We made it to week 2! November 8, 2007

How’s it going, guys?

Me, I’m finding it a lot easier to get my drawings done this year than it was last year. Knowing that I’m definitely not going to draw at home means that I’m much more careful to get it out of the way early in the day. Which means less stress, and less frantic rooting around in my apartment late at night, trying to find anything interesting to draw.

Also, doing so many of my drawings in public, of strangers, means that I’m spending less time on it—I have to, as I’ve mentioned, because strangers who don’t know they’re being drawn have this annoying tendency to move around. And this means that I’m doing fewer icky, tight drawings, which are sometimes a problem for me.

I do want to use some different media occasionally—not just stick to my Stabilo mini-pens for the entire month—but I’ll have to limit myself to what’s portable. (And I know that plenty of people do watercolors outside, but they are clearly more organized and less clumsy than I am.) Maybe I’ll do some more two-day drawings, like I did with the pomegranate, where I sketch something sloppily one day and apply some obsessiveness on the following day. That worked out pretty well, I thought. And maybe I’ll try to do more landscapes, since the farmers market was fun; it’s getting mighty cold here, though, so we’ll have to see about that.

And you?

Return of DrawMo! October 31, 2007

Hello Drawmonauts and friends!

I’m looking forward to the start of DrawMo tomorrow. (Once again, I’ve decided to do a project for the month in addition to the daily drawings I do in a sketchbook over on my blog, woolgathering…) I’ve decided to see what it’s like to draw my right hand every day for the month, in pen and ink, on a single sheet of paper. Six times five is thirty, so I think I’ll make a kind of grid.

Is anyone else considering a theme for the month? Can’t wait to see what people do…

Mezzaluna … and bag January 12, 2007

It took some time to get the sketching going again. But I have an excuse. Or sort of. I have been busy making the ultimate sketchbook-bag. (It didn’t actually take one month to make, more like a couple of hours, but that’s my best excuse …) India, who by now is fluent in Norwegian, saw a post on my Norwegian blog, and asked me to cross post it. Mostly because of my cool sewing machine I think. ;-) The bag has a perfect size for my sketchbook, it has separate rooms for: Pencils, pen, iPod and one with a zipper for my wallet and cellphone. And I think it turned out really nice.

And last night – finally – I did my kitchen-thing-sketch:

Please vote for “a painting a month in 2007” December 26, 2006

Hi, everyone.

Happy Boxing Day.

I haven’t yet done my December DrawMo drawing – but there are still a few days left in the month…

But meanwhile, I wanted to let you all know that I’m a finalist for a DIY shopping spree – and they are voting for the winner over at Curbly.com – so this post is my shameless plea for votes!!! My proposal was to spend the money to buy twelve small canvases and an easel, brushes, etc., and make and blog a painting a month for 2007. They are offering a $200 budget at Amazon.com.

I figure that if I win, I will be able to do a small painting on canvas for DrawMo/Curbly each month next year! This was my project description:

http://www.curbly.com/elizabethperry/posts/498-A-painting-a-month-in-2-7-

You can vote for me with your comment on this thread:

http://www.curbly.com/benmoore/posts/571-Curbly-Christmas-Santa-by-Committee

(You may need to register, but I think it is a cool site and you might enjoy it anyway – they are a group blog / online community with lots of great project ideas and both how-to and design advice.)

Thank you all so much!!!!

DrawYear!: Product lust November 9, 2006

A brief interuption from all the fantabulous drawings to lust after Typotheque’s 2007 planner/sketchbook. Perhaps a bit early to think about your own personal DrawYear! but hey, this is pretty shiny. And for all the designers/type nerds out there (I see you) there’s grids in the front for sketching type. Love the placeholding ribbon, too. (is there another name for that?) Happy Day 9 everybody.

Husband reading (Day 3) November 4, 2006

For my third drawing I begged my husband to sit still while reading the paper. This was the last page of my old sketchbook, so today I’m starting my brand new one. For my birthday I got a sheet of amazing paper from a friend, and I have used some of it to make the new sketchbook look all pretty and girly:

Above is my old sketchbook, decorated with a postcard I bought in Bologna this spring when I visited the Childrens Book Fair. Below the new sketchbook. All dressed up, and ready for DrawMo. Lying next to them are my “travel-kit”. One pencil (lead-holding), one box with 6 color lead-holding Koh-i-Noor pencils. That I don’t know if I’ll ever find refills for. Buhu.

Oh. Well then. OR Ask the DrawMonauts! November 2, 2006

So, just finished my drawing for the day (I’m hoping to post/flickr this weekend); I did it in Prismacolor colored pencils on two facing pages in my Moleskine. And . . . apparently you can’t erase Prismacolor from Moleskine paper. At least not with a kneadable eraser. Which is fine; I’m excited just to have actually used a colored pencil and filled two pages at one go. But if in the future I want to use more than one colored pencil and conquer my monochrome block, erasing might be good.

Does anyone know if another kind of eraser would work? Those PC pencils lay down pretty thick, which is why they’re so gorgeous, but I’ll have to learn to practice some restraint/planning (ew!) if I can’t erase. I hate to stray from the Moleskine it’s new! that works out to $.50/day because I love its creamy goodness, portability, and I’m comfortable with it. But if I become brave will PC colored pencils erase better from other kinds of paper? The Prismacolor website gave me nuttin’.
Signed,

Questioning in Queens.

