Pumpkin sculpting

This is my first attempt for this year.  I found it to be a particularly tough one to carve; it was coarse-grained and fibrous.  I also ended up going too deep on the eyes. I had no intention at the outset of going all the way through.  Overall, though, I think he looks pretty decent.

Cherokee Cottage, Jekyll Island

 Walnut ink on paper, 11 x 15 inches.  This was a bit of a rush job. I finished it last night around 12:45. I've been staying up late all week.

In the Paddock - pen & ink

 

I finished this pen and ink drawing a few weeks ago, but refrained from posting photos until I had delivered it to its recipients, which I finally did last night.  This is 10 x 15 inches.

Tree sketch in walnut ink

This is a tree sketch I made with black walnut ink. I started it in the park behind Len's house last weekend, and finished it up yesterday at home. It's about 9 x 13. Some of it was done with brushes, but most of it was done with two homemade tools: a dip pen I made with river cane bamboo, and a whittled down bamboo skewer. The bamboo skewer is surprisingly versatile and holds ink better than most twigs, sticks, and whatnot that I've picked up to try.

Faux stonework finish: before and after

Finished:

I'm saying I'm done, even though there will very likely be some more detail work and touching up in the future.

Faux stone wall

 Here's a section of the retaining wall and concrete outbuilding that I am nearly done painting. I'll be going back to work on it tonight.

Pen and ink house portrait

 

Here's my most recent completed house portrait (and a detail), ink on Bristol paper.  The size is 11 x 15.

Faux stone work

I've been working at a school on painting a concrete wall to match the building's stonework.  It was bare white before; here are some photos of how it looks after I primed it and filled in most of the faux stones.  I still have a lot of work to do.  There are still large areas of plain gray primer, and then I have to paint in the mortar and figure out how to put in some shading and color gradations.  I also plan to put in some detail work.

I estimate this at being a little under 700 square feet, so it's far and away the largest art(-ish) project I've worked on.

Paint buckets

 

 

House drawing in progress

 It still requires a lot of shading, and it's not a very good photo, but here it is anyway: the current house portrait I am working on.  It's a very pretty house.  I hope to have it done within the next week.

Another house portrait in progress

Ferrari Spider commission finished

 

I finished this commission in time, a couple of days ago. This is a 2004 Ferrari Spider, oil on panel, 16 x 24.

The background is cobbled together from a few references, and quite a bit of it is just made up.  I had never painted a palm tree before, but I think these look sort of nice.

House Portrait drawing - sort of a rush job

 This drawing is 8 x 10 inches, black walnut ink on bristol.  I only had a small window to get it done, soI worked fast on this one. It's not quite a "polished" as I usually like, but I'm pleased with it nonetheless.

Still so many basic things to learn

  

Pretty frequently I'm startled by my lack of art knowledge.  Sure, most people I know really aren't into art, and have little working knowledge of any medium.  To them, I'm sure I seem like I really know what I'm talking about most of the time.  And to other, more established, experienced artists, my lack of knowledge isn't surprising at all.  There is so much to learn that, even you are devoted full-time to learning about art, there is always something new to discover.

Still, I regularly learn something that makes me think, "Wow, how could I not have known that?"  The most recent example is pyrrole red.  This is a pigment that was developed in the 1980s, so it's been around a while.  It's a relatively inexpensive red, cheaper than the expensive cadmiums.  I've learned (through internet research) over the past week that it's a great, versatile color, and very bright.  Many artists consider it a very important tool.

I don't have this color.  I don't have any reds that have this pigment in it.  Get this: this color is also nick-named "Ferrari red."  Hey! And I'm painting a Ferrari right now.  I guess I'd better buy a tube and check it out.

Another thing I think about, related to the above:  I feel like the technical aspect of painting was largely glossed over in my university studies.  What did we talk about instead?  Well, there were a lot of generalities (don't over-mix the colors…perhaps you want to try more muted tones…etc.).  Most of all, I think there was discussion of the drawing aspects of painting, such as getting value right (something that, honestly, probably can't be over-emphasized), proportion, paint application and brush strokes.

I can recall very little discussion, however, of opaque pigments vs. transparent pigments, or having on hand cool and warm versions of the same hue.  There was certainly little information presented on glazing, which frankly I'm not sure any student I was with ever really attempted.

I'm not at all faulting any of my professors.  They had their hands full just trying to coax us into the ability to paint a portrait with vaguely human features, and I am forever in their debt.  The information has always been available for me to learn.  Maybe I don't really ever learn something until I truly need it.

Black walnut ink house portrait 5-20-12

 

I put in a little overtime on this drawing over this last weekend; it's another one of the multiple commissions I've accepted for a relatively short space of time.  It felt good to get it done!  I'm pretty pleased with the outcome.  This is 11 x 15 inches.

Playhouse mural

Here are photos of the playhouse mural I did for some friends.  They cleverly turned the recess beneath their basement steps into a play area for their little daughters, with molding around the door and square window, and a peaked “awning” over the door.  Then they asked me to paint a house around it.

This is the result.  The most time-consuming and tiring part was gridding in the bricks and then painting them in slightly varied reds.  I guess they are what I’m proudest of, because they give a nice sense of sunlight and shadow, and I like the effect of having the “near” bricks slightly larger than the “far” bricks to give an illusion of depth.

School building drawing - black walnut ink

Whew! I finished the drawing of the school.  I’ve crammed in a lot of work over the past couple of weeks.  This is black walnut ink, 11 x 15 inches on Bristol paper.

