curry powder

Doodling: It Comes Naturally!

In spite of all appearances (here, anyway) the intrepid Drawing Group has continued to meet when the three of us are all able to set aside the same Tuesday mornings. Through all of life's events, whether planned or unplanned in our three lives, we prioritize where necessary so that we can convene. For so many nurturing, affirming reasons, we are approaching year 10 of our friendly practice.

Some months ago (!) I proposed that we doodle. For two of this, there was family history re: doodling. Our moms doodled regularly while talking on the phone back in the 1950's. For me, this is a distinct memory. It takes no effort to call up the image of Mom holding in one hand the ebony black receiver of our weighty rotary dial phone with its spiral cord, and in the other hand a ball point pen. Her eyes down, her pen creating geometric mazes in the corner of any available paper, she would listen and occasionally utter an uhm hmm, her pen moving to a clear space on the paper when necessary.

While sipping our fresh coffee and visiting about our moms and other topics, we three made these doodle borders. Mine is the one with the tribute mazes, and just one of us actually got to some color work!

Summer Sketches: Little Floral Portraits

Many of my sketching time-outs are taken with my little drawing group. These are always held to two hours, and always include baked goods and coffee, as regular readers may know. Every fourth gettogether is an outing, either spent in a café or on a trail or at the beach. Last time we went out, we stopped first at The Red Twig, followed by a floral sketching session at Old Mill Town in Edmonds, WA. Perfect! Here are our sketches:

Yellow rose

 

Mixed sprigs. This sketch is mine.

Geraniums

Art Tools in a Mug: Drawing Group Exercise

A handful of brushes and some miscellaneous calligraphic writing tools stuck in a mug provided the perfect subject for a drawing group sketch. In this case, the three of us sat around my dining room table, our drawings revealing our varying perspectives depending on where we sat. The forms and textures provided just enough challenge to make this a fun exercise.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Petite Paper Houses

For our first architecture project ever, the Drawing Group enjoyed embellishing flat, white cut-outs (precisely pre-done by hand using Arches 90lb hot press paper) that once folded and secured with tape turned into little luminarias. One Tuesday morning in November, one of our members surprised us with this drawing and folding project. It was pure fun. Here are the three autumn and Christmas-inspired houses we completed. This trio was followed by another batch with distinctly Christmas themes, all. Thank you, _____! (Members prefer to remain anonymous.)

 

My house luminaria with an electronic candle within.

Three Takes on a Banana Leaf Plant: Edmonds Sketch Outing

The morning was nippy but the three intrepid Drawing Group members perched in the shade of Old Mill Town in downtown Edmonds, WA a year after our first foray to draw there en plein air. This time, we selected one plant instead of the entire facade of the buildings! (Getting wiser). We enjoyed the more limited drawing subject as we sipped our coffee and talked about whatever crossed our minds. Here are the results:

We all agreed that this was an elegant rendering of our subject. The paint was put down first, followed by fine, uniform ink lines.

Sensitively drawn as though it were growing through an open window, this rendering seemed complete in pure and simple graphite.

My drawing looked better with my paintbox underneath it. I'm not sure if that's good or bad, but I suspect it's not good!

Armchair Travel: The Drawing Group & a Vintage Train Case

When I turned 11 my birthday gift from Mom and Dad was a Samsonite Train Case. Come summer, we were to travel to Casablanca, Morocco to live. My new white train case with its pale pink, quilted satin lining represented my independence from my parents, my own minute, portable storage space. 

So it was especially poignant to me one morning a few weeks ago when one Drawing Group member presented us with a still life featuring her mother's train case from the 1940's and a pair of olive green gloves. We nostalgically told each other train case stories, describing our own beloved ones to one another before beginning to draw this one from the 1940's:

Where did the gloves go? Drawing the train case provided various challenges. Capturing the perspective (very nicely done) overwhelmed one member so that she unconsciously omitted the green gloves. See how visual information can be edited out by our brain/eye/hand processes?

 

The daughter of the train case owner wanted to do a pen and ink sketch with added water for a black and white drawing. This one would be right at home in The New Yorker.  

 

The colored version of the train case. We in the Drawing Group are all working on a looser watercolor approach in our sketches.

   

Here is my train case sketch with the drape that was used around it.

My own train case is still in my mom's possession. It no longer travels on trains, but I'm thinking of reclaiming it and taking it on a trip via Amtrak. Being built to withstand many years of use, it served as a handy seat in many an airport and possibly in a few train stations, too. 

Drawing Group Goes Clandestine: Café Sketching

To Summarize: Drawing Group consists of three of us. I guess it should be Drawing Trio. But that's beside the point. We alternate homes for our morning visit/eat/draw sessions and for the fourth session we have a little field trip. In February we went to the Café Louvre (previously Tully's, and still a friendly, roomy café with excellent baked goods) in Edmonds. We scored a spacious table with a good view of the clinetèle and then started what is a tricky exercise: sketching people quickly--because people move.

Here are a few of the sketches that we deemed fit to print:

 

Notes: excellent perspective for a quick sketch. There is little or no time to erase and correct when sketching quickly so the accurate capture of distance is impressive in this sketch. Another effective aspect here is that the most distant man is sketched more lightly, telling us that he is farther away. Yet, he is the focal point for me because we see his face and his situation by the fire.

Notes: the most distant man in the sketch above is the same as I captured here.

