Travelin’ November 19, 2007

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.

Days 6-10 November 12, 2007

Still behind, but less so. Lessons of the weekend’s drawing: curves are hard to draw well, and objects with both curves and straight lines are really hard to draw well.

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 9

Day 10

Days 4 and 5 November 8, 2007

Still three days behind, but I was pleased by the way these ink drawings turned out. I’m torn between trying to drawings with a lot of detail (like my Day 1 drawing) and drawings which are pared waaaaay down. There are so many good examples of both already here this month…

Easy as 1, 2, 3 November 6, 2007

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?)

Waaaay Behind November 21, 2006

Here are my drawings for days 10, 11, and 12.

Day 10 – ski pole
I’m very excited to follow the World Cup nordic skiing season, so I tried to draw one of the wispy ski poles the racers use.

Day 11 – eaves
The view from our upstairs window, with snow melting on the eaves. I drew this on a 3×5 card, which turned out to be a more difficult medium than I expected.

Day 12 – light switch

I really enjoyed trying out some of the techniques mentioned last week to get the perspective right. I think this turned out okay. Now I need to work on having the attention to draw the stuff *around* the main subject.

Days Umpteen through Zimpteen November 13, 2006

I’m trying to catch up. I’m failing so far, but still trying! Last night was very productive, both in terms of actually drawing some stuff and in terms of realizing that my ability to handle perspective is for crap. Any tips from those of you with a good grasp of how to draw things with complex perspectives, such as landscapes? I think that my lack of confidence and skills in this area (see “sharpener,” below) is what’s keeping me from tackling anything beyond these isolated items. I also sent all four of these to the Flickr group, so feel free to check out full-size versions there.
Day 6 – drawing chair

My chair of choice.

Day 7 – for sale

Somebody joked the other day that half the people in our town are trying to sell houses to the other houses. I’m not sure how this accounts for the half of town that cuts the other half’s lawns.

Day 8 – sharpener

My colored-pencil sharpener. Is it overkill that I use a seven-dollar German sharpener on a 99-cent box of Crayola pencils? (Regardless of whether or not that’s so, this little item drove me mad with the problems of perspective: I just couldn’t get the lower front curve to match the upper front curve, or either of them to match the lines along the side.)

Day 9 – white cedar

A sprig from a bank of shrubs on my favorite walk. This is probably the favorite thing I’ve drawn so far, not least because it smelled so good while I drew it.

Day 5 Drawing (or, Still Behind) November 7, 2006

Here’s my latest, a bolt I found on my workbench. The drawing’s a little underdone, but then again, I was drawing a bolt.

Day 4 Drawing November 6, 2006

I know it’s Day 6 already, but I’ve drawn up big drawing plans for tonight. Here’s Day 4, one of my favorite shoes.

Meet a Drawmonaut/First Drawings November 5, 2006

I’m making a belated and incomplete effort to get on the DrawMo! train with this post. In common with other Drawmonauts, I drew a lot when I was younger (much younger: like junior high), but stopped for some reason long ago. Earlier this year, I was lucky enough to meet the cartoonist Lynda Barry when she came to talk at the college where I work. Among other things, she talked about how shameful it is that adults often stop drawing or doing other fun, creative things simply because they feel like it’s not what they “should” do, and said, in short, that we should all make sure to try to draw something every day. I started doing that last spring, and DrawMo! seems like a good way to keep going. I’ve been inspired by the drawings everyone else has posted, so here (over on Flickr) are my drawings so far.

A crow I veered to miss while biking to work one day. (It was busy taking care of some roadkill, but I can’t or won’t draw that.)

A gourd in our produce basket.

A telephone pole on my way to work.

As these prosaic sketches suggest, my biggest barriers to DrawMo’ing mo are time (job, a toddler and a newborn at home, etc.) and simply thinking of things to draw. I’m happy to see that lots of others are struggling with the latter problem, but here it is only nine p.m., so I’d better get cracking on Days 4 and 5.