There is a new baby arriving any day soon, a great-grandson no less! With the baby being Australian, I immediately thought, ah ha! I’ll knit him a toy from my Australian knitted toys pattern book. It’s true, I do have such a book, and I found the perfect animal to knit. As an experienced knitter, and having made other toys from this book, I assumed it would come easy to me. However…
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Mimesis is a word I’ll never forget, as it was written in capital letters on a whiteboard in blue, as the subject of my first ever writing class at university. I sat in the auditorium waiting for the lecturer to appear, wondering what on earth I was doing there, as I was a ‘mature’ student and didn’t have a clue what the word meant. I think after all these years I have got a handle on its meaning. It is when life is mimicked through Art and Literature. Yesterday I reversed this process, when my life happened to imitate literature – through inadvertently copying a character’s behaviour from the novel I am currently writing. The problem might be different: solo travel for my character, and swimming alone, for me, but the underpinning for both women is anxiety, and the desire to change.
This past week or so I’ve been attempting to build the word count on my novel, and I have done reasonably well – a small pat on the back for that. However, I decided I’d take a short break and do another sketch. When I took the photograph a while back, I thought ‘that’s nice’, and with that mediocre response I chose to work up a sketch from the photo. Probably not a good premise to begin with. Or, was it the new phone, with the new camera which is brighter in colour than my last one?
Anyway, I kept going with this sketch, and kept adding this and that, then trying to remove this and that. I guess I should have given up at this stage.
The this and that were the various mediums I tried. I am not a watercolourist but sometimes I can play around and have something turn out okay, but this wasn’t one of those times. I used Aquarelle pencils too, and remembered how bright they were once I put water through the pigment. I used water-soluble ink pen, too and the ink spread too far! So I kept adding and taking away until I came up with the next version of messing stuff up.
I added more pencil across the sky and hill, not adding anything in my opinion except to make the sketch muckier. But I decided to show the sketch regardless, as it just goes to prove work doesn’t always turn out as well as it might.
I am not going to beat myself up about this one, but really, I have been making the same ‘mistakes’ so long, you’d expect that I’d learn when to stop, wouldn’t you? I could have just got out a new piece of paper and done something different. Left the watercolour bit for another time.
Better luck with your work. All the best, Vivienne.
This is my second attempt to sketch and write a blog this week, the first effort was not great – more wilting lilies. So, I decided to draw a fantastic tree for which Devonport (where I live) is quite famous – the Moreton Bay Fig. This large evergreen tree of the Mulberry family happens to be native to Eastern Australia. Lucky Devonport has many of these fabulous giants based around our library. They are so big they almost straddle the road, and I always stop and admire the amazing root systems which have tourists clicking their cameras. I became the tourist this day and took a photo while out walking. This will make a nice art project I thought.
I started sketching using a water-soluble graphite pencil, which has a nice thick, soft lead. My idea at first, was to make this a tonal wash sketch, using different techniques. I have tried using a white blockout lumocolor before, when there are considerable white spots in the texture in tree trunks, and would be too fiddly to leave so many bits of white paper showing, as I usually do. The blockout has worked well when I’ve used a straight watercolour wash. However, it doesn’t work that well with the water soluble graphite (for me anyway), as it leaves residual grain. So, I left the work to dry, and then tried to erase the extra pigment which had penetrated the white blockout. So now my work looks grubby, which is not unusual when I try using water! Never mind, the watercolour paper is 33gm Hahnemühle and can cope with heavy treatment.
I was reasonably happy with the top sketch but could see I had missed the proportion somewhat bottom left and top right. I did adjust that, and feel it is better. I also used a clean Staedtler eraser to lift off some of the unwanted tone. Done. But now, my task was to work more texture into the sketch, and to add limited colour. I used an 8B graphite pencil (not a water-soluble one) for the extra texture on the tree, colour pencil for the moss and the smattering of leaves. My conclusion is that maybe it’s okay to enjoy these magnificent trees while out walking, and forgo the urge to draw them – just saying.
I am talking about art classes and my sketches again. The previous week, I didn’t enjoy sketching using a paintbrush loaded with black ink on A1 sheets of newsprint.
I had, in the past only used paint with a brush that size on board, or heavy paper. Normally I would have sketched using a dry-brush effect. But that day, and many sheets of newsprint later, I knew that the combination of thick brush, ink and heavy application didn’t like me. Or, maybe it was me that was thick?