Pens, paper, and paint November 1, 2006

I know Drawmo is supposed to be about drawing and not painting, but I was so inspired by Elizabeth Perry’s “Woolgathering” blog (and I enjoy watercoloring with my daughter so much) that I plan on doing some watercolor painting this month too. So here are my implements of destruction, from right to left:

• 4×6 notecards (or really any index cards available — I’ve got lots lying around)
• X-random ballpoint pen (my main axe)
• Koh-i-noor drawing pens in a variety of tasty colors (favorite: graphite). These have the advantage of being cheap, and of drawing beautiful lines with ink that dries really fast. They feel like pencils actually!
• Tiny 8-color portable watercolor set (cheap)
• Portable #6 Utrecht watercolor brush (the end of the handle is hollow and slips off, then fits around the brush to protect it and to make the whole brush small enough to fit in my pants pocket)

And, at the top, today’s unintended splurge buys:

• Moleskine watercolor sketchbook. $15 seems pricey for like 70 pages, and I readily admit I’m a bit of a Moleskine anti-snob, but I fell in love with the texture of the paper and decided what the hell. Serves me right for wandering into an art supply store. I will just have to chuck my plebeian pretensions and learn to enjoy it.
• Bigger portable watercolor kit. This is just too nifty for words: It’s got 4 stacking disks, each with 6 colors, for a total of 24 different hues. Plus a lid. It was like $5 so I could hardly *not* buy it, right?

I was originally planning on doing all my drawing with just ballpoint and index cards, plus the tiny watercolor kit, but I have a way of getting seduced by new materials, especially if they’re packaged cleverly. Ah well. On to the drawing!

BTW, I am tagging all of my Drawmo posts in Flickr with the tag “drawmo” — might be a handy way to find stuff even if it hasn’t been explicitly sent to the Flickr group or blogged here.

Timely issue of Tin House magazine October 31, 2006

The new Graphics issue of Tin House magazine is full of Lynda Barry goodness and other relevant artsiness.

I went “shopping” in the bottom drawer of my dresser last night but somehow can’t find my set of those Derwent pencils. Or my big box of colored pencils. But I now have a felt bag full of lots of markers and a Moleskine and another Moleskine and some vintage #2 pencils and Mars eraser. Ready? Well, here’s hoping!

Drawing exercise suggestion: While listening to a favorite album/CD/playlist, make a drawing for each song.

D minus 3: Are you ready? October 28, 2006

Today I took my newly assembled DrawMo!-to-go pouch out for a spin.

The bag is a Small Project Pouch made by Piddleloop. It’s intended for knitting, so there’s a pocket for notions, an elastic strap to hold needles (too tight for my phat pens, unfortunately), and a grommet in one end so you can thread your yarn out and knit with the top zipped shut. It’s exceptionally cute, and the ladies of Piddleloop were super, duper, duper nice. They offer many more fine products (including a cheaper version of this bag without the needle strap and grommet, for nonknitting applications), and you should totally go buy things from them. Once DrawMo! is over, I intend to put this to its intended use, and take up sock knitting. Anyone for SockMo?

Ahem.

Meanwhile, here’s what I crammed into it:

• 6 Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens (the “landscape” set, with brush tips) — I’m not crazy about these, but I’m trying to get used to them. I just wish they had normal pen tips.
• 1 fine-point brown Pitt Artist Pen — This is the kind I prefer, but I only have them in brown.
• tin of 12 Caran d’Ache Supracolor Soft water-soluble colored pencils — This is what I ended up using today.
• tin of 12 Derwent Artists Pencils — Somebody gave me these, and I’d forgotten I had them. They’re redundant, with the Caran d’Aches, so I’ll probably omit them from the bag on my next outing.
• Moleskine reporter notebook — Now, with seven (sides of) pages used!
• Muji pencil sharpener — The MoMA store is the only place I know of to get Muji in the U.S. This is from there, and I keep another one in my editing-to-go pouch. Not as if it matters what kind of pencil sharpener you use, but elegant tools make me happy.
• Muji mechanical pencil — Got this from the Muji store in Paris, tra la!
• Pentel Clic Eraser — These are The Shit. I keep them around for editing, but they’re great for all your eraser needs. It’s the same material as a white Mars eraser (my favorite—erases thoroughly without leaving a telltale pink smudge on the paper) but in an easier-to-handle shape.

That is all. I went to the Met, looked around a bit, then settled on a bench in the Indian sculpture area and did three sketches. Man, drawing really does make you have to use your brain in a different way. My first one—a nonblind contour drawing of a dancing female figure, sucked, right off. I made myself draw the whole outline, though, even though it looked kookity. Then I drew the same sculpture again, but this time roughing in the basic shapes first, to get them in the right positions. That came out way better, but I found that I’m very lazy about drawing detail stuff. Also, I had trouble getting enough of a range of shading. Finally, I started a third drawing of a smaller, simpler female figure, and that was going well, but then it was 8:30 and the guards started herding people out, so I was saved by the bell. Phew.

So. Good warmup, and I’ve already relearned some stuff that I’d forgotten.

Has anybody else who wasn’t drawing already gotten started? Are you ready to rumble?