Blind Contour Drawing

She's not done, but so far I kinda like her... She looks like she knows something that I don't... And she looks content.

I did a blind contour drawing with a black Stabilo pencil, brushed over that with water (to get the greys and the drips--love those drips!), then used some pastels over her.

I'm sure she needs paint, but I really don't want to cover up the drips...

Catch Up on the Big Draw...

As usual, things have been hectic around here... Sometimes I wonder what I did with all that time before I had kids.

Joel's football team is currently ranked number 5 in Central California (all divisions of schools) by the Fresno Bee! The boys are having a great season and have knocked off a couple of teams who have traditionally been bigger, stronger, and more athletic than the Porterville teams...It's very exciting.

Katie's choir just had their first concert--wonderful wonderful! Tennis has just ended for her, so she's very sad as she absolutely loves all the girls on the team, but basketball starts in a couple of weeks, which should perk her up considerably.

and of course, I've been ripping up carpet, laying laminate flooring, painting, and cutting new baseboard moldings.  That's been a huge job, more hard physical labor than I could have imagined, but soooo worth it! With three dogs, three kids, and three adults in and out of the house all day long, laminate is a much better choice for us than carpet.

Here are some of the pages from my sketchbook during the past week or so. I'll try to scan more and get them up soon.

The Big Draw--Day Eight

All done with my right hand! It's like it shifts my brain into another gear.

The Big Draw--Day Five

Blind contour drawings from Jenny's graphic novel, BabyMouse.

P.S. Isn't it exciting/amazing/cool to see these blind contour drawings improving so much? I'm going to tell the kids in art club about this--not that I didn't know that practice improves my skills,but WOW! Even at 46 I need a reminder!

The Big Draw--Day Four

The Big Draw--Day Three

Interesting how much more tentative my lines are when I'm drawing and looking at the paper,as opposed to the blind contour drawings…

The Big Draw--Day Two

More blind contour drawings. These are fun, especially because they are so clearly about process rather than product…

The Big Draw--Day One

Blind contour drawings…

Mixed Media Collage--Using Original Photos

I finished this piece about 5 weeks ago and apparently never posted it. I've used collage and archival copies of original photos--that's our pasture and our old pony. I love the odd color combinations on this, and I loved continuing the tree using pen and ink. I tried to do something like this a couple of years ago, and was very dissatisfied with the result. I may have the knack of it now.

Illustration Friday: Backwards

Estelle no longer needed to continually glance over her shoulder, looking backwards into the past that she feared would catch and engulf her; she finally felt she could look forward as she strode through life...

Estelle, Original mixed media painting by Karen Smithey on 8"x10" gallery stretched canvas

Illustration Friday Paradise

I love what I wrote--

I'll live under the sea
in a forest of anemones
where I can feel the ocean's gentle swells and
ride the furious waves,
where the cold of the depths balance
the heat of my heart's desire...

But I'm not happy with any of the ways I tried to incorporate them. I'm looking for help, folks! Any suggestions are welcome...

Monoprints

I was so inspired by the article on monoprinting in this month's Cloth, Paper, Scissors that I decided to make some of my own. Yesterday I experimented. Of course, I didn't have any glass on which to roll the ink so I used a piece of palette paper instead. And, oh gee, I didn't have any printing ink so I just used cheap acrylics with retarder added. I'm pretty good at making do when I have to.

I drew houses, much like she did in the article, and then added some big popsicle trees. I don't want to make a paper quilt with these, just individual prints. Yesterday I mentioned using this same process on fabric--that's on tomorrow's agenda. I'm still trying to figure out how to control the paint absorption by the fabric...

The bottom print is done, I think. I liked the combination of machine- and hand-stitching...

Finding Water

This is a copy of the contract I've signed with myself for this twelve week adventure for Finding Water, Julia Cameron's new book. I've been doing my morning pages for the last couple of weeks--I figured I'd start early--and have yet to figure out what my Artist Date will be this week. Maybe a trip to the fabric store? It's almost an hour away, so it'll gobble up the whole day, but that's okay, right?

