(Although really, do artists ever have time to explore as much as we would like?)

On Day 134 I woke up from a dream about dark gray swirling clouds that I pushed into sculptures and images.

I wondered for a while how I could capture those dream images. Then I remembered that I had bought some graphite powder a year or so ago.  I gave it a whirl for a few sketches but never managed to capture what I wanted from it. After the work I've been doing lately with pastels I thought about using some of that technique with the powder.

I stared by just brushing it on the page and seeing if I could find an image in the swirls of gray.  Then I purposfully tried to create shadowy images of tone with it.

finally I "drew" with a brush loaded with powder and then defined a portrait of a woman looking up with a few strokes of an 8B pencil.

There is a real fragile and ethereal quality to these drawings and I did feel like I was pulling them out of the powder, slowly drawing my image from the loose grains of graphite, or driving the powder into the grain of the paper with deliberate strokes of the brush.

I have an idea for a subtractive drawing (or painting, this really feels like painting) that I want to try soon.

Meanwhile here is the first leg of the exploration that I am now.

365 Days of Art - Day 133 - So Knotty

So, I was pondering doing more figure work.

Of course there are figures and there are figures.

The Figure 8 is a beautiful thing in all of it's symmetrical, and infinite swirls.

While I was thinking about the figure eight I stumbled upon the knot of the same name, and thus the subject of my sketch for Day 133.

Getting back to using just a pencil on paper was kind of weird after so much time using Conté, pastel and watercolour.

I do tend to get lost in texture and this piece took me quite a while while I sat just stroking in the texture of the weave of the rope.

there are a few little bloops in this rope (you try drawing that weave!) but in the end I'm pleased that I stuck it out and finished it.

Close Your Eyes and Make A Wish

It doesn't seem that long ago that I was sitting on a bed in the hospital holding my husband while he cried.  I was exhausted, bleeding, and still hooked up to tubes dripping fluids into my body. He was telling me about the tiny creature that lay in a clear plastic box with tubes and wires of her own.  It was the first time I had ever seen my husband cry.

I asked to be taken down to the Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit, the nurses were reluctant because of my condition, but I told them that I would walk if I had to.  So a wheelchair was procured for me.  I steered the IV stand while my husband steered me, and soon I was looking through the plastic box at the tiny, but perfect, little girl that I had given birth too.

I whispered her name and she turned her face to me.

I slipped my hands through the seals and stroked her nearly transparent cheek and told her, through my tears, that I loved her.

She was so tiny, and fragile, and I would have slept with my hands on her head and her heart, my forehead pressed to the clear plastic if they had let me, because I couldn't bear leaving her there without me.

Today, nearly eight years later that tiny baby is a gorgeous tall girl and we are taking her and her sister (who almost shares a birthday) to the zoo for a birthday party for both of them.

I am so blessed.  The miracle of modern medicine saved that baby so I could see her grow into this amazing child.  And miraculously I have another child, so smart, so delightful in every way who is happy to share a birthday party with her big sister.

It is Thanksgiving weekend for our neighbours to the south, and its a weekend for being thankful here in our house too.

I am so grateful to be a mom.  I love being an artist, but I was born to be a mom to these wonderful girls and when they make their wishes today and blow out the candles I'll know that my wishes have already come true.

When I grow up

I want to be Nick Bantock

"These paintings are my more recent larger works, the mediums include acrylics, oils, chalk pastels, metallic powders, inks and found materials on canvas and panel. In some cases there’s a strong figurative element, in others the content is more ephemeral."

(go see the paintings they are amazing!)

via www.nickbantock.com

Predawn Light

I was up very early this morning.  I'm not sure what had woken me up, the cat was asleep and not asking for breakfast yet at four thirty am. I got up anyway.  I suppose that I could have tried to go back to sleep, but that rarely works for me.  I have learned as I get older, that sometimes it's just better to get up and face the day on less sleep than try to catch another hour or two and feel groggy and out of sync for the rest of the day.

It's also Saturday, and with good luck I'll have a chance to steal a nap later.

