Drawing Is Painting Without Color

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A great article with a lot of tips for us who draw.

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Make Pencil Portraits for 30 Years?How About That?

pencil-portraits

A portrait drawing in progress shows how wide-ranging Mau-Kun Yim develops the midtone. It makes up a lot of real estate in pencil portraits.

Leaving China for Hong Kong after winning a major painting competition that could have set his career skyrocketing, Mau-Kun Yim instead left his mother country with only the clothes on his back. He eventually became a lauded teacher of drawing in Hong Kong and his decades of pencil portraits are sure to astound you as they did me. But it isn?t just his work that it is provocative. It is also his teachings. Here are a few of Mau-Kun Yim?s tips on pencil portraits that you can use right now to make significant improvements in your art.

-Use a B pencil to define the boundaries and outline the head. Switch to a 3B or 4B pencil to add…

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The Joy of it All, Doodle #81

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Joy can be found in many places in life. I find joy in creating art like today’s offering, “Lollipop Flowers” which is a silly drawing meant to create a smile.  However the most joy I get in life is helping others.I am an Ed Assistant in a urban school district. At this point in my life it is not the ideal job to have looking towards retirement but I love helping the students in my class.

It brings great joy to my heart when I help just one of my students learn something new. In life

Life Goes Floating By, Doodle #80

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When I was a kid the girl I hung with from down the street and I would spend a lot of time just lying in the grass watching the clouds floating through the sky. As we were laying there we always tried to attribute the shape of a cloud to a certain person or thing. I miss those simple days when life and the clouds seemed to float by at a snails pace.

I have discovered the older you get life and the clouds appear to float by as if driven by a swift wind. There is little time left in each day to lie around looking at the clouds trying to discover the hidden treasures in each shape. I also have a confession to make.  I still try to draw what Carla Sonheim calls Imaginary Animals where you look at a cloud, cracks in the sidewalk, stains or anything else and create an animal drawing. They are fun to do and infuse your creative juices with some new vigor.

I think as you grow older you need to hold onto your youthful attitude it will keep you feeling younger. The idea is to take the time to once again slow down the floating of life, enjoying the ride more by experiencing all life has to offer.

Spring Into Something Renewed, Doodle #79

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Today is the first day of Spring. A time when all things are renewed. The flowers start blooming, the grass starts growing (ugh) and the trees start to come to life. Spring is also a time when thoughts start turning towards the summer season. Spring for me means the start of America’s favorite pastime, baseball, which is the inspiration for today’s doodle, “The Pitcher.” Football

I don’t know why I like baseball so much. Football and hockey appeal to me more because of my adult ADD with all the action packed into each game. Still there is something about baseball that causes me to anticipate the start of a new season. Maybe it is the crack of the bat and the runner trying to beat the ball to first base. It could be the anticipation of the next pitch or just the fact you can wear shorts and a t-shirt to the games. Of course there is always the taste of ballpark food.

As a follower of Jesus I sometimes find the past creeping into my thought process. Past failures and short comings keep me anchored to the past. I also use past failures as an excuse to not trying to move forward in my life. Baseball season is a reminder to me that sometimes in life we have to start over. We have to put our failures and setbacks behind us and try something new like a year long art challenge. As I grow older I plan to keep moving forward. I may fail but I will just dust myself off and keep going.

A Little Texture Attracts the Eye, Doodle #78

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One of the hardest things for me to as an artist is to convey texture in my drawings. Over the years I developed into pseudo cartoonist. I like the simplicity of line drawings which can convey a lot with only a few lines. Once I started to play around with pastels I found textures can be conveyed with a few strokes of the chalk pastel. Even in acrylics I can convey texture by the way I lay down the brush strokes or the materials I use to create mixed media creations.

