Social distance dog

Alice is practicing social distancing this week. Not by choice, but because she was skunked the other night. And no matter how quickly you get the peroxide/baking soda/dish soap on a dog, there’s always a lingering scent that follows them around. So for the next few days, as much as we love her, we are staying just a little further away than usual.

Counter life 10

Well, I think this series has come to an end. As you can see the daffodils are shrivelled and the tulips will start dropping their petals soon. But I appreciate that they held out for a good long time while I pushed in different directions with the stuff in my art supply cabinet. For this last attempt I used chunky Albrecht Durer Magnus coloured pencils with — and I quote from the Faber-Castell literature — voluminous lead. Isn’t that a great description of a fat pencil? These are made for large scale drawings, so perhaps my paper format was too small, but like most products from this company, the quality was beautiful. They are creamy and dissolve almost entirely when touched by water. As for tomorrow, hopefully there are finally some things blooming in my own garden, but once again, I see a snowflake icon on my weather app!

Counter life 9

I’m not much of a night painter, and I don’t usually work in direct watercolour, but tonight I combined both. Even though I had a full day, I didn’t want to miss a day of sketching the mess on the counter, so I picked up a brush and just started painting with no pencil or ink outline. It’s not easy to do with a scene like this (too many shapes), but I painted some lines with a light brush outline first and then just tried to pick out shapes and build up layers with negative painting. There’s something kind of liberating about working this way, and it’s something I will try again, during daylight hours.

Counter life 8

Counter still life is on the floor today, where the two pots of flowers live during meals. Their shadows made such great shapes today that I couldn’t help but use them as the subject. Luckily I drew them in pencil first because the sun disappeared and I had to paint them from the pencil outlines.

Today I used Daniel Smith Lunar Black watercolour. I’ve had this tube for years, but never really explored its wonders. Have you tried it? It’s very granular and even though it’s black, you have to fight with it to get darks. It dries much lighter than expected, which makes it a delight for building up layers of tone. Definitely something I will use again.

Counter life 7

Of all the different experiments I have done in this series, this is the one I enjoyed the least. Took me a while to figure out why and then I realized that it was the one that reminded most of WORK. When I started out as a graphic designer/advertising art director many moons ago, and even before that in university, we sketched out all our ideas with markers. Even though I’ve had a beautiful set of 48 Pitt Artist brush pens on my desk for ages, I’ve been reluctant to use them. Working with markers brings back unpleasant memories of long hours, tight deadlines and demanding clients. If you’ve worked in advertising, you’ll know what I mean.

Drawn poetry and other stuff about drawing

I was recently asked to contribute to Drawn Poetry 2020, an international project launched by Isabel Carmona and Jeffrey de Bruin. Contributing artists are creating a postcard with an original image on one side and the accompanying poem on the other. I chose one that brings tears to my eyes every time I read it — In Flanders Fields by Canadian poet, soldier and physician John McCrae. The postcards (hopefully over 100 in all) will be printed as boxed sets and also exhibited when the pandemic is over. As well, the original postcards will be sold to raise funds for Medicins Sans Frontiers. The poppies are still a few weeks away from blooming here, but I had some photos that I took last year, so I used those as reference.

A few other nice bits that you might be interested in reading: an article about a the benefits of drawing by a man who has drawn the dish rack in his kitchen over 1000 times, and an article about a woman who learned to draw as a way to engage in a more meaningful way with the world around her. Both of these are in the NY Times, but even if you don’t have a subscription, you can still read a few free articles every month.

Counter life 6

Casein is a really difficult paint to get used to. The pigment in it is so much more powerful than watercolour or gouache. For example, when I was trying to create a green by adding blue to yellow, I needed a much smaller dab of blue than I’m used to adding in watercolour. It also really works its way into my brushes (I don’t use expensive sables for this) so I find myself cleaning them more often and changing my painting water more frequently than with watercolour. And because of that staining power, there always seems to be a bit of paint residue in the brush that dirties up the next wash I am trying to mix. Those are the things I need to get used to with casein.

On the other hand, I love the bright colours that it produces. And I really enjoyed working with it both transparently (in the leaves) and opaquely (on the fruit). It does have a strange odour, a bit like wet newspaper, but that doesn’t bother me at all. I’ll definitely experiment with it again.

Counter life 5

I’ve been thinking about this series of drawings and wondering how long it can go on. Since I’m documenting not only the mess on my counter, but also the blooming of these two pots of bulbs, it might end when the flowers die. It could also end when the sketchbook I am working in is full, which means another 15 drawings. Or it could be over when I am bored with the project, which hasn’t happened yet. Just be patient and bear with me, please, for another few weeks while I see it through. We will return to our regularly scheduled programming when this is done.

Counter life 4

For today’s sketch of the kitchen counter, I was hoping for something more loose than yesterday’s monochrome. For inspiration I had a look at the work of Scottish artist Glen Scouller, one of my favourite contemporary painters. I bought his book “Colour and Line in Watercolour” a few years back, and I go through it every once in a while because it just makes me happy to see his work. He’s got a beautiful line and a fresh way of using watercolours that I greatly admire. And from a bit of back and forth on Instagram with him, he also seems like a genuinely nice guy.

From what I can see, he paints first (no preliminary drawing) and then draws into the damp washes with the pencils. It gives so much energy to his sketches. I love the way he mixes oil pastel, watercolour and water-soluble pencils, so that’s what I did today. White oil pastels provided the resist on the tulips and reflective highlights, and the rest is a mix of watercolours and Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelle pencils.

Counter life 3

This morning my son asked, “Why do you keep drawing the same thing?”, to which I had no immediate answer. But then I thought about it for awhile. Besides trying to work in a series, as I mentioned in yesterday’s post, and trying to learn something new every day, which I also mentioned, I realized that the best answer to his question is that having a drawing routine definitely helps to add structure to these days at home.

The idea for today’s version of my countertop still life came to me when I saw that the white tulips were just starting to open. I wanted to created a focus on the blooms so I did a monochrome experiment with ink. First I tried diluted India Ink but the old bottle I have is full of sediment, so I switched to black acrylic ink. Using that was a first for me, and I have no idea what you can do with it, but I poured out a few drops on a plate and mixed in some water. The first wash I put down was a pale grey tone over everything except the tulips. From there I built up the layers of ink and did a lot of negative painting. I guess my experiment with casein will be for tomorrow.