It's still dark as write this.   But in a few hours the sun will climb into the cold sky and bathe the prairie and foothills in a warm glow, lighting the mountain tops with the pink light of the early morning.  I love that early morning light and more often than not I find myself standing by the kitchen sink with a cup in my hand, as if trying to catch the glowing, enchanting light.  I watch as the light moves through the spectrum, and feel a peace that comes feeling connected to this land.

It's hard living here.  The light starts to disappear in the fall. The days get colder, and soon winter is upon us.  We wake up in the dark, go to work in the dark, glimpse the sunlight during our workday and come home in the dark.  Sometimes winter wears on my soul and I long for spring and the freedom that comes from wearing a light jacket, or no jacket outside, instead of being restricted by layers of heavy clothes.

But in the winter the mountains stand tall and crisp against the sky.  You can never see the peaks as clearly as you can in the midst of the cold winter.  The summer heat, and dust from farming, obscure the view and somehow shrink the rock giants on my horizon.  In the winter, I look out and see the glow of the sun on the snow.  In the winter I am breathless with the beauty of my home, and grateful that my parents and grandparents chose to tough out the cold of these Canadian winters, and grow roots in the brief summers and glorious autumns, so that I can stand at the kitchen sink, with a cup in my hand, trying to catch the elusive magic of predawn light glimmering on snowcapped peaks.

Flipping through the Artists sketchbook

via www.youtube.com

I love this series of videos on YouTube. All of them are simply flipping through the pages of Moleskine Notebooks created by different artists.

A bit voyeur, a bit awe, a lot of inspiration and fun too.

365 Days of Art - Day 132 - Facing Things

This sketch was done in a smaller sketchbook on the evening of Day 132.  I toned the paper first with pastel then used conté crayon to do the shading and detail work.

It's not the most fabulous piece I've done, but it's not awful either.  I'm not sure how I manage to deal with scale better on my work, I guess it's just practice, which, really, is what the 365 Days of Art is all about.

This weekend is going to be a busy one, we have a birthday party for both kids on Sunday and I have cakes to bake and stuff to organize, so updates might be spotty. 

What can I say - I need to deal with real life before I can come here and tell you about it!

On the works in progress front I have a painting that I'm developing from the crow study on my easel, and I'm working on something interesting that will be going into my Cafe Press shop in the new year.

Speaking of Cafe Press, my shop in it's current form will be closing on November 30 (that's three days!) so if there is something there you want get it now because it won't be there after this.

Also in a fit of self-promotion I have four beautiful prints available from Imagekind.  This weekend there is 25% off framing with the discount code of "Thanksgiving09" so go have a look and let me know what you think.

Meanwhile it's back to getting ready for the party.  I wonder how many cupcakes 12 grade schoolers can eat in a half hour?

365 Days of Art - Day 131 - Figuring

On day 131 I worked on a figure study in pastel.

it's been a while since I worked on a straight forward figure and I decided that this would be my goal for the day.

After working on some gesture work I picked this pose for my study because it was the most challenging with the knees and elbow coming forward in the picture frame.

I always seem to try to do the hardest things, instead of picking easier stuff.  I wonder why that is.

This woman is a favourite model of mine ... I'm not sure why but I like the expressiveness of her face, and the way that even in difficult balances her limbs seem relaxed.

I was pleased with the 20 minutes that I put into this.  I'm glad that I challenged myself and I am hoping that I can get more figure work in over the next few weeks.

Getting Excited

Following a blog by Wil Wheaton, in which he exhorted me to "Get Excited and Make Things" this week, I decided to do just that.

Well, OK, I had already made the stuff, but I decided to embrace the future, (the future being Print on Demand technology) and set up an Imagekind gallery to create and sell prints of my best/most popular/favourite pieces of work.

OK - so, so far I only have three pieces up, but I will have more soon, well as soon as all of you tell me what your favourite pieces are!  (feel free to fill up the comments section - it will give me something to do tomorrow! and have a look at the website and EBSQ gallery as well)

As for the creating something new... well I'm closing the Cafe Press shop in 5 days (that would be the end of the month!)  When it re-opens there will be something new there that I will tell you all about (it will be all about "Getting Excited and Making Things"), but meanwhile the stuff that is in there is going away, quite possibly forever, so get it while you can!

Meanwhile go have a look at the prints and remember that if you enter the code: "Thanksgiving09" you will get 25% off framing until Sunday.