In Search of Lost Drawings...

Like Marcel Proust, I am in search of something lost. While Proust may have been looking for lost time, I am looking for a lost drawing. And as Marcel's volumes are known for their extended length, my search is also known for its lengthiness. In my search, I have uncovered many other drawings that were lost, but not this particular lost drawing. The drawing I am searching for is the above drawing of tomatoes. I would like to finish it and give it to my mom for her birthday, but I can't do that if I can't find it. I'm sure Marcel Proust (well, maybe not now as he is no longer with us) could come up with a lengthy prose passage on these tomatoes, but I don't know if I have it in me to embark in another lengthy search for them. Anyway, on a positive note, I did find the elephant drawing that I had been looking for (these guys here).

In the continuing saga of electric pencil sharpeners, I took a trip to Office Max last night and I bought a new one. And going against my "never buy the extended warranty for anything rule," when the guy asked me if I would like to pay an extra $2.99 for an extended warranty, I jumped on it. This will guarantee it for 2 years. Considering the fact that all of mine have died on me in about 6 months time, this is a good deal.

Another Portrait...

One of my creative goals for the year is to complete a colored pencil portrait. I had started a colored pencil portrait before, but got frustrated and quit. I have done some tiny ATC sized colored pencil portraits, but those are so small I can't count them as a full portrait. The reference photo I used is one of the many wonderful selections from this weeks weekend drawing event. The picture was just begging to be done in color. I would like to work on it more today, but my electric pencil sharpener isn't working and I have had to use a hand held sharpener. One of the colors that I need to use just doesn't want to be sharpened. It breaks off whenever it approaches sharpness. Frustrating! I feel like throwing the sharpener and pencil across the room! But what good would that do? I guess I will paint this afternoon instead. I haven't hauled out my paints in awhile. And then there's the matter of homework... The class I am taking this semester only meets one weekend a month, so it's easy to get lazy. The last weekend is March 5&6 and all my assignments are due that weekend. It could get pretty miserable towards the end if I don't get things started soon!

Another sketch...

Here is another sketch, this time, straight off the press. The ink is practically still wet. Who am I posting this for? Who knows? I just know I like blogging and I want to continue to blog on a public forum. I love to draw portraits. In fact, most of the time, when I do a drawing for the weekend drawing event, I choose a portrait. I think because I draw portraits and because I have spent a lot of time studying faces, I have a different idea of what constitutes beauty than the average person. For instance, I don't usually like to draw people that are considered to be traditionally beautiful as I find their faces boring. Flaws create interest in my book. Yes, the above portrait is of a beautiful woman, but I do find something very interesting about her face. Go figure... I guess I should just accept the fact that I like interesting faces and whether they are beautiful or not, I guess that's not the question.

Another Weekend Drawing Event Sketch

To the person who had to pop into my blog anonymously to tell me that they didn't find my blog at all interesting (and I certainly never claimed that this was the most interesting blog in the world), I'm still waiting to get a link to his or her blog, so I can judge the content... And once I do get this link, I will judge it on its merits and will not reply in a cowardly anonymous fashion. And your remark is not enough to stop my blogging. So, if you come back (for whatever reason, since my blog is so boring to you), it's still going to be here to bore you. Anyway, here is another one of my two hour sketches. I have many more of these as I participate in this event just about every weekend. And who cares? I don't know if anybody else does, but I enjoy doing these sketches and as this blog is just something that I also enjoy creating content for, I'm going to carry on...

A Sketch

I thought I should pop into my poor, neglected blog for a visit. So, here I am. Hello blog! I have accumulated lots o' drawings since the last time I was here. I am going to make a proposition: I will post on this blog at least 3 times a week. If I don't, seek me out and yell at me. Today, after a few days without drawing (I've gone to a lot of movies and watched a lot of movies this week), I finally got back into this drawing thing today. This was done for the weekend drawing event at wetcanvas.com. I spent about 2 hours on it (that is the time limit for weekend drawing event drawings). Anyway, here I am again world and here is my drawing!

The Three Amigos

I haven't updated here in awhile and I suppose I should now and then, just in case anyone decides to pop in. I call these guys The Three Amigos for obvious reasons. I find the picture interesting as these are black rhinos and they do not usually hang out with each other. They are very much solitary creatures. In fact, only the white rhinos form groups, or crashes. I've probably mentioned that before in one of my written forays into rhino nerddom (yes, I know that's a made up word). Anyway, what do you suppose these guys are up to? I think they're probably out in search of Nachos Navidad (yes, it is that time of the year again), but what do you think?

