Burney Falls, plein air pencil sketch

I guess I have been a little obsessed with waterfalls, but spring time is the best time for it. I have had McArthur-Burney Falls on my bucket list since first moving to Northern California over 25 years ago, and finally last weekend, I was able to see them. It was worth the wait. It is quite a phenomenal waterfall with water not only coming over the top of the cliff, but from inside the cliff as well due to an underwater river within the volcanic rock surronding the area. Here is my attempt to sketch the falls from the vista point above the falls.

Model sketching, pencil

I have not sketched from a model in quite some time, so when the Rancho Cordova city hall offered an evening of drawing, I took them up on it. Victoria Smith has been doing an amazing job heading up this great organization, RCAFE: Rancho Cordova art for everyone. For this event, there were two clothed models that I alternated drawing with 15 and 30 minute poses. The sketches are far from being a finished product, but I am quite pleased with them considering the amount of time I had and how long it has been since I have worked from live models. I think my proportions came pretty close. The skull was just a prop for the models to use and I sketched it while the models were taking a break.

Optical illusions in pencil

I was being drawn to do some geometric art. Back when I was young, I loved geometry...not so much the theorems and postulates, but how lines worked together to create forms of all sorts. While researching ideas, I came across a page of optical illusions, so I have recreated them here.
The first one is a blivet (who knew there was an actual name for it?) or "the devil's fork". The other drawing is a Penrose triangle or "impossible triangle". Both are very reminiscent of M. C. Escher, one of my favorite artists. I may continue with some more...maybe some tesellations?

Just turn the page and leave me alone!

This is a quick pencil sketch of an idea that came to me a while back. I used a reference photo of my cat sitting on my lap.  The foreshortening of the leg is really exaggerated to create the illusion of her reaching out to turn the page. I think I needed to do a little more shadowing but overall I think I accomplished portraying my idea.

Darth Vader pencil drawing

So I guess I've got a Star Wars theme going here: Kylo Ren, a stormtrooper, and Boba Fett. So it wouldn't be complete without a portrait of Darth Vader! It is very interesting to see how a character that is completely black turns out to actually be all different values reflecting more light than would be expected.
So is this a sketch or a drawing? Although this is not on high quality drawing paper, it did start out as a sketch in my sketchbook. But as I added in more finishing touches, I think it developed more into a drawing. Is there a time limit on a sketch? I once read that sketches are less than an hour, and since his took a couple hours (it's hard to tell exactly since this was three different short sittings), I am going to call it a drawing.
It seems like today's trend is to be ultra-realistic, but that is definitely not my style. I love being able to see the strokes of the artist, or pencil lines in this case. I'm sure I could go in with a blending stump and remove all of the lines (if my sketchbook paper could handle it) but I think leaving it the way it is gives it character and movement within the portrait.

Boba fett, photo progression

I guess I've got a Star Wars theme going here. Here is some retro Star Wars for you: Boba Fett. I started this portrait as a quick pencil sketch (not shown) with the intention of tracing it onto watercolor paper so that I could do this in watercolor. But then I just kept adding on to the original sketch which was on copy paper.  First I added in all the shading with just pencil...

Then I started to add in some color with colored pencil...not something I work with very often so I wasn't too happy with it at this point, so let's keep working it...

Smoothed out some of the colored pencil lines and added in a background but the shading originally done with pencil has lost its some of its effect...

What do you think?  I still like the one in just pencil but it is interesting how far a simple sketch can go!

Stormtrooper: Star Wars pencil sketch

I got some new pencils for Christmas and decided to take them for a spin. I am always sketching with a #2 pencil and that is what I am used to. The new pencils range from 2H (hardest) through 8B (softest).  It was almost like learning to draw again. I was able to get some deep blacks with the soft pencils but I thought I struggled with smearing before with a #2. These smear a lot. I tried to use it to my advantage. The soft pencils don't erase as well either. The erasure just smears it also. I guess they will just take some getting use to. I can already see that the pencils have created a much broader spectrum of values than my last Star Wars sketch of Kylo Ren.

Duck face pencil sketch

Of all the trends in 2015, I thought this one was quite silly. So let's commemorate duck face with a drawing!

The biggest challenge I had was with the hair, definitly an area I could work on. I kind of cheated on my last portrait, I've got a secret, by enlarging the face to the point where there was very little hair to deal with.  The eyes were my favorite.  Finding reference images for this was fun and quite hilarious!

Kylo Ren, Star Wars pencil portrait

Star Wars is all the rage right now, so I thought I would try my skills at Kylo Ren, the new Star Wars villain. I won't put any spoilers in here, but just by looking at him, you can tell he will be villainous. He basically is all black, so I threw in some highlights to break up the solid blacks that would have been his mask. I used some of the movie posters that are out there for reference photos...it is interesting how the mask is slightly different in the posters.

I've got a secret...pencil sketch

This is a potrait piece of actress Katie Findlay. To give proper credit, it was taken from a freeze frame of the movie "The Bridge". I titled my drawing "I've got a secret" because of the smile and averted eyes. It has been a while since I have done a portrait, but I felt inspired. I used only a #2 pencil, my go-to medium when sketching...and a nice big pink erasure. :)

Going Tribal in Maui, Hawaii

Everywhere you look here in Hawaii, you see tribal drawings...logos, window decals, tattoos. I thought I would give it a try on some of the wildlife I've seen here in Maui: the honu (green sea turtle) and the gecko, specifically the gold dust day gecko. I also have hibiscus flowers. I tried to put aloha into the one, but it's not very legible. I actually started these in pencil and realized it just didn't look right so I went over them in Sharpie and erased any stray pencil marks.

