Projects waiting to be completed and art supplies to be tried.

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

January 1, 2017

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.

Sherman T. Skully - InkTober 2016

November 1, 2016

I have successfully completed the pen and ink drawing challenge for InkTober 2016! There were 31 brand new Sherman T. Skully drawings created this month. It was quite a challenge as each drawing took about 1 1/2 to 2 hours to complete from start to finish, sometimes spanning the entire day as I could find a few minutes to work on them. I created a list of ideas the week before InkTober to work from.

Each drawing started with a pencil sketch in a Piccadilly blank page journal, sometimes using reference for that day's activity. After working out the concept in pencil sketch, inking was done with a Pentel Pocket Brush and sometimes with a new pen that I tried that I received in my October Art Snacks - a Copic Gasenfude Pen. I liked drawing with the Copic Gasenfude, the tip seemed a little shorter than the Pentel Pocket Brush. The ink in the Gasenfude did not appear as black though as the ink in the Pocket Brush.

After inking, I used watercolor pencils on the cream colored paper of the journal, which is not watercolor paper. After wetting the watercolor pencils with a waterbrush to blend them, the journal pages would really curl and buckle, but I like the way the color looks on them. The finished drawings were scanned on Epson V500 Photo flatbed scanner.

I will be continuing the drawings, though not on a daily basis, so be sure to follow @sherman.t.skully on instagram to see what he gets into next.

31 Days of Skully for Inktober 2016

September 30, 2016

For this year's Inktober challenge I will be drawing a new Sherman T. Skully cartoon each day! Look for new postings to my Instagram account devoted to the goofy skeleton @sherman.t.skully

Things I draw in My Fauxdori While Waiting at Places

August 15, 2016

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.

World Watercolor Month - July 2016

July 26, 2016

We all know how I love to participate in daily artistic and photographic challenges, so I was all in when I saw postings of World Watercolor Month on social media sites from some of the artists I follow. The challenge is to try to paint something in watercolor or use watercolor in some way in your artwork, for each day of the month. The watercolor challenge was made to help support the Dreaming Zebra Foundation, that provides art supplies and opportunities to underprivileged children. I've taken this opportunity to practice my watercolor skills and try some new things with watercolor.

So far, I've missed one day of the challenge, simply too exhausted to paint after a frustrating evening trouble shooting a problem with a digital design situation. I've tried to use different techniques than my normal line and wash painting style, experimenting with different types of paper, watercolor paints, pencils, and markers. I even signed up for a class in painting clouds in watercolor that took place for one evening at the local arts council.

I watch a lot of instructional videos on Artists Network TV, YouTube and such, but I think I just need to actually paint more. I finally tried the Winsor and Newton Watercolor markers that I purchased last fall, and I have to say, I'm very impressed with these and definitely want to experiment with them. I also took this opportunity to start my bird journal in the very nice handmade watercolor book that I bought at Hobby Lobby last year. The handmade paper in the book is not really ideal for watercolor, but the texture is so interesting, it gives a different effect to the finished painting. We are in the last week of the challenge, but I'm confident I can complete it.

Nature Journal Sketchbook

June 6, 2016

Sketching entries in my Global Art Handbook Panorama.

Mixed Media Doodling

April 14, 2016

The latest entries in my sketch journal - doodles made starting with watercolor wash, swatches of Derwent Aquatone pencils activated with a waterbrush, then Uniball Signo White Gel pen and Pentel Pocket Brush ink pen in a Strathmore Watercolor Visual Journal.

Pocket Watercolor Sketchbook - May 2015 - March 2016

March 27, 2016

I've completed two sketchbooks on my vacation - this is the Moleskine pocket watercolor sketchbook that I've been carrying around for the past year. I used a Sakura Koi pocket watercolor field kit for the sketches in the beginning of the journal, then switched over to a Winsor & Newton Watercolour Pocket Sketcher's Box. There are bits of other media thrown in here or there - Pigmamicron Pen, Uniball Vision Fine Pen, Platinum Carbon Fountain Pen, Watercolor Pencils, Uniball Signo White Pen, and Gelly Roll Pen.

Funky Skeleton Drawings

November 24, 2015

We all know that I have a fascination with skeletal anatomy, though I'm not entirely familiar with all the names of the different bones. I'm especially fond of sketching skulls, mostly with an ink brush style pen such as the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen. I love the varying line widths that I can get with the brush pen. After completing a rough pencil sketch of the skeleton idea I have, I like to ink it in with the brush pen and then add color and texture to the drawing with watercolor pencil and Faber Castell Pitt Artist Brush Pens. I'm also quite fond of the of the waterproof Pitt Artist Pens with their bright colors and lightfastness. I'm thinking that I want to continue these goofy skeletal drawings and perhaps create a skeletal character that might be used on t-shirts, mugs, and such.

Urban Sketching

October 16, 2015

This week, I've gone on a couple of sketching outings to get more practice at loosening up my drawings. As I've been participating in Inktober this month, I find that my pen and ink drawings are much tighter than I'd like them to be. I would like to loosen up a bit, so I've been watching videos and reading about urban sketching, which is very similar to the mini-watercolor paintings I've been making in my pocket watercolor journal. I've been making photographs of the scenes that I want to paint as I've seen them on my outings around town, but I want to try to get out there and create on the spot pen and ink and watercolor drawings. This is going to get more difficult as fall and winter approaches, leaving less time in the evenings to get out there and sketch. I also still have my film photography hobby, but again it's getting more difficult to get out there and shoot. I've been trying to combine the two hobbies, which even my manic bipolar personality is overwhelmed with. But here, are a few of the sketches I made this week, with a walk around Hanover's Mt. Olivet Cemetery last weekend, and a lunchtime trip to the Walters Art Museum this week.

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