This week, we had the same model. Fortunately we began with charcoal. Ye ha! As stated before, I think charcoal works well on newsprint and its ease of use is perfect for fast poses. In fact, it glides across the page.
Better luck today I thought.
I love the way you can move charcoal on the paper, and get very grubby fingertips in the process. It helps that we were using large easels and A1 paper, as it gives the arm room to move fast to catch the pose. It’s important to gauge the shape of the model and the spaces created with the pose. For example; the triangular shape between the stride, and the negative spaces created around the figure too. Using the paper’s edge as a guideline helps, as you visually judge the distance between the shape and the straight edges. Then it’s look/sketch/look/sketch… until the time is up.
It was suggested we lie our charcoal stick on its side for the next sketches, and I did attempt one of two with varying degrees of success. But that is to be expected, when the pace is fast and you are presented with doing something in a different way from usual.
It is my natural inclination to sketch line before moulding the figure, and these were a combination of the two.
I didn’t think you needed to see the bottom half of the page. Nor the drawing which followed, where the proportions were off.
And then, it was into line again!
Gosh, I was spinning, as next we were onto ink sketches, using our implement of choice for a fifteen minute pose. Ha!I I chose my trusty pen with a long refill cartridge and sketched wildly. I decided to add colour wash near the end and duly applied it with a size 7 brush. Oh no. I hadn’t realised I had the soluble ink refill in my pen, so I quickly left that sketch alone, knowing I could work on it at home. Onto another fast pose to get at least one ink sketch done…
I like using this ink, if I’ve remembered it’s in the pen! The line is more forgiving, as it is made movable by the water brushed on. The water does need to be used sparingly for best results.
All in all I had a very enjoyable morning. Next week, I hope we’ll get to use some colour again, as it is the penultimate life drawing session.
The heading is a double entendre, I believe, although I didn’t realise the link until later. After viewing the sketches from last week’s art class, there was no way I was going to advertise them, and with my novel now back on track, I thought a post about its progress might be more inspiring than looking at the worst drawings I have done in some time. The old learning curve at work again! However, I am pleased to be making progress on the novel, coming on the heels of readers’ praise for my recent short story collection.
This week, the group were asked to focus on line rather than form for the quick sketches. I was working on A1 newsprint, pinned to board on a painting easel. This was a rather different approach from the previous class, where I sat straddled on a wooden artist’s Donkey. In that situation I could rest my arm when I chose. With all the poses for this week’s work, I was standing, using the arm and fingers stretched and moving the mediums quickly on the page. The first sketch is in the middle, superimposed by the blue pastel sketch, and last, the pencil sketch of the seated model. We did several more quick poses, using charcoal until the break.
I’m really happy to report that my book is now at the printers; I have managed a couple of days doing absolutely nothing except walking and being a slothful version of myself. Oh yes, there was the slightly stressful ‘having my photo taken’ exercise for publicity purposes. I had an idea of how I’d like the scene to be, but do not like having my picture taken. Thanks to my photographer daughter, who knows just what to say to relax the shoulders and get that grim mouth show a slight smile, worked her magic. I really do like the end result. Thank you Lara.
The reasons I haven’t been posting are not because I was away on another sojourn enjoying the sights, quite the opposite. I wrote a post some weeks back (Sept) about the time it takes in this writing lark to hear back from people. In that post I wrote that I had sent off a pitch to an agent regarding my short story collection. I waited the 6 – 7weeks indicated when I should have heard back. Seven weeks turned into twelve and I decided to chase this up. No response. Last week (16 weeks from original submission), I wrote a longer message. A reply, saying: “Oh, so sorry, your work must have been sent to So and So’s scam folder and been deleted, for all the work from that month has been seen to, and your file is nowhere to be found.” And then the bit that said – “sorry about this, you can resend if you wish, but we understand if you want to send it elsewhere.”
I have done little since returning from the family holiday, as I arrived home ill, and still feel a shadow of my former self, three weeks on. Such great plans I had: to get cracking on my new novel, sketch and sketch some more, but for anyone who understands what exhaustion feels like, you’ll understand. I have also been wanting to write a substantial post on art, writing or similar, but that is yet to come. All I have to offer are a few pen sketches and a short excursion to talk about.
ARTISTRY 