So, I broke down and bought a set of oils and just thought I'd have to come here and share my first oil painting. Here he is--Mr. Rhino, of course. Don't tell me you're surprised. All in all, I liked oils, but I like the fact that acrylics dry right away. It took 4 days for this to be dry enough to scan. That type of thing makes Anne very impatient. I'm also including the cow that I painted this morning. Yes, it was done with acrylics, so I could post it right away. I like that.

Gorillas and a spot of blood...

Well, I made the jump from the wrinkly hided pachyderms to furry primates. I am enjoying doing this drawing so much. I have drawn a gorilla once before, but that was with charcoal on blue paper, so that was quick. This one is taking longer as it is with mechanical pencil, but I am enjoying every minute of it. You know how people say that they put their blood, sweat and tears into something? Well, if you look at the lower right hand side of this drawing, you will see a spot of blood. I suppose I will have to admit though that I didn't work myself to the bone on my drawing, but only didn't wait long enough after cutting myself on a Fancy Feast can while washing dishes. It was more about the hazards of recycling rather than a passion for my work. Hey, I tried anyway. I bet Van Gogh bled on his paintings. Maybe someday...

Not a rhino, but a pachyderm, nonetheless...

Yes, I seem to have a thing for the large pachyderms. Here I am taking a break from the horned ones and indulging in a trunked one. I used a little 6x6 canvas for this guy and I loved painting on it. The surface was much smoother and all in all, more pleasant than the surface of the little acrylic boards I have been using for the rhinos. Now I'm thinking that I would like to do a series of painted elephants and, in fact, have another one sketched out. I haven't given up on the rhinos though and in fact, painted a new one just this morning. I am waiting for the paint to dry (this does not take long with acrylics) so I can scan it.

I do find it very interesting (and rather pleasing) that these largest of animals in the animal kingdom tend to be vegetarians. Some people have this idea that rhinos are these vicious creatures with a constant trickling of blood on their horns and mouths, when in fact, they usually just use their horns to fake other animals. Sometimes two male rhinos will clash horns, but usually without extreme results. And elephants, as we all know, are these amazing, sensitive creatures.

Red Rhino

Here is my latest rhino. I have been good about painting one of these every day (I'm up to 9 now), but last night I was just too tired. I will try to fit one in today amongst all of my homework. Yes, I have class tomorrow and have saved all my reading for the day before. I am really sick of school. Anyway, I will post more of these in the next few days. I plan on giving some of these away, but they look good all together as a group! Oh well, at least I will have the scans...

Orange Rhinosicle with Spots

Here is another of my daily rhinos. I decided to go with some polka dots. Indian rhinos have these bumps on their hide, so it is not so far fetched. Unfortunately, I splattered on the dots kind of messily. Rather than a monochromatic painting, I decided to use some of the complementary color, so I went with a blue background and blue dots. I kind of like him, but not as much as Mr. Blue. I gave one of my rhinos away yesterday. It was hard, but what else am I going to do with all the paintings? If I don't start giving some away, I will soon be drowning in canvas boards--or, at least, tripping over them.

Mr. Blue

I have to be to work in 25 minutes and have yet to start getting ready. So, what am I doing sitting on my butt blogging you may ask. Well, that's a good question... Anyway, I have been doing these little 6x8 acrylics paintings of rhinos. I have been calling the project "a rhino a day." This is the one I did last night and I am quit happy with him. I had never tried a monochromatic acrylics painting and now I am thinking that I may want to do a few more. It was fun! This is Mr. Blue, an Indian rhinoceros, otheriwise known as the greater one horned rhino or scientifically, rhinocerous unicornus.

Time for a crash...

Yes, I am back at it with my favorite cutie-pie beasts. This time I wanted to draw a group of rhinos or more specifically, a crash. I still have to do more on this, but thought I'd post what I have now as I haven't posted in a few days. I've been working on acrylics and have been doing the exercises in a book--mostly veggies. That might be a bit too boring to post here, or maybe not... This is a crash of white rhinos, of course. If it were another species of rhinos, they would not form a crash as the other 4 species are solitary animals. You can also tell they are white rhinos by their wide mouths. In fact, they got their name from the dutch word for wide, which is "widje." Bet you didn't know that...

