Getting Back Into It

It’s been a while since I last posted, here’s what I’ve been up to lately. After going through a bit of a creative slump and artistic block during our move last year, I got back to the business of filling up sketchbooks and digital sketching. I tried a variety of drawing and painting activities and sketchbook filling ideas to get back on track. I took a summer landscape in-person drawing class this summer that got me into sketching and drawing nature with pen and ink. Specifically trees.

I find I’ve been spending more time working on a drawing than I did previously. I would like to get outside more to draw from life, but I’m still having a block in that area about where to go to sketch. Not to mention the terrible habit I’ve gotten into since the pandemic of not wanting to leave the house. But I do go out on occasion and snap reference photos for my drawings. My wife and I went to an antique steam engine show a couple of weeks ago but had to leave early, I had forgotten how hard it is to breath around the smoking coal-fired steam engines. I did manage to grab photos for reference for future drawings.

I’ve been out a few times over the summer with the local urban sketching group and my wife and I are planning a day trip out to the National Apple Harvest Festival coming up soon. I’ll be posting some of my sketchbook drawings in the coming weeks.

One Year/100 Paintings

One Year/100 Paintings - Figure painting in Procreate on iPad Pro from live model.

Figure painted with Procreate on iPad Pro

Outdoor Sketchbook Class

Create-A-Thon 2017 summer update - Over June and July this summer, I took an Outdoor Sketchbook class at the Adams County Arts Council in Gettysburg. For this class, I broke out a new sketchbook and sketched in pencil almost daily for four weeks. I averaged about 1 - 2, ten minute sketches each day trying to capture the essence of the outdoor object I was trying to draw. Mostly trees and flowers, with a few urban objects thrown in.

This is very different from the way I normally sketch, usually drawing in brush pen, marker, or watercolor, mostly from my imagination, creating cartoon characters or making repetitive patterns. I learned some very good drawing exercises for sketching from nature using a light pencil technique - something that I definitely needed to work on. 

Another activity this summer has been attending my son Isaac's Portrait Drawing class on Thursday nights at Waldo's in Gettysburg. This class is also venturing out from my drawing comfort zone, though I have frequently gone to figure drawing sessions. When making figure studies, I usually focus on trying to capture the essence of the pose rather than a detailed portrait study. I want to draw something quickly, unable to focus on a subject intensely for a long period of time. This class gives me the opportunity to study the face and learn a thing or two from my son!

And lastly, I'm in the middle of another drawing challenge while also trying to complete World Watercolor Month. I'm participating in Sketchbook Summer, for the month of July where I'm working on filling up an entire 8 1/2" x 11" 110 page sketchbook (on both sides of the page). This has been challenging, trying to fill up an average of 7-8 pages each day to keep pace with completing the sketchbook by the end of July.

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Over the past few months, I've been taking a break from traditional film photography, and focusing on instant photography, specifically Fuji Instax film. I'm in the middle of 26 instax packs - a six month Instax Mini film project. I'm shooting on different Instax Mini Films including themed Instax Mini Film character frames that I've bought from ebay. I use different cameras in my collection, mostly the Lomo'Instant Automat and a Diana F+ with Lomography Instant Back.

Stay tuned for upcoming Create-A-Thon art techniques that I will be trying in the coming weeks.

"Create-A-Thon" 2017 - A Year Long Creative Experiment

I've just completed my yearlong 2016 Film Camera project but I've been thinking about what I want to accomplish for 2017 for a couple of months now. 

After years of being out of art school and with our children all grown, I've been sketching and creating projects with renewed artistic energy the past 2-3 years. The local newspaper took notice of my instagram postings and included me in a story early last year about artists carving out creative time while working full time jobs. I've been trying to squeeze in time to sketch and experiment with new art supplies or processes all year long while working on the the film camera project which brings me to my project idea for 2017 - a year long Create-A-Thon!

I will be trying out a new art material or process roughly on a weekly basis, depending on how much time I want to spend on each one, while blogging about my experiments and posting photos. My bipolar mind wants to try so many things and my studio is filled with no end of creative supplies that I've been buying like crazy with A.C. Moore and Hobby Lobby coupons. I have mounds of sketchbooks as I can't pass up a good looking sketchbook when we go to a new place to visit or I take my son shopping for art supplies for school (he's in the fine art painting program at MICA).

