Tag Archives: sketchbook

Drawing with Joy

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I want to watercolor journal but have the typical fear of using paper and making bad art. Its part of the reason I like my ring journal so I can easily destroy anything I don’t want to see again. I got a ton of cheap 140 lb cold press water color paper from Dick Blick but have had trouble working up the guts to draw on it.

It occurred to me last night that I could doodle practice on it and learn how to apply watercolor in a low stress way. I’m surprised at how much richer the colors are on nicer paper.

Last night I broke out some Joy Sikorski books: How to Draw a Radish, Clam and Witch and went to town.

Monster Mash

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I mostly have the day off so I thought I’d tackle the Book of the Night Warm Up. I didn’t do it exactly as described but as closely as I could stand too. The shadowy mist did not turn out the way I hoped. Nothing stuck to the slick acrylic background including the layer of fear words.

I think my name on my father’s tombstone is spooky. It may be the only tombstone my name will appear on. When he passed away 2 years ago on my birthday, he turned into (in my mind/grieving) the father archetype rather than the flawed human being. I am happy to have enjoyed him in the last year of his life.

Hallowe’en in a Suburb
By H. P. Lovecraft

 

The steeples are white in the wild moonlight,
And the trees have a silver glare;
Past the chimneys high see the vampires fly,
And the harpies of upper air,
That flutter and laugh and stare.For the village dead to the moon outspread
Never shone in the sunset’s gleam,
But grew out of the deep that the dead years keep
Where the rivers of madness stream
Down the gulfs to a pit of dream.A chill wind weaves thro’ the rows of sheaves
In the meadows that shimmer pale,
And comes to twine where the headstones shine
And the ghouls of the churchyard wail
For harvests that fly and fail.

Not a breath of the strange grey gods of change
That tore from the past its own
Can quicken this hour, when a spectral pow’r
Spreads sleep o’er the cosmic throne
And looses the vast unknown.

So here again stretch the vale and plain
That moons long-forgotten saw,
And the dead leap gay in the pallid ray,
Sprung out of the tomb’s black maw
To shake all the world with awe.

And all that the morn shall greet forlorn,
The ugliness and the pest
Of rows where thick rise the stones and brick,
Shall some day be with the rest,
And brood with the shades unblest.

Then wild in the dark let the lemurs bark,
And the leprous spires ascend;
For new and old alike in the fold
Of horror and death are penn’d,
For the hounds of Time to rend.

 

Drawing with Charcoal

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There is no ideal sketchbook or journal. In my search I started creating a mixed paper journal that is ‘junior sized’ half of a page of 8.5 x 11 that is hole punch for that size of binder. I collect a variety of paper and mix it up. Colored card stock, parchment, drawing, watercolor, sketching, found, prepped acrylic color field, etc.

For the cover I use report covers (black) that I purchased from Oregon Laminates and also sheets of acetate so you can see through. Sometimes I’ll put multiple cover sections in if I want the journal to open up in multiple places (extra sketching paper). I’m using binder rings to keep it together. Its a little bulkier than a normal sketch book. Not too bad if I use the smallest binder rings (but I worry I’d run out of paper with the smaller one). They fold over flat at any page so there is no fighting how the pages open. I like the variety of surfaces, sometimes I skip around if I want a certain paper but I also like to let what ever happens happen. I can journal, sketch, draw, paint, make to-do lists, archive the stuff I’m tired of looking at.

What I discovered in the last couple of days is I like how charcoal looks on the craft paint acrylic fields I’ve been creating in hopes of Art Journaling.

  • Photo 1: Cover of Journal with Grid making device
  • Photo 2: Prismacolor Sanguine Sketching Pencil (top) and Green china maker (bottom)
  • Photo 3: Charcoal
  • Photo 4: Prismacolor Sketch Set (Charcoal and Chalk Pencils)

Blind Contour Faces

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Took me a few days to figure out how to get faces for the next exercises in Experiential Drawing. Used the 9-11 Edition of Time Magazine because they had huge portraits.

 

Experiential Drawing Practice

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I started working through the exercises in Experiential Drawing by Robert Regis Dvorak which I checked out from the library. Starting with a ton of Blind Contour Hand Drawings, Some where you can check back and forth, Left Hand Drawing and finally being able to pick up your pen.