Working on This Weekend- 5/17/15

I finished a few little things this week, that's always fun. All three of them are now available in my Etsy store.

Winter Thistle, mixed media drawing on paper, 5x7 inches, finished.

I've been trying to finish up some of the many little drawings that I have floating around, and I started this one quite a while ago. I started the drawing by transferring the pencil outlines, tracing them with pen, and then scrubbing in shading with charcoal. Tracing with pen works nicely, because it doesn't smear or disappear when the charcoal is added over it. After that I refined the dark areas with more pen work, sharp pencils and charcoal, and added in the white highlights with white acrylic paint. 

Beach Shells, oil on panel, 5x7 inches, finished.

This is another picture I gave up on and put away before finishing. But I tried again, and now I think it looks finished. The sand has shape and interest to it, and the shadows on the shells make sense now. 

Dam Sunset, oil on panel, 5x7 inches, finished.

I love the colors in this one, and after a few tries the grasses look good too.

AZ Aspen, oil on canvas panel, 9x12 inches, unfinished.

Still working on this one, I tried another color on the fence, and this time it looks better. The fence and sidewalk at the bottom still need a little more work, but it's close to done.

Geraniaceae Seeds

I have a hard time deciding whether to call these pictures drawings or paintings, but it was an fun experiment, no matter the name. I transferred pencil drawings from photos that I took, painted in the background, shaded in the pencils drawings, painted over the drawings with thin washes of acrylic inks, and then scratched out highlights with a knife. I worked back and forth between the pencil and ink and scratching out whites, Claybord* is great for that because the surface is smooth and deep enough that it can be scratched off a few times without scratching through.

Geranium Seed #1,  pencil and acrylic ink on Claybord, 8x8 inches, 12/2013.

On two of the pictures (#1 and#3) I used multiple layers of acrylic ink to fill in the background, which worked pretty well, it just took a few layers to get even coverage. For #2 I tried acrylic paint, and it wasn't as easy to work with as the ink, it chipped in places when I scratched out the details. The paint also left lines that had to be smoothed carefully, so I'll probably stick with ink in the future.

Geranium Seed #2,  pencil with acrylic ink and paint on Claybord, 8x8 inches, 12/2013

The shine of the pictures made them hard to photograph, I tried several times and had no luck, even going all out and building a black light box didn't help.  Then I realized that I could scan anything small enough to fit on the scanner bed, so I tried it and had great luck.

Geranium Seed #3,  pencil and acrylic ink on Claybord, 8x8 inches,  4/2014.

The seeds are something in the Geraniaceae family, I'm not sure exactly what species because I didn't take pictures of the plants themselves. The seeds were stuck in my socks after hiking at one of the local parks, so I brought them home and took some pictures to work from. They're common Texas wildflowers found near San Antonio, Texas.  The seeds in this family spring out as they dry, launch away, and stab into to things to get themselves dispersed. The amazing thing that I found out when trying to identify them is that the coil changes with the humidity, getting longer when wet and shorter as it dries, and will screw the seed into the ground.

  

I did a little experiment by tracing a dry seed on a piece of paper, soaking it on water and seeing if it expanded any. Turns out that it did expand, after a few minutes, and within half an hour it was back to the original shape. 

Geranium Seed #1,  detail.

Geranium Seed #3, detail. 

Geranium Seed #3, detail.

For more information on the way the seeds explode out and bury themselves, see this paper:
Evangelista D; Hotton S; Dumais J. 2011. The mechanics of explosive dispersal and self-burial in the seeds of the filaree, Erodium cicutarium (Geraniaceae). Journal of Experimental Biology. 214: 521-529. 

*I am not compensated in any way by Ampersand, I just love their products. 

Working On-April 2013

Just a few of the paintings brewing in my studio right now.

Butterfly, 11x14, oil paint and Galkyd, unfinished.

Butterfly has been in progress for over a year, but I still occasionally work on it when I feel like it. Trying to do a complete value drawing in black and white and Torrit Gray before adding color in the very last layers. 

Dried Tulip, 12x12in, oil on canvas, unfinished.

This painting is from a photo my mom took of a half dried tulip flower. I started by building up thick layers for each of the petals, sort of sculpture-like, and now I'm adding the colors in.

Strawberry Cactus, oil and Galkyd on panel, unfinished.

The never ending cactus flower painting... At least I finally got the color of the greens right, after way too many tries, now I can move on to the front flower and hopefully finish this quickly.

Twister

I love bats, flying mammals rock. If people could fly, this is probably what we would look like.

 Even though bats are funny looking and kind of creepy, they are hugely important pollinators for many fruits we like to eat, especially mangoes and bananas. They also eat tons of bugs. Literally tons, every night. Unfortunately, many bat species all over the world are endangered, due to things like habitat loss and diseases. The good people at the Lubee Bat Conservancy work to protect fruit bats and their habitats around the world. They were nice enough to give me permission to draw one of their residents, and even sent me some extra pictures. I went a bit crazy and drew him twice, in pencil and pen.

Twister, a fruit bat that lives at the Lubee Bat Conservancy.

Twister II, copic pen on bristol paper, 11x14 in.

Twister, mixed media, pencil, charcoal, and white acrylic on bristol board, 12x20 inches. 

Vashti

I kept trying to draw this tiger from the Toronto Zoo at a reasonable size, like 8x10 or something, but I couldn't get it started. After a while, I realized that this tiger deserved to be drawn at life size. Most of the picture was drawn in charcoal, with highlights in white pastel and white acrylic paint. I initially tried to sketch in pen, before I realized that it was a waste of time, so scribbles in pen are visible here and there.

Vashti, 22x30 inches, mixed media on heavy paper.

Vashti, detail, 22x30 inches, mixed media on paper.

Much thanks to MoonsongStock on DeviantART for the reference photo!

Vashti, out on the porch to show the size.

Feo

Feo is a mixed media drawing, made from a few different pictures combined. The majority of the drawing is done with charcoal, sharp dark marks were put in with pen and highlights were done with white acrylic paint. The paper is a soft, heavy light grey paper with deckled edges, sorry I don't have a good picture of the edges at the moment. I really wanted to draw the appaloosa horse (whose name is Feo), so I made up a background to finish out the composition.

Feo, mixed media, 8x15 inches, finished.

Feo, detail of clouds.

Feo, detail of horse.

I really like this picture, so it is currently hanging on the wall in my room. Maybe someday I'll sell it, but for now I like it too much.