Last Piece for My Class

This is the last week for my "Beginnings" class at sketchbookskool.com. This piece is another one done in the Tommy Kane "slo mo" method which I love - lots of detail, lots of layering, pen, watercolor, and colored pencil - media that I love! (Or is it mediums.  I think it's either and I like mediums better.  Media means TV news.)

 After I finished my kitchen drawingI knew I wanted to do the “Tommy Lesson” in my garden.  This has taken all week because I could only handle the heat for short periods of time. (Near 100º every day.)  I worked early mornings and late evenings originally but wanted better light for color and shading.  The sounds and smells were wonderful – bees, butterflies, lots of hummingbirds, nearby petunias and herb garden, sweat dripping off my face.  One hummingbird kept zooming around checking me out and then sat on a tomato cage and watched me draw. I hate the heat of summer in the south, but love having the flowers, the colors, and the smells.

Watercolor, ink, and colored pencil
5" x 7"

Slo Mo Drawing

This week's lesson at sketchbookskool.com is to draw our kitchen with all the detail.  Tommy Kane is the teacher and suggested we spend 3-4 hours on this piece.  So I followed his instructions and spent 5-6 hours on this drawing/painting.  I had to "mess up" the kitchen to make it interesting.  My kitchen is pretty tidy and free of clutter and was uninteresting.  (There is clutter elsewhere in the house but not in the kitchen.)  This was drawn in ink, painted with watercolor, and enhanced with Prismacolor pencils.  I also added a few spots of white paint. I wish that I had used a finer point pen and different paper. The paper was not friendly to the colored pencil.

Savannah College of Art and Design

Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) is my favorite college for the study of the visual arts.  I encourage all of my students to consider this outstanding institution when visiting colleges with their families.  I have just spent 6 days at SCAD participating in their Educators' Forum, a workshop for educators of any discipline, but expecially for art teachers. Participants choose 2 classes out of the dozens that are offered and attend each class for 8 hours over 4 days.  I took travel sketching and exploring temperature in portraiture.  Both were outstanding.

The sketching class spent two days at Forsythe Part, Savannah's most beautiful park.  We were given water soluble pencils, pens, and sketchbooks.  Here are a few of my sketches:

                          



And a sketch of the apartment:

The portrait class was stretch for me.  We used pan pastels, which I have never used, as well as pastel pencils. We were only given a few warm and cool colors.  Also I do not consider myself a portrait artist.  We drew from a live model.  Here is my finished portrait:

Savannah is probably one of the most beautiful cities in America and has houses and corners and parks and porches and boulevards and alleys begging to be recorded in a sketchbook or on a canvas.  It is the epitome of "Old South" in style and in vibe.  But, surprisingly, it has a funky feeling as well.  I think the college has a lot to do with that.  SCAD buildings, both classrooms and offices, are spread all over the historic area.  They do not build new buildings.  They repurpose old buildings and do it very well. Many of their dorms are old hotels and motels.