I thought they were pine cones, too, but

... Well, gee, of course they’re sheep.

I’m minding my own business, you know, s l e e p i n g , when *poingk!* I’m suddenly wide awake at 3 am.

With thoughts of sheep.

Blind.
Contour.
Sheep.

I’m blinking, in the dark, “Go back to sleeeeep. Sleeep! SleeeeEEEp! SheeeeEEEp!”

[sigh]

This is your fault, you know, ahem, Jane. Power of suggestion and all.
Wait? What's that? Amidst the gleeful laughter, I hear you chirping that at least I got an early start to the day... Right?

Okay, I'm going to take a nap... While I'm doing that, amuse yourself with more blind contour creatures

[sigh]

Oh, it's a, uh ...

blind contour, too impatient for just one in 10 minutes.

More exercises. I'm still working through the set of exercises for the first lesson.
What is it? You guess.

When was the last time you did a blind contour drawing? Take 5 or 10 this weekend, put on some music and have a go at it. Then, drive me crazy by posting your drawing and not telling us what it is, either. Ha! >:)


Everyone's kinda shutting down early today, escaping for the long holiday weekend. Think we'll be puttering around here, staying out of the heat and staying out of the get-away holiday traffic. I have almost a full pan of leftover smoked chicken from last night's design event (from Zeke's. Never been before, and I got there too late to try the tri-tip, ribs or links, potato salad. But the chicken and garlic bread I snarfed down at midnight were preeeetty tasty). Think we're going to take it easy, have leftover chicken, beer, buttered popcorn and chocolate ice cream, hang out and enjoy the extra day off as much as we can.

Gee. Do I eat like this because I run? Or do I run because I eat like this? [sigh] I'm just not gonna say.

Anyway, whatever your last-weekend-of-the-summer indulgence is, have some, and have a great, safe long weekend.

4011

Dining room still life, graphite pencil

Wow. One more exercise from the book. I'm going to admit, this was more painful to sit down and do than I would've expected. Just contours? No shading? No shadows? Eeeeeegh!

So I decided to draw more of what's plentiful and on hand and relish doing the shadows and shade. And spots.


arty note: graphite pencil, opaque pan watercolors

We should call this one '#4011', or ...

.... 'Whatever messy art that J doesn't know is going on on his dining table, he just doesn't have to know' ('f ya know what I mean).

Not so random

"What's this? It's ... so ... random."

Whatever you think I might be up to, no, it's not completely random. I started working through the book Drawing from the Mind, Painting from the Heart by Annette Carroll Compton. See a review here.


house, tree, boat, dog, chair


cat, pencil, bottle, flower, bed

We're using a number of different media, to see which 'feels' the best. I'm going to play with more - graphic markers, graphite pencils, thinner pens. Last semester, I found myself using the word 'play' a lot in class - - I'd tell my beginning design students to 'play' with different media. I don't intend that to imply that any of it or the profession itself is lesser in value or stature, of course (you know me better than that). I'm sure it has a great deal to do with the sheer joy that I feel when I can take a brush, pen or pencil in hand.

Anyway, I was doodling these for, maybe, 10 minutes, tops, and when I stopped, I went,
"Oh. Well, now. This is telling".

I can tell working through the book is going to be interesting.