A minimal drawing today. Our daughter and her family are about to arrive and I’m up to my elbows in pecan pie and candied orange peel. This is my little plastic farmer guy and his victim. I only have a plastic chicken so doing the turkey was problematic–using a picture which wasn’t the right pose. Anyway, it’s done.
I spent part of last week traveling, and discovered that an airline seat is actually a good place for drawing. A few impressions, in no particular order.
What I could see on the flight out.
A traveling companion. I meant to sketch him in different settings during my trip, but failed.
The warning panel over my seat.
A very chatty, very loud, very tall woman spent much of my flight talking to someone in first class. She actually did exist in three dimensions, despite what this drawing might suggest.
A wall near the Starbucks in Concourse C at Minneapolis-St. Paul International.
been busy as trying to set up an ebay shop, so while I’ve done my drawings I haven’t made time to post them (tsk tsk). They’re all on flickr, but I’ll just post a couple that I don’t hate here.
2007-11-15:
2007-11-19:
Playing dolls again. This one is so small and pale it probably doesn’t show up very well. I can already tell that drawing every day is helping my right brain perk better.
Being behind wasn’t great, but I have been enjoying the seeing everyone else’s work so far. Gorgeous stuff, and full of ideas. Here are my drawings for Days 1–3. I’m trying to pursue a theme of autumnal things. Small blue toys don’t fit.
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
(Can anybody tell me how to avoid the creation of the grayish background when scanning the images?)
Originally uploaded by cynthiacloskey.
Technically I drew this on day four, but it’s the second drawing. My niece is my parents’ first grandchild and the center of my family’s attention. Her toys are scattered everywhere in my parents’ house, including on the table at which I sat today to work and watch football games.
I got the perspective on this totally wrong, but I think you still get that Fischer-Price feel.
At the wedding yesterday, each guest received a little gift bag containing an apple brought by the bride’s mother from upstate New York, the bride’s recipe for apple crisp, and two plastic ninjas in dispenser machine bubbles:
The bride had spent years (and many, many quarters) collecting these ninjas, buying one whenever she came across a dispenser. Yesterday, she released them into the wild.
Some of the things that live on the back of my couch:
(I drew this standing up, and with a ten-minute timer going.)
I finally managed to break in one of my new Moleskine sketchbooks. First I drew the plain pencil sketch, then I did a larger version and colored it with some Grumbacher watercolors. I used my pencil to measure the proportions in both.
The sketchbook paper is heavier than that in the regular journals, but it’s definitely not intended for watercolor. The paper has a coating that makes plain or almost-plain water bead at first (it sits just fine if you dissolve enough paint in it—laying down the red was no problem). Then it sinks in all at once, making it very difficult to apply an even wash. I’d read about this but figured I’d give it a try anyway. Now I know.
Next, I drew a toy using my water-soluble Caran d’Ache pencils just as usual, and then I blended them with water. Again, there was the beading problem (look at that lame shadow!), and I wasn’t able to do the thing where you get supersaturated color by drawing on wet paper. The paper just wouldn’t wet right. Whatever. You get the idea.
Ha! You thought I was going to draw another drinking vessel, didn’t you! Well, you thought wrong—feast your eyes on this:
What the hell is that? you ask. (more…)
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