Sketching Several Photos into One Piece of Art: the Farmer and the Horse.

  My house has been busy with several projects lately, and I thought I'd stop by to share one of them today.

   I was asked to do a piece for a lady that would be done in pencil.  Her husband has told their children stories about a farmer and his work horse and she wanted for me to create an image to remind them of those story times with him.  She wanted the man to be indistinguishable, as we all know how we form pictures in our heads when we hear stories, and she wanted each child to be able to keep their own ideas of what he looks like.

We looked up some images on Pinterest to try to get a working idea together, and I began to use these as basics of what to work toward.  (I will suggest if you like horses, type in 'work horse' or 'draft horse' on Pinterest...there are AMAZING pictures of them!)  I found several photos ideas for the farmer and the horse.

  I started by measuring out and drawing a box in the size that was wanted for the image to be.  This gave me guidelines of how large to make the sketches.

I spent a considerable amount of time sketching the images onto tracing paper.

(There were more eraser crumbs on that page than is probably legitimate for one piece of artwork!)

Often, I would stop and take a picture and then walk away, come back, and look at the picture in the camera.  Something about doing that makes me get a clearer perspective on it.

I could see in the image above that my horse's nose was off from what a work horse's nose should be.

In this sketch, I could see the horse's eye not right, and the man was a bit disproportionate as well.

I finally got a sketch I thought I could work with,

rubbed charchoal on the back lightly,

and then traced over the front drawing lines so the image would go onto my good paper.

I then began first with the eye of the horse.

When that was where and how I wanted it, I added some detail around it.

I did not mind that my horse was not exact. I wanted to take some artistic license as to the coloring and the angle that the horse would be approaching the farmer because I was using a few different photos to create the image I was trying to achieve.  The photos were just used as guides.

 

Here is a picture that shows you the light sketch that was transferred of the whole image.

 

I continued adding more details to the horse.

At this point, I realized I did not like what I was seeing in the nostril/chin/lower muzzle shape of the piece, so I set it aside to pick up for another day.

I will do the same now and will show the pictures/progress of that part in my next post.

Thank you for stopping by!

Art Lesson: Chalk Pastel Daylily

Hi!

My life lately seems to revolve around ducklings and chicks, gardening, weeding, and picking berries...

and more berries...

and more berries.

We have had an abundance of the tiny finger fruits: black raspberries and now wineberries.

I have been freezing them so that when the fall comes and it is cooler, I can make some jellies and berry syrup.

We have picked and frozen well over 50 quarts of berries...our freezer is getting full!

The other day I just had the urge to get back to art again;

so I threw my to-do list aside and grabbed my pastels and paper and took a seat out in front of whatever I saw that looked pretty and inspiring.

 This decorative maple with the garden decoration looked nice to me.

 Crocosmia are starting to bloom inside it.

I started a rough sketch of it...

and added a few details.

I was suddenly needed inside the house by one of the little people, so I set the sketch down and ran in.

By the time I came back from the situation (as well as a few distractions along the way),

I noticed a small summer drizzle had started and when I got to my paper, it looked like this:

 I was feeling like I did not want to continue with such a large sketch anyhow,

and by this time, one of the kids had followed me and decided she wanted to create some artwork, too.

 As we prepared to share the pastels, I found a pretty daylily flower I decided to sketch.

 Isn't it superb?  I just love the colors of daylilies!

 I lightly sketched the outline of the bloom with pencil on my paper.

(I had chosen to do the sketch on yellow paper, trying to capture the yellow of the inner part of the flower.)

I decided to use the over-layment of tracing paper trick to get the main veins of the petals etched in.

 This creates a sunken line that will avoid the colors as they are put down.

 I started with a light pink on the petals, a light green inside the center, and a touch of yellow surrounding the green.  I like to start light and build up the colors from there.

 By this time, another artist had joined our group and she began creating.

 (I was hoping her art depiction would in reality leave us alone for the rest of the day).

I continued to add colors to my bloom, trying to build up to the colors I could see in the flower.

It is always more fun when everybody joins in on creating a few sketches of art.

Finally, my son could not resist the crowd that had gathered around the picnic table covered in pastels.

 

Of course, his art always seems to revolve around dinosaurs and dragons.

 Taking pictures of everybody else's artwork meant I was asked to take one of hers,

except she can never resist making a face,...

 but eventually, she can't help letting a smile out.

 Finally, I got my sketch to the point where I felt it was done and I decided I would stop and spray fixative on all of our work.

Chalk pastels are so much fun to create with and I felt happy that the blossom turned out as well as it did for just a random afternoon sketch.

I think the best part about this artistic endeavor however, was the fun memories all the artists came and made with me.

How about you?  Have you taken a break and sketched something in your July days?

If not, there are a few more days left, so see if you can take a few minutes to get something sketched...

you'll be glad you did!

Art Lesson: Shading Water with Watercolors.

Hello!

Today I am going to post a video I made a while ago and just never got it on the blog.

I was working with watercolors, a picture of a cat drinking from a pond

(it was actually something I was working on for a book I had written hoping to get published,

but have put that on the back burner for now while I am working on something more pressing).

The original picture of the cat had much more detail in the water of the sky and the trees overhead,

but I chose to just shade some of the ripples around the cat drinking and leave the rest whites and grays.