Portrait update

Yes, I have continued to work on this, despite the lovely coffee stain. No matter how hard I try to tell myself that the stain can just be a character mark, it is just not working for me. You can't justify brown splotches on a graphite portrait. Anyway, it's just a practice run, so it's really all o.k.. I can't imagine something like that happening to a commission. That would make me rip my hair out and run down the streets naked yelling "shoot me"! It is fortunate that I don't have to do that. I know nobody is reading this blog now, but I hope to get some visters again soon. I've mentioned before that I have another blog and that one is active with comments, so don't feel sad for me if you see all of the "0 comment" entries. I'm just trying to update this one more and then maybe the readers will come. Or maybe not... There are a lot of unread blogs in cyberspace, so I'm in good company.

Double the Rhinos...

I was just up north visiting my family for a few days and this is all the drawing I managed to squeeze in. Yes, it is the rhino duo again. Double the drawings of the double rhinos... I start class again next week, but this one shouldn't dig into my drawing time as much as the last one did. Those summer classes require all of your time and energy, the regular school year ones do not. I need to finish my ATCs for the trade and then get going on the animal alphabet project I signed up for. I'm afraid I've been neglecting all of my on-line projects. I also need to get going on perspective studies that I promised myself I would work on and I may play around with that today. But now I'm off to Target to purchase a new VCR. Yes, this is the second one that has died this year. Oh, and my laptop is dead too. This has not been a good month for electronic equipment.

This is just a quick drop-in to post a portrait that I am working on. Unfortunately, as you can see, it has a "character" mark. I could pretend it is a smattering of sepia added to create interest, but we all know it is the mark of coffee. Oh, the dangers of coffee... Anyway, it is just a portrait for practice, so it's not a tragedy, but it's still annoying. And to top things off, it now also has a cat paw wrinkle. As much as I love cats and coffee, they are not always good for one's art...

A Pomegranate and some stew...

Tonight, after a long and rainy day that I had hoped to spend drawing to my heart's content, I finally did a quick little painting. I have these fairly new Inktense pencils (they're like watercolor pencils, but they're more vibrant and inky) that are so much fun to play with and that's what I used for the pomegranate. I also cooked today for the first time in ages. I made sweet potato and black bean stew and it was delicious. Too bad I didn't have a pomegranate for dessert. After a long, dry, hot summer, we finally had a cool and rainy day. When I went out earlier there were all of these prissy types with their umbrellas and I just had a great time splashing in the puddles and getting soaked. I'm not much of a fan of the sun to begin with and we have seen more of it than usual this summer, so today was a fantastic treat. And we're supposed to get more rain tomorrow! Yay! Unfortunately, tomorrow I will be at work, but still...the rain makes me happy.

Rhino Update 8/07/2007: Bath and Weigh-in for Zuri

More Rhinos

Yes, I have drawn more rhinos. I drew a cow today that ended up looking slightly deformed, so I wanted to draw some figures that I was more familiar with. So, I drew my favorite stocky, less than graceful looking beasts. I like them in all their awkward beauty. Yes, cows are maybe more poetic looking, but I like the reality of the rhino. I was really happy to find this reference photo on wetcanvas a couple of months ago as I had just about exhausted all of the public domain rhino photos. So, thank you lisilk for your fabulous photo.

Speaking of rhinos, I have been meaning to post this video (see above) of baby Zuri from the Cleveland zoo. She is a black rhino that was born on July 11th and the zoo had been posting regular video updates. She is the cutest little (well, maybe not little as she is already over 200 pounds) creature.

ATC trade

I don't think I've discussed here the ATC (artist trading card) project that I'm participating in. I am taking part in a trade with (I think) 30 other people from all over the world. ATCs are little cards (2.5x3.5) that can be done in any medium. This trade is actually not limited to ATCs (some people have done postcard sized works), but I'm sticking with the minis. It has been a lot of fun, but unfortunately, my class kept me away from it the past few weeks. Now I'm ready to get back in the groove! I have about 12 that are ready to be mailed and have, I think, 10 left to do. I thought I would post some that I have already sent out. This little puppy travelled all the way to Australia. Sometimes the cards are hard to part with. This one I almost didn't send out... *sniff* At least I still have the scan.