Now that I have switched back to pencil, pen and marker to create my daily doodles I have again been trying to learn how to create texture with a few strokes of the pen. Today’s doodle is a pencil drawing where I have tried to convey texture in the woman and her clothing using a few pencil strokes. While the work is incomplete I have learned to be more patient with the details and look for the texture in whatever I am drawing.

I think life is the same way. We spend so much time speeding through each day we forget to take the time to look at all the textures which abound in the people we meet and places we travel. It is the textures which give the world and people God created their beauty, their individuality and uniqueness. Life is all about textures so stop trying to smooth out all the rough edges and create what you want, instead be satisfied with what is already there.

It’s All in the Details, Doodle #77

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I must admit as an artist there are times I struggle with the details. I find that I am more creative and more satisfied creating quick sketches with a little color added to make the picture pop. Today’s doodle, “The Sunflower,” is a little more detailed than I usually create. In the back of my mind I would love to be a more detailed artist and have tried various books in order to learn. The problem with books however is books do not give you the feedback you need when you’re trying to improve your art work. If anyone wants to be my tutor I would be glad for the help.

What does this ramble mean? The answer is this. When it comes to living your life whether you’re a person of faith or not it is hard to learn what you need on your own. it is also hard to learn what you need from just a book even when the book is filled with pictures. In the end what we all need is for someone who is more learned than we are to come along side of us to help us learn what we need to know.

As an artist if there are any low cost or free art classes you can take, make sure you take them. It is in these kind of classes I learned I could draw more than just simple cartoons. If you are a believer attend a church where you have access to men and woman of faith who you can go to in order to help you understand the Bible more clearly.

Watch the Mood Set, Doodle # 76

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In my opinion art is both subjective and objective. Our main objective in creating our art is trying insure the subjective piece of art will invoke a response in the observers of our pieces. Part of the response is what kind of mood your piece invokes. Is your painting a lighthearted piece with a lot of vibrant colors and a lot of movement or is it a brooding piece done in monochromatic colors or layout. This is why it is important as artists to watch the mood set of your artwork.

As an artist I try to create colorful, upbeat or corny pieces of art because I feel they set a happy mood with their content. Today’s doodle a mixed media, collage illustration of some flowers simply entitled, “A Bunch of Flowers.”

In life just like in art we set the tone of each day by our mood. If we are bubbly and upbeat around others they will respond to us in a kind manner. However if we choose to treat others in a brooding and defiant mood, well you can guess what is going to happen.

I know we all have bad days but I set in my mind years ago to be upbeat each day no matter the circumstance of my life.  I always try treat others in a kind and inviting way each and every day. Believe me there we times during my dealings with my cancer treatment that I wanted to bite people’s heads off not because of what they did but because of the anger inside about the disease. I had to step back and take a deep breath, say a prayer asking God to still my angry words and move on. Paul says in Ephesians 4:32, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

 

The Pattern in Life, Doodle #75

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As an artist the first thing that pops into my mind when I hear the word pattern, today’s prompt, is a zentangle. As a football fan who is in the midst of NFL free agency and roots for a team in need of wide receivers my mind of course went to a wide out.

A wide out or wide receiver makes their by catching the ball thrown to them by the quarterback. A good wide out can find a way to gt free from the defender and catch the ball. A bad wide out, well he doesn’t have a very good pass to catch ratio. What does all this have to do with you? Maybe not a lot but it does offer us an analogy for being and artist as well as in our living our daily lives.

As an artist we must be a good wide out who avoids all the defenders (internal and external distractions to creating our art). These distractions come from many sources, critics, well meaning friends as well as other sources. The key to avoiding the defenders is to keep on moving forward with our art by practicing, practicing, practicing even when every ounce of our being is telling us to just give up.

In life we elude the defenders by doing as Paul says in Philippians 3:14, “press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”There are always going to be obstacles in life, the key to reaching a goal is learning how to go through the obstacles and come out the other side stronger and more knowledgeable.  I hope you enjoy today’s doodle a zentangle of a cat entitled “Tangled Cat.”