I still love film photography and will continue practicing it in the new year, but I would like to narrow it down to just a few of my favorite cameras, which currently happen to be ones using Fuji Instax Mini and Wide films. At some point during the year I will also try to get into my darkroom that I set up over a year ago.  

Here is a list of materials and processes I will be using for Create-A-Thon 2017: 

1. Derwent Graphitint pencils

2. Derwent Inktense pencils

3. Derwent Aquatone pencils

4. Peerless watercolors

5. Prang Professional Pan watercolors

6. Prima Decadent Pies watercolor pans

7. Prima Classics watercolor pans

8. Prima Tropicals watercolor pans

9. Coptic Stitch Sketchbook

10. Gelli Printing

11. Museum sketching

12. Urban sketching

13. One Sketchbook, one pen, one week

14. Watercolor Painting

15. Oil painting

16. Acrylic painting

17. Oil pastel

18. Mixed media

19. Doodles

20. Live model drawing

21. Take a class

22. iPad drawing in Procreate

23. iPad drawing in Paper by 53

24. iPad drawing in Autodesk Sketchbook

25. iPad drawing in Concepts

26. iPad drawing in MediBang Paint Pro

27. Week of portrait drawing

28. Self portraits

29. Winsor and Newton Pigment markers

30. Faber Castell Pitt artist pens

31. Nicole dual tip markers

32. Grayscale Value studies

33. Line art with brush pens

34. Duct tape sketchbook

35. Dip pen and ink drawing

36. Hand lettering

37. Sketching people at the mall

38. Mono printing with 3D objects

39. Sun prints

40. Cyanotype printing

41. Darkroom printing with caffenol

42. Fuji Instax peel aparts

43. Print photo or painting on watercolor printer paper

44. Use Bristol board

45. Use mineral paper

46. Use canvas paper

47. Watercolor painting of cats

48. Loose watercolors

49. Fill one sketchbook per month

50. Toned gray sketchbook drawings

51. Toned tan sketchbook drawings

52. Christmas card art

53. Collage

54. Winsor and Newton Watercolor markers

55. Variety of Watercolor pencils

56. Tim Holtz Distress crayons

57. Tim Holtz Distress markers

58. Koi Waterbrush markers

59. Sketching with Carpenter pencils and lumber crayons

60. Make watercolor blocks

61. Drawing on the Iskn Slate

62. Drawing on Wacom Intuos tablet

63. Assemble Skilcraft Visible Head model

64. Assemble Skilcraft Visible Cow model

65. Assemble Lindberg transparent alien

66. Assemble Lindberg transparent woman

67. Draw the same subject in 5 different mediums

68. Copic marker drawing

And anything else that catches my fancy in the new year.

My basement darkroom

Things I draw in My Fauxdori While Waiting at Places

Last year I purchased a ZYLC leather pocket Traveler's Notebook from Amazon after comparing it to the Midori Passport. I had been researching the Midori Passport and watched a few YouTube videos to get more information about them when I found this version of the leather notebook having an embossed floral pattern on the front. I really liked the look of it and also that the elastic straps that hold the notebooks inside were in the center of the spine instead of the back of the notebook like the Midori. After looking at samples of the Midori on Instagram, I also found that anything other than a Midori was referred to as a "Fauxdori".

The ZYLC pocket notebook came with a couple of notebooks, but is also compatible with all Midori Passport notebooks and accessories. I ordered a Midori blank sketchbook and use that for light watercolor ink and wash sketches with a Uniball Micro Fine Point Pen and a homemade pocket mint tin of watercolors. I also found that the ScoutBooks brand fit inside very well and have used the blank journals prepared with a Gelli Printing plate to give the pages some texture and background color for my line art sketches and doodles. I use a Uniball Signo White pen, brush pen and a Uniball Vision pen on these.

I carry the notebook and pens with me always in my messenger bag or in my pocket if I'm not carrying the messenger bag. I use this to occupy my time while waiting at restaurants for dinner, doctor's appointments, car repairs, and even while at the ER with my mother in recent weeks while she waits to be treated. I feel this is more productive and creative than checking my phone for email and social media updates.