Another self portrait

I did this one from a photograph I took of myself with my smartphone. The angle was a little weird (see previous about smartphone), but it's definitely easier to work from a photo than from the mirror. I took Charles Reid's suggestion from his book The Natural Way to Paint (in which he delivers a contour drawing lesson) and started with the eyeballs this time, working my way outward, instead of starting with, say, the top of the head. I think it helps with face proportions, since it makes it pretty easy to get the distance between the eyes and use them as anchors from which to measure other points. The nose is too short, the mouth is too low and rather oddly shaped, but it's a closer likeness. I still think I like the first wonky one in the mirror better, though! I didn't really have the time to paint it, so I just laid in a background and a few shadows and let it go at that. This definitely takes practice!

In the mirror: blind contour

At my library this summer, we are running a Self Portrait Contest for the teens. They can submit a photograph, a drawing, a painting, or a collage. After one too many comments that "I don't know what to do" or "I would like to do this but I can't draw," we decided to run a little workshop to get the uncertain or undecided people started, and I've been madly preparing to teach it. I have created a short powerpoint about self portraits, and then I am going to give a small tutorial on contour line drawing, and Anarda (my teen librarian colleague) is going to talk about various ways to do collage.

We asked them all to bring a freestanding or hand mirror with them, plus some reference photos of themselves, so I decided today to do a couple of examples of contour line drawing in the mirror. I thought it was an excellent idea to teach them contour drawing while they are just starting out--I know it would have made all the difference to me had someone given me instruction in this as a teen. Instead, I learned the traditional method of making a bunch of geometric shapes and lines and trying to fit my drawing into them, with the result that for years I sought to make a perfect drawing without really looking at my subject! Contour has really opened things up for me, and while I am by no means expert at it, the liveliness of the line and the quirkiness of the results appeal to me, even though they aren't "perfect."

So, first I did a completely blind contour in the mirror:

which is to say, I drew this without looking at the paper, and without lifting my pen. Well, I might have lifted it once or twice, but no more. Strangely, although the eyes are cockeyed, the nose misshapen, and the mouth kinda weird, it does look like me!

Then I did a continuous line contour and allowed myself to look down a few times, with more or less the same results--the mirror looks better, but me? not so much...still wonky-eyed.

Next, I decided to show them what you could do with contour when you DID allow yourself to lift the pen occasionally, and you DID look at the paper, while working from a photograph. I didn't have a photograph of myself to work from, so I pulled this off the computer--he's a German model, and he looks just like a character in a book I recently read, so I saved him for a fan fiction painting I want to make; this being good practice for that. I decided to try sepia instead of black, and then use watercolor to define just the shadows. I was pretty pleased with the result, except that I had a weird jog out too far on one cheek at the jawline. This took me about 30 minutes, and I wanted to illustrate what you could do fairly quickly with just a contour drawing and one color. I'm not sure I would do so much delineating of shadow patterns with the pen next time, as it creates too much of an outline effect, but...this is an experiment!

I can't wait to see all the self portraits that the teens turn in this summer. I will be posting them on our teen blog, so when some are up, I'll link it from here if anyone wants to see them.

More vegetables

I thought I'd get back to painting ingredients for various recipes for the library cookbook. Both I and the other person planning it took a hiatus while we prepared for Summer Reading Club, but now that's all done and we have to jump back onto the cookbook, since it needs to be printed and ready to go by October latest. I received a couple of recipes that call for eggplant and tomatoes, and one that has a topping made with eggs, so I threw them all together and made an illustration. I'm not sure these eggs read as eggs--they're brown, and I'm afraid someone will think they're potatoes instead! I have some awkward lines and overworked areas in this one, and may do it over with a different layout (and white eggs?), but I'm posting it anyway, just to make me feel like I'm getting somewhere!

Tribute painting

I just read Robert Crais's new book, Suspect, and since I was going to review it for my work blog, I thought I'd do a tribute painting to go along with it, of the character Maggie (the German Shepherd). I have painted a few cats in my day, but no dogs that I can remember, and honestly this came out looking more like paint-by-numbers than anything else. Fur is hard in watercolor! And getting the texture of the soft ears, and especially the expression in the eyes, also hard. Maybe I needed a smaller brush and a couple more hours? So I decided not to show it on the work blog, and just put it here; but then positive comments from my cousin and her friend convinced me it wasn't so bad and I should post it. So if you want to read the review of the book, which is very good, and see this (smaller!) on my work blog, go here tomorrow morning after 9:30 a.m.

If you're one of those people like my cousin Cos who is weirdly fixated on celebrating birthdays and anniversaries with round numbers (as in, today is your 49th birthday? no big deal. Today is your 50th birthday? Wow, we need to have a giant surprise party with balloons and cake and invite everyone you know whether you want to see them or not!), you will celebrate with me that this is my 100th post on this blog. Whoopie!

Teen reading

I picked up and read a couple of new teen books over the weekend, and decided to make a quick painting to go with my reviews on the Burbank Public Library teen blog, YA Think? Here is the picture, and if you want to read the reviews, you can go here.

Nasturtiums

I've been wanting to try my hand at some fan art by doing an illustration to go with Cornelia Funke's new dark fairy tale series, but it's been so long since I painted anything (two months? how did that happen?) that I thought I'd better get my eye and hand back in working order first, so I backed off of complex and opted for still life for today.

I was inspired by this block print, May's calendar illustration, by American Arts and Crafts artist William S. Rice.

The nasturtiums in my yard have been so magnificent this year that I decided to preserve a few of them on paper as a way back in. The rose bowl vase that holds them is nearly impossible to duplicate in watercolor, because it's irridescent glass with an intricate incised floral pattern; so I just went for the color, which is a reflective turquoise-y green, and tried for the feel of glass by preserving some highlights. Perhaps I will paint it differently someday, but for this picture I didn't want the vase to take center stage, I wanted the nasturtiums to be the focus. For this one, I abandoned my latest style/tool (drawing in pen) and went back to pencil to give a softer, more natural feel. The pencil around the edges erased, but stayed visible wherever it was painted over, but it doesn't really bother me. I don't feel like I captured those characteristic nasturtium leaves as well as I managed the ruffly flowers, but I enjoyed focusing closely on these beautiful, vibrant flowers for a couple of hours.

I don't really know why it took me two months to get back to my paints; I'd say lack of time, but that's not really true--we make time for what we want to do, and I certainly spent many hours reading that I could have been painting. I never have understood the reluctance to commit time to something that I enjoy so much once in the midst of it, but I hope not to interrupt momentum for such a lengthy period again.

Cowboy Caliente, Take Two

I tried it again. I simplified, took away the bowl and the can of corn, and had a little fun with the label on the bottle of hot sauce. I'm happier with this result.

Notes about watercolor: It's so easy to go too far. It's so easy not to go quite far enough.

On the first one, I went too far on the avocado and it got muddy, so I was careful to leave variation in color on this one. On this one, I was about to call it a day when I noticed the tiny cast shadows beneath the stems of the tomato, onto the tomato's surface, so I added those and it really improved it.

As I look at this one, I can see that I need to go back in with a little more shadow on the underside of the garlic bulbs, as I did on the first one--I'm still a little hazy on the effects of cast shadow (especially when the objects are in weak, neutral light rather than with a strong light source, as these were on my patio). Practice, practice, it all gets used. On to the next recipe...

Question: Does it bother anybody that there is no horizon line? Do the cast shadows sufficiently "seat" the objects on a surface, without indicating a surface in some other way?