I've been thinking about doing monoprints on fabric, then using the fabric for quilting. In truth, quilting is really just a fabric collage... I'm not sure how it would work--maybe iron the base fabric to freezer paper, ink up some palette paper, then draw on the back side of the freezer paper to transfer paint to fabric? Then I'd have the freezer paper to use as a template for the applique and quilting...

See? I'm already full of new ideas and ready for adventure! Lots of times, I used to worry that I was travelling down some path that would bear no fruit--in my old age (!) I see that every path has something to offer. Every single thing I've done in the past has made me who I am today, and there is no such thing as wasted time out here in the studio.

Off to play.

Illustration Friday: Sprout

I've been doing all these trees that are odd things--flowers, sea urchins, shells, etc. This certainly is quite a sprout! I experimented for a long time with adding some words and finally got it to look the way I wanted. I love the colors.

Artwork and Questions

I sketched again last night while the littlest was going to sleep. I'm finding that the more I'm practicing, the less I'm thinking about what it is I'm drawing ("I'm drawing a tree") and more about the actual shapes/textures/shading. It's not as hard to concentrate on the negative space...

I've also been experimenting with drawing/painting faces. This one is actually a painted face/body, but the features are a gel medium transfer that I then touched up with colored pencils. I intended to draw a design on her dress, but somehow the somber dress fits with her. I'm drawn to female images--there's a power there that I want to communicate.

I've got a couple of ideas for places to approach with my artwork. I know that this is the next step, but it's a difficult one for me. I'd love to hear ideas/comments from anyone who's been through this. My motto is "leap and the net appears" but I'm a little bit scared.

A New (to me) Way of Seeing

For the last couple of evenings I've been trying to work on my sketching, concentrating on the idea of drawing the negative space rather than the positive (so, for example, instead of drawing a bottle, I'm drawing the space around the bottle). While sitting down here in the studio tonight, I was thinking about how the concept of negative space completely changes the way I see, and remembered how my friend the art teacher said that learning to use value (lights and darks) in drawing was difficult for kids. I thought "What would be the equivalent of negative space for value?" since I have trouble with value as well. Then I thought--drawing with a white pencil on black paper--instead of laying down the dark areas, I'd being sketching in the light areas.

I'm sure this isn't a new idea, but I tried it and it's more difficult than it sounds. I think it's going to help me in my drawing--we'll see if my friend can use it to help kids learn more about value...

Sketches

Wanted to share some sketches I've done in the last few days. I did this sketch this morning of Katie while she was eating breakfast. I've committed myself to drawing some everyday since I'm not that skilled at it. I wish we lived closer to somewhere I could take some classes, but for now I'll just have to keep working on it...

A New Day

Well, momma goat seems to be doing okay--I emphasize the seems because even though I spent a good part of yesterday with my hand up inside her (!) I'm no expert--"I doan know nuthin' 'bout birthin' no babies, Miz Scarlett!"

She moved herself into the other section of the barn during the night, probably a 60 ft. walk, and she was dozing when I checked her first thing this morning--seemed alert when I rubbed her sides, but definitely did NOT want to get up. We had to pull the baby who was breech through before we could pull the one whose head was already out--it was awful and I'm so lucky Shelly was around--there were horrible bone-cracking sounds (yes, that's exactly what I mean), and I'm not sure I could have kept pulling. I'd like to think I would have, in order to save Gruffles, especially since I knew one baby was dead and the other probably was, too.

The day before yesterday, the neighbors' HORRIBLE german shepherds killed a cat (one of theirs, not ours, this time) and Jenny and I were the ones who saw they were playing something. So it's been a couple of days of death around here.

I was going to spend the morning making art and try to get back in the swing of things, but I'm having trouble getting started. The DH and I have an appointment this afternoon to try and deal with some financial issues, as money's been tight (I know, I know, isn't it always? Somedays I feel as though I should just give up on doing the at-home mom/artist thing and go back to teaching high school math and English. I did love teaching, but I know I wouldn't be able to give myself and my time up so completely to it as I did before I had kids--I want that energy to go to my kids. Is it selfish of me to not want another job on top of this most important one I have?)

Oh my. The studio's starting to warm up, so I guess I'll try to start working on something. It was in the low 20s last night, so things are pretty brisk here.