Here I will show you how I worked on shading the ripples.

 That is all I am going to share today.  I do hope to be back again really soon!

I hope this was helpful for somebody.

It is fun to work with watercolors and it seems that the more one works with them

the more confident and fun one can have with them.

Thanks for stopping by!

Art Lesson: Drippy Watercolors

Hi there!

I decided it was time to get these pictures of the bee picture on here.

I wanted to do a bit of experimenting with letting the watercolors be bold, loose, drip down the canvas.

Here is one I loved of a butterfly from a shop on Etsy by Dean Crouser.

www.etsy.com:butterfly-watercolor-print-by-dean

Also, the beautiful, colorful artwork of Slaveyka Aladjova which can viewed at her esty shop here:

www.etsy.com:SlaviART

(I think the lion, horse heads, cow, and rooster are my favorites.  FANTASTIC!)

I wanted so much to create a beautiful piece like these, so I used the bee sketch that I partially outlined with ink, took a picture of it,

and then printed up 4 or 5 copies of it onto cardstock paper to experiment before I completed the large canvas.

I started by using masking fluid on the areas I wanted to keep lighter or white.

On my first try, I was very careful and conservative and basically just painted without letting any of the paint get too drippy.

For the next image, I decided to brush water all over the areas I was about to paint,...

and add the paint right away, letting it drip and wash where it wanted.

(I am a bit embarrassed to show this image as I obviously got impatient and the masking fluid was not completely dry and it ran down the wet paint.

I knew this was just a rough run-through of experiments that I would be throwing away,

so I was not as patient as I would be with a real canvas

One cannot rush the masking fluid.

I wiped it up with a bit of paper towel.)

I followed the same wetting down of the paper procedure before I painted on some yellow.

For my next sample, I wet the page down, but used less water, so it would not be quite so loose.

I did the same with the light blue.

I painted the pink on the petals with a fine brush.

I finished with a bit more detail and some loose green for the stems and leaves,...

and then added more wet colors for the dripping effect.

 

For the other pages, I basically continued experimenting with putting down washes,

letting colors drip, putting on heavier colors where I wanted more detail.

(heavier paint on flowers)

(cleaner, more bold colors)

(more warm colors, blended colors)

It was a fun experiment and I am glad I did them on the cardstock instead of going right to the canvas.

When it came down to it, I did not like the results I had achieved with the dripping watercolors enough to go through with them on my canvas,
at least, maybe for this scene.
I loved the images the other artists have done with this, but I am not ready to frame my own attempts, so I chose to go with what I was comfortable with for my canvas:
copic markers.




Here is what I chose to do, partially finished...

and this is where I decided to stop.

I enjoyed the dripping watercolor method and hope to try it again.


Have you ever given the drippy watercolor method a try?

Here is a video I found very useful for explaining the technique.


Thanks for stopping by and have an excellent day!

Art Lesson: Watercolor Painted Vintage Wall Art

I was feeling the need to make my mantel sing of spring,

so I dug up these old wooden oval pieces I had once painted on and decided I did not like.

I decided to paint the edging of these ovals in black.

I found some vintage images on the Graphics Fairy of birds and printed them up in the center of each page by pasting them into Word and situating them to the size and place that I wanted them.

 (We've had a visiting blue jay to our yard in the last 2 weeks who is as blue of a blue jay I have ever seen).

I wanted to add a bit of color, so I splashed water all over the page with a paint brush

and then added some blue

and then some touches of red.

 Once that had settled into the paper a little bit,

I began painting the bird with a darker and less watered down blue.

 I filled in the leaves, branch, and flowers as well.

 Once the jay was done, I followed the same process for the Robin picture.

It is always a nice break to just paint an image that is already all drawn up for you.

Who doesn't love a bit of coloring-book style painting?

 I let these dry thoroughly and then cut them to fit into the oval shapes

(I did this by tracing the full oval shape onto the page and then cutting it down evenly on all sides until it fit, but a piece of tracing paper would also work to be more precise.

Laying it into the frame and running a pencil around the inside edge carefully should work).

Once I had them cut, I spread glue all over the backs of the images and then pasted them into the ovals, using paint containers to hold the image down on all the edges.

 Wanting a more vintage look, I heated some water and, using a damp teabag,

dabbed the warmed tea bag all over the image until it was stained as I wanted.

(This could also be done before gluing the image into the frame).

 The teabag was so used up, it cracked at bit and shed some bits of tea onto the images,

but I left them there to dry to add more character.

Once dried, I painted two coats of Mod Podge, allowing the first coat to dry completely before applying the second coat.

I then applied a squeeze of Martha Stewarts all purpose gloss paint from the bottle it comes in around the edges to make them look sealed in to the frame.  I used a paint brush to carefully brush it in and a few damp q-tips to clean up any smears.

Here they are all finished.  Can you see the difference with the Mod Podge?

The shine makes them look more like framed pictures.

I then put some frame wall hangers on the backs of the bird art

and hung them over the mantel in the living rooom

They added a touch of quaint, older looking decor to the wall with no expense at all:

I just recycled and used the supplies that I had...

aren't those the best kinds of projects?

Have you added any spring to your home this season?

I am still working on the bee picture.

It is coming along pretty well, but I am trying to wait until it is all finished before I share the processes I tried with it.

Thanks for stopping by!

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