This is a combination of washes (at the beginning, to lay down tone), and cross-hatching with dip pens.  I used two different kinds of pens; one fine, flexible point, and one a little bigger and more rigid.  Both had their uses.  I can’t recall what kind they are; the rigid one might have been mapping nib.  It wasn’t as good for delicate shading, but it worked much better for scribbling and pushing around the paper.

Another black walnut ink drawing

 Here's another work-in-progress, one of several projects I am working on right now.  This is 11 x 15 inches.  It's getting there.

Thick black walnut ink

 

I just started using some of the black walnut ink I made last November.  I have four jars from that batch.  The first one I opened was oddly thick.  I could still use a paint brush with it, but it was too viscous to use with a dip pen.

The second jar I opened was normal, and worked wonderfully with a dip pen.

I wonder what happened with the first jar? (I haven't checked the other jars yet.)  It was pretty weird; not crusty at the top like it had dried out, just uniformly thickened.  That jar did have a small film of mold growing in it, but I've had mold in jars of ink before and not had it affect the ink flow.  I wonder if the gum Arabic I added did something strange?  But if so, why didn't it do that to the second jar?

I might be able to re-thin it with water, and even if I can't, it's not a great loss, and like I said, I can still use it with a brush.

I had the idea of obtaining a large number of small bottles and making ink to sell, but if I do that, I guess I better establish some quality controls!

Pen and ink beginnings

 

I'm trying to remember how I got involved in pen-and-ink drawing.  It wasn't a very deliberate thing, and just enough time has passed that I'm on the verge of forgetting.

Of course, I've always used ink to some degree, for sketches and doodles.  However, I wasn't ever really what I would call a pen-and-ink artist until about four years ago.  I drew mostly with graphite, and preferred to paint with oils.

I think this is how it happened:

In the spring of 2007, the office I work for changed locations, and our new building has behind it a wooded area with a walking trail.  That summer, on the walking trail, I found some fallen, immature green walnuts.

I didn't know what they were, and identification was difficult because they were still small.  They didn't yet look like ripe walnuts.  After some research and discussion, I figured out they were black walnuts, and learned that the wooded area had a bunch of black walnut trees.

I think that somewhere along the way while I was researching this, I saw that black walnuts could be used to make ink.  That prompted me to do a little more internet research on the process.  I read that the ink was good artist ink, lightfast, and archival.  The recipe for homemade black walnut ink was pretty straightforward.  Since at the time I had no cash for art supplies and I'm a cheapskate at heart, I thought I'd try it.

I do recall being a little bit preoccupied with it.  I learned to identify walnut trees and started spotting them all around town.  In the autumn, when the nuts fell from the trees, I picked up a bunch and made some ink.

During this time period, I was occasionally spending my lunch breaks doing graphite (and occasionally charcoal) sketches of buildings and trees near my office.  I was also, from time to time, doing quick sketches of people with black ink felt-tip pens, mainly because I enjoyed the crisp, clean contrast as opposed to graphite.

Late in the spring 2008, I took some walnut ink with me on my lunch break, and began a small drawing of the old Bellevoir mansion near my office.  I spent a couple of days on it.

In July, co-worker saw that drawing, and asked me to draw his house.  A friend of mine saw the Bellevoir drawing and bought it.  The house drawing I did for the co-worked led to a few more commissions from the co-worker's friends.  That, in turn, led to more commissions over the course of the next couple years.

I was taking these drawings to a gallery frame shop to have window mats cut for them.  The owner of the frame shop expressed interest in my work and recommended that I draw some local scenes to try to sell.

As I worked on these commissions, I developed a deeper appreciation for, and enjoyment of, pen-and-ink.

So, there you go.  I became a pen-and-ink artist because one day on my lunch break I found a nut I couldn't identify.

Here's a preliminary sketch I just did; I think I'll do the larger version in black walnut ink.  I'm working out how to leave in a lot of trees, which I like, without obscuring too much of the front of the building.  I particularly like the steps at this angle.

Ottawa Drag Saw - finished!

 I think I'm done. This is 8 x 11" on cold press watercolor paper.

Wall painting commission, in progress

 Some friends of ours turned the area beneath their basement steps into a playhouse for their daughters, and they asked me to paint a mural on the outside of it.  I was happy to oblige, although I don't think they realized what they were getting into when they asked me.  They probably expected me to just whip up a quick cartoon house.  Instead, I have been camping out in their basement drawing grids for bricks.

Painting and shading bricks is actually sort of meditative (the gridding and drawing, though, is a pain in the ass).  I like it much better than drawing tiny bricks with pen and ink.  For one thing, the color red is fun.  For another thing, creating the illusion of sunlight and shadow with paint is very satisfying.  I just hope my friends aren't frustrated with my slow pace.

The bricks are pretty much done, and that's the slow part.  Just after I took the second photo, I added some vines to the lower right side of the house, and put yellow black-eyed Susan blooms on the green plants at left.  All the plants together took much less time than even a small area of bricks.  I'll take shortcuts on the roof, also.  The rest will just be butterflies and stuff.  I think I'll put an illusory bas-relief sun above the door; that should be fun, and also easier than the bricks.  I'll probably cut a stencil for it.

Ottawa Drag Saw, Progressing

Ottawa Drag Saw drawing in progress

 This is a commissioned drawing I'm working on. It is about 8 x 10 inches. I hope to have it done in the next couple of weeks.