#OneWeek100People2017: 1-50
Sometimes it takes a big push to try something new. That’s what I’m getting this week by participating in the worldwide drawing event One Week 100 People 2017*, started by Urban Sketchers Marc Taro Holmes and Liz Steel. I barely see 100 people in a week, let alone draw them, so sketching 100 people is taking me to new places, spurring me to experiment with new materials and techniques, and forcing me to study faces and figures after many, many years of not drawing a soul. I’m just past halfway to the finish line… Read More
Imperfect
What is the value of imperfection? I’ve been mulling over that question as it pertains to artwork for a few years and still, I don’t have a clear answer. I love the work of natural science illustrators, for whom accuracy, precision, and beauty are paramount. Yet each time my own artwork approaches that kind of perfection, it somehow seems to be missing something. Embracing imperfection, which, after all, is what so much of life is about, increasingly appeals to me. Letting go, accepting, and finding beauty are good lessons to learn on… Read More
Out of the Depths
What is it that makes fossilized crinoids so compelling? Is it the artful way these delicate creatures came to rest at the bottom of the sea? Or the amazing transformation from living animal to rock, forever preserved, then heaved and eroded from the depths of time? Or is it the sheer success of this class of echinoderms as a survivor—living, reproducing, and dying over millions and millions of years to this very day in the depths of the oceans? I discovered the fossilized Uintacrinus socialis, a floating crinoid species whose arms could reach three… Read More
Birds and Books
The pages of Birds Worth Knowing, written by Neltje Blanchan and published in 1917 are yellowed and worn. With a classic old book feel and scent, they remind me of cheap paper tablets used by elementary students learning to write. As a scientific historian and nature writer, Blanchan’s work is descriptive and thorough. Still, it sits on my shelf, year after year, untouched. Giving renewed purpose to a page or two seemed fitting. Tips & Techniques– I like to keep much of my day-to-day work in my artist journal. So when experimenting… Read More
The Simple Things
We caught a glimpse of the full moon last night before it disappeared behind clouds of snow. A simple circle, so much depth. I’ve always loved the constancy of the moon, the way it connects eons and continents and people in its perfect radiance. I kept this page simple to echo the subject and to emphasize the beauty and mystery of the night. The haiku is written with a Micron 02 pen and the larger text is painted in watercolor with a size 1 brush, combining yellow ochre and indathrone blue. I… Read More
Back to the Drawing Board
A month ago I posted a drawing of an enormous hornet’s nest that took both a considerable amount of time to draw, as well as space on my kitchen table while doing so. Shortly thereafter a friend suggested that I had drawn it upside down! The opening on a hornet’s nest is typically at the bottom which, apparently, helps keep rain out, and I had drawn it at the top. Solving the problem wasn’t a simple matter of turning the drawing around— the shading and composition simply didn’t hold up when the… Read More
Field Guide to Remotes
Here’s a quick sketch I should have made years ago. No attempt at beauty or precision, just a down-n-dirty guide so that I can finally watch a movie without assistance. (My apologies for such a mundane post. I’m working on a large, precise drawing this week and needed to counter the care of that piece with something really fast. I’m still a good number of hours from finishing the former, so my regular journaling is taking a backseat.)
Mystery Nest
Tangled in a thicket at the edge of a wooded wetland, the nest stood out like the prize it was for hiking on a cold winter day. As readers of this blog know by now, finding and painting nests is a recurring theme and a true pleasure for me. In fact, the subject of my first post was a nest. But this one is quite unique—almost two nests combined, it seems to me. It’s possible that a nest begun by one pair of birds was co-opted by another species, as sometimes happens;… Read More
Winter Birds
A solitary half-dead dogwood and a tangled hedgerow of vines and shrubs is all the landscaping that came with our house when we bought it last September. It’s not much, as they say, but it’s home. And, it turns out, it’s home to a surprising variety of birds as well. They are attracted mainly to the bird feeders we hung from the dogwood, though the shelter of the hedgerow and a neighboring elm provide good cover, too. For the price of sunflower seed and suet cakes, I’m enjoying the show from my… Read More
In Cold Rain
A cold rain is falling on the winter beach. A solitary loon, a few surf scoters, and a flock of bufflehead bob in the steely-gray water, disappearing now and again beneath the waves. This is no day for sketching seabirds. I retreat to the car and drive to a windswept spit of land that divides ocean from tidal marsh. A flock of gulls are right where I had hoped they’d be at the edge of the parking area, facing into the wind, occasionally preening or picking at clams or flying up and… Read More
Drawn In 