Mountain landscape, watercolor

Originally, I had done this mountain landscape in pencil, inspired by a watercolor demonstration by Dale Laitinen.  It's fun to transform a pencil sketch into a colorful painting. There is no "wrong" color other than what is in my head saying trees should be green and sky should be blue. 

 

I think it needs a little more contrast on the mountain to show where the light source is coming from, as well as some more shadows in the trees, but I think it does a pretty go job transporting the viewer to a serene location in the mountains!

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Wolf, pencil sketch

My daughter has been asking me to draw or paint a wolf ever since I painted our cat, Rosie for her. This is my first attempt, with some help from google images. I just used a #2 pencil. I really like the way the eyes turned out but need to work on the proportons a little, and really need to figure out the hair...

Santa Cruz lighthouse in pencil

It's been a while since I have painted due to crazy schedules, so with some free time, I find myself at the beach.  The only time I painted a seascape was a couple of years ages with a Watercolor of Sea and Sky and that was from a photo. As I am sitting on the beach, I decide that a pencil sketch is going to work better than a watercolor due to the sand getting all over everything.
 The morning sun was shining from behind the lighthouse, just starting to burn through the marine layer. The waves are a particular challenge, and how can I differentiate between blue sky and grey clouds when I just have a pencil? I will need to redo this in watercolor...

Self Portrait Time!

What artist can resist doing a self portrait at some point? I have done self portraits in pencil: one back in college which is lost somewhere in my mom's garage, and then another that I did a few years ago when I started up doing art again. (My first self portrait blog) At that time, I had also made an attempt at a watercolor portrait, which showed that I definitly needed more practice with watercolor portraits.
I decided to put out a challenge to the Group Watercolor Painting  community to do a self portrait, including myself. Shortly after that, while procrastinating by cleaning out my garage, I found yet another pencil self portrait that I don't even remember doing, folded and stuck into a book. The words "who are you?" on the bottom makes me think this was after college and before I had a job or knew what I was going to do with my life.
So here is my first watercolor self portrait that I am actually proud of doing. It was from a selfie took of myself as opposed to working with a mirror as I had done with my pencil drawings. My jaw looks huge because of the angle of the photo I took. I took the picture with a side light source to get some shadowing. ..and that was before I found my other self portrait. I do look much happier now!

Woman with flower basket, pencil sketch

Ok, after last week's portrait practice, I decided I better practice some more. Here is a sketch I did during a watercolor workshop by Steve Walters. Even though he was up on stage and I was sitting in the audience, it was still easier to sketch from a photo than from a model. Here is my interpretation of the portrait he was working on in pencil. My next challenge will be to interpret this in watercolor.

Steve Walters' photo, sketch, and beginning of his watercolor demo.

Portrait practice, sketch and watercolor

It has been more than 6 months since I have painting from a live model so I'm a little out of practice. I headed over to Patris' Studio since it was the second Saturday of the month which is when they usually have a clothed model doing a long sitting. When I got there, they told me they have not done the model on second Saturday since the beginning of the year, but they just happened to have a model doing a long sitting for another artist that was there that day. Just my luck that I showed on the right day of tje right month.
I decided to start with a quick pencil sketch, just to get some practice with proportions. I think I was off a little bit. The other artist that was there used the word "unresolved". The sketch is still unresolved!

I decided to move on to watercolor. With an overhead spotlight, her eyes fell into dark shadow, which gave her an odd look, but overall I think it turned out well. Her eye on the right though is still... unresolved!

American river plein aire, Untitled

Many artists that I have talked to do value studies with a quick pencil sketch before they start a painting. I usually just throw a couple of pencil lines down on my watercolor paper to help with placement but don't really think a whole lot about values. So I decided to give value studies a try to decide if it is a value-able use of time and effort :) 

This pencil sketch only took 5 minutes and I can see how important it would be if I was going to take the painting back to the studio to work on it. Instead, I finished painting all on location and found that it was easier just to refer back to the real scene than my sketch. I did find that some of my artistic choices were thought out ahead of time with the sketch instead of while I was painting.

Since I was experimenting with value studies, I decided to do another sketch that I will take back to the studio and see how that works out...

Skull-moth-flower pencil drawing

I came across this art competition on Instagram called skull-moth-flower. The rules were simple...the art has to include a skull, a moth, and a flower. There are three categories: color, black and white, and sketch. I figured I would start with a sketch and then maybe I  would do a watercolor as well.  The concept behind my drawing is that the skull is part of the wings of the moth. I thought that the eye sockets would appear to be "spots". The moth turn out a little cartoony and the "wings" don't really fit the body.

So here is the sketch. It took about 45 minutes to do, maybe a little bit longer with shading the background. I used a mechanical pencil, but it seemed like all of the leads were broken. It was really frustrating because every time I would get on a roll, the lead wouldn't feed right.

Mountain landscape - pencil sketch

This sketch was inspired by a demonstration put on by WASH (Watercolor Art of Sacramento Horizons) at Sacramento Fine Arts Center.  The demo was done by Dale Laitinen.  I really enjoyed his style of watercolor, and even though he was painting a scene from memory, he really captured the essence of the Sierras.  
So here is my interpretation of his painting, but in pencil.

Untitled, by Dale Laitinen