Pencil drawing

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.

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.

A Monochromatic World, Doodle #69

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The doodle prompt for today was the word monochromatic. As an artist I normally like to work with vibrant colors and take days creating a piece of art. However working with one color and it’s varying shades was something I was looking forward to since I saw this prompt on the March list.

There is something bold about setting down a drawing using the barest of colors. In the back of my mind I rattled around the idea for today’s doodle of doing a simple shades of grey landscape but pushed it aside.  Instead I used a picture of the city I live in and created and abstract monochromatic picture in red.

The picture I created made me think that there are times when we view the world and the people around us in a very monochromatic way.  What we see is what we know and filter through the lens of our own biases.The problem is we don’t live in a monochromatic world.  We live in a very colorful every changing world.  As believers we are called to see the world around, the colors, the shapes as God sees the world as if we are looking at the people through His eyes. The best way to find out how we are to see the world is to go right to His word.

 

A Man and A Violin, Doodle #62

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man-and-violin

The prompt for today was saturation which could have led me in a lot of drawing  directions. The first thing which popped into my head was a picture featuring water. After all I live near a river and figured I could do a location doodle. To bland. I then pondered about what else saturates besides water. Somehow I ended up thinking about mu and all the concerts I ever attended. The music saturates the air with sound. The picture I drew was actually inspired by my days in junior high playing the viola.

I still love the sounds of a string instrument. One of my favorite musicians is the fiddle player from the Celtic Women. I  love the way her performance takes over the stage. Our lives need to be like that of a musician. Whatever we do in life needs to be a beautiful sounds which saturates others with joy.

The Boston Terrier, Doodle #60

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boston-terrier

The doodle prompt for March 1st was to doodle something ordinary. Well what is more or ordinary or more comforting then the face of your favorite . Whole I currently don’t have a pet my son does have a Boston Terrier the one pictured is not his.

Daily Timeout for Art

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girl-with-flowers

The final theme for February was gold. I could have gone in a lot of directions with this one but instead I chose to go with a piece entitled “Golden Haired Girl and Her Flowers.” The piece is a simple one done in colored pencil.

Daily Timeout for Art #56

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birs-and-berries

The prompt for today, berries. I turned a bunch of ideas over in my head until I came up with the idea a bird eating some berries from a tree. While the piece titled, “Bird and Berries” did not turn out the way I wanted I am still satisfied with the end result. I have set a course recently to learn how to be more adept with colored and watercolor pencils. I have always used pastels and acrylics for their brightness of color.

No offense to all of you who use oil paints or inks but oils are hard for me to use and inks cost more than I can afford. I decided on color pencils and am trying get more vibrant colors in my renderings. I am also venturing out with my drawings because I got tired of doing just landscapes or abstracts.I hope you enjoy today’s offering it is my truly venture into doing a lifelike bird.

Daily Timeout for Art #54

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makwup-mishap

There are times when you sit down to create something for a prompt and your mind goes blank. This was one of those times even though the prompt was faces, something I draw all the time. The problem was I didn’t want to draw just another face. Instead I chose to take two faces from an old book, give them a body and create something different. The end result entitled “Makeup Mishap” is not a finished piece but a whimsical piece destined for future revisions.

Daily Timeout for Art #53

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fish-hat

I love art because it allows you to take what you visualize in you mind and put it down on paper. My process for art is to pick up my pen or pencil and as Uncle Jed would say, “Commence to Drawing.” There are times how ever when you get a prompt for drawing something and the prompt like today’s which involved drawing something to do with water turns into something entirely different then you planned.

Originally I planned on doing a building reflected into a puddle but what I chose instead was to add a gold fish bowl to an illustration of man leaning on a counter. The piece entitled “Gold Fish Bowl Hat,” is my diving into learning how to do simple illustrations. I love working with acrylics but drawing simple illustrations give a quick result to creating something .