 

 

Notes: with a few pencil lines, the drawer indicates that this is a female. We noted that the café was hosting a lot of men enjoying camaraderie and reading by the fireplace.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes: one challenge in drawing in ink is that every mark is strong. Therefore, the baby's face needed to be indicated with as few marks as possible so that it remained babyish and sweet.

 

Notes: one super-quick sketch by me. I like the spareness of this one.

 

Notes: the ink I used makes this man's face more severe than it would have appeared had I used pencil. I'm glad he didn't come to take a look; we try to be inconspicuous in our sketching activity!

Old Milltown, Edmonds, WA: Drawing Group Challenge!

I winced when I logged on here to Curry Powder because it's been so long since I posted anything. I didn't really want to see the date of the last post, even. There are reasons for the long pause but all of those aside, there's one excellent reason to post the Drawing Group's recent celebration today: WE FINISHED OUR HOMEWORK!

One stunningly perfect morning in August we met up in Edmonds, WA to draw a favorite town haunt: the recently enhanced Old Milltown. The hardscaping and floral plantings took our breath away while the proper row of storefronts created a contrasting background to these. Hence, my suggestion was to create a two-layered drawing. We didn't discuss the intricacies of designing this way so it was only after we all got started that we realized that we had 3-D challenges ahead of us. We spent two hours sitting amidst the planters, grappling with perspective, color, pattern, you-name-it. After this, we took our work home with us and dealt with the next stages by ourselves. We did work on these in our weekly meetings once or twice, but needed to concentrate in solitude in our studios to really put them together.

So, four months later, we had all completed our pieces. One of us completed hers within weeks of that summer experience. The other two of us managed to get ours done last week. That's why we are celebrating! Usually, we spend one two-hour gettogether on a project. Sometimes these projects turn into a more developed one. In this case, we had our "homework." Take a look. Following the photos of the artwork I have posted a photo of Old Mill Town:

A harmonious and muted palette characterizes this "pop-up" version of Old Mill Town. Pen, ink and watercolor were used in all of our pieces. In this one, the plantings are clearly the focal area with the buildings offering a backdrop. (appx. 8"x10")

This member opted to render the scene from a head-on perspective. She exceeded the assignment by adding a third layer behind the buildings: the trees. Behind these: the soft blue sky. We all selectively omitted certain details or created some from our own imaginations. In this composition, the added layers really enhanced the whole. (appx. 9"x11")

As I was photographing our finished pieces, the December sun flooded the room. This member saw how the sun created dramatic shadows so I took a quick photo to show the dimensions.

This is my take on Old Milltown. Compositionally I don't give it a high mark but I loved the entire experience of sitting in the sun, working from photos in my studio, occasionally pulling the pieces out of the envelope to dabble away at it, and then finally resolving the pop-up factor and doing the final construction. It's 5/8" deep by 6"x10".

 

Here's my photo that best shows the beautiful park and western-style building facades.

Drawing Group Visits Joplin's Sanctuary & Animal Rescue

 

Spacious pastures, clean shelters and the open skies greet rescued animals when they come to Joplin's. The dahlia beds provide ample bouquets which are sold as fundraisers for this non-profit shelter. Click on this photo to go to the sanctuary's website. You may make contributions there.

Our intrepid little drawing group packed up our supplies (including cookies to munch on as we drove) and traveled to Joplin's Sanctuary & Animal Rescue in order to see the operation and sketch some of the animals dwelling there. After an inspiring tour, we were ready to position a bench so that we could try our hand at sketching some furry, moving subjects.

One of our members made sit-upons for us to use when we draw while out in the elements. They've been used in gardens, on beach fronts, and now: on a farm. We three tucked ourselves onto this bench for our sketching session.

We posed the question: who should we draw? The rescued goats, now very friendly and well-fed? The newcomer chickens found by the highway in a cast-off cardboard box?  The duck who had survived several brutal attacks by humans, now in the TLC of Byron and his crew? We opted for the goats and the duck ("Quasimodo," affectionately called Quasi).

Quasi's distorted neck doesn't keep him from quacking a friendly greeting while approaching people, including us.

 

 

Goats are especially cute from the rear! They challenged us as they do not stand still for more than a couple of seconds. Two of us did pages filled with gestural sketches. I added some digital color to mine in Photoshop.

 

 

Founder Byron Wilkes gives Quasi a chance to be eye-to-eye with the gentle, curious goats. The popularity of goat milk products has led some entrepreneurs to keep large herds in unhealthy, restrictive conditions with inadequate vet care. Joplin's currently has two pastures with shelters for goats.

Wheel Barrows and Garden Gloves: Drawing Group in Summertime

Of our little group of three, two of us have greenhouses. Earlier in the summer we drew a wheelbarrow in one of the greenhouses, and recently we tackled a garden glove as our subject while sitting in my greenhouse. Here are some of the results: 

Here, the garden glove was sketched right onto the same page as the wheelbarrow, creating a nice study.

 

The angles in this drawing are accurate, causing the wheelbarrow to look stable even though no floor is depicted.

 

Lest we forget one of the pleasures we indulge in each time, I'm interrupting the series of drawn images to show you what awaited us in the greenhouse the day we drew the wheelbarrow.

 

 

Many things about my wheelbarrow are wrong. And it was "wrong" to use a pen for this exercise. A pencil would have been a lot neater..

 

...and my glove had a few problems, too! Although now, a week after drawing it, it doesn't look so bad to me. I like it when that happens.

One of us particularly loves detail, and this page reveals that. The stitching and the precise pattern of the print on the cuff of the glove are carefully recorded.

May some of your summer drawing interludes also be shared with friends. I highly recommend it!