paper

Earlier this summer, we made a little trip to the craft store, and I was able to get some new art supplies! I was excited to get three new art pads of different kinds of paper: one tan, one gray, and one the traditional white.

I don't know why, but I've always had some kind of mental block when it comes to art sketch books. It's like my mind goes blank and I can think if nothing to draw. If I do have something to draw, say for an assignment in school or something, my art skills seem to go right out the window, and I can't remember how to draw anything except the cartoon people I've drawn since middle school.

Even today, I often feel an aversion to nice sketchbooks, because I know it will make me avoid working on art.  Up until this summer, I think it's been at least 12-13 years since I've bought one-basically not since I graduated from college.

In school, I waxed the most artistic when I had lined paper in front of me, but then I'd feel sad when I drew a nice picture but it wasn't on good paper. So, I figure if I want to work on my art portfolio (which is definitely a goal of mine) I need to ease into the real sketchbook thing.

So over the last few years, I've been buying an oversized 11x14 sketchbook to use as my personal  journal, rather than a regular 8.5 x11 book. Then, when inspiration strikes, I can use one of the nice pages therein, but not feel bad if it turns out poorly, because it's just my journal, right?

All of the marker drawings from the last three years, the pencil drawing of Eli and Jonah, Elora in the sunflowers...basically, everything that wasn't a commissioned drawing has been in my journal.

Anyway, this summer I finally felt like I could handle a real sketchbook. Mostly because when I want to show people the originals I'm not too keen on leafing through my personal journal to find them.

So here are some things I've done recently. First, I wanted to try the tan paper. I thought it might work well for portraits, since I haven't been able to find the light pink paper that I first started drawing them on in 2008. The color was nice, but didn't work quite as well as I hoped. It really sucked up the color from the pencils, so I found myself pushing a lot harder than I usually do, and it still didn't look very bright. I'll have to experiment some more.
I used Joshua's birthday pictures for this drawing, because there was a lot of high contrast light. First is a toned drawing of his head,

 

 



then I tried one with more color; I liked his expression in this photo. It turned out a little cartoony, but Josh really does have a cartoony face!

 

finally I did one in full color, which again wasn't as bright as I hoped, but it turned out pretty good:

 

 

Here is the full page with all three drawings on it.

 

 

Next I wanted to try out the gray toned paper. I looked through all of my black and white photos to find something that would look cool with it. I settled on an old photo of Elora by some water from around 2008. I used charcoal pencil, which I hadn't used in years. I forgot how hard it was to get precise details, plus I didn't have all the tools I used to have for this medium  from back when I was in school, so I wasn't very excited with how the drawing turned out. In the end, I added a smidge of color just to make it more interesting. It probably wasn't the best choice of photos for the medium.

 

 

I knew I had a lot of nice black and white photos saved on Pinterest, but I was hesitant to use someone else's photo for my artwork. In the end, I figured I'm not selling it and it's just for practice, so I decided it was okay. Believe me the photo I was looking at is much cooler than the drawing, but this is the one I did:

 

Not too bad. But again, it was someone else's idea to begin with, so eh.

 

Finally, I've come around to my white paper. It's the same size as my journal, but nicer paper. When we were on a little car trip a few weeks ago, we had stopped at a gas station in the evening, and I took a picture of a telephone pole with the evening sky behind it. I love paintings of everyday, almost ugly objects made beautiful, and this reminded me of a neat painting I'd seen with lots of telephone wires in it. For this drawing, I used my markers:

 

For the most part I really like it, especially  the red undertones on the pole and the ground. I'm not sure I like the clouds through the middle of the drawing. I added them last minute without thinking about it first, and they were not  in the photo. I had to put a little bit of white acrylic paint over them because the yellow was too yellow, and I didn't have a better color to use.  All in all thought, I like it. It's not nearly as cool as the painting I was remembering , but it reflects where I live pretty accurately.

This is the one I liked: "Alley at Dawn" - René Wiley Oil on Canvas 40 x 20. I love it!

 

renewileygallery.com

 

 

  Right now I am working on another drawing in my white sketchbook that's not finished yet..because you know, kids and stuff. It takes weeks to finish something that would take a day or two otherwise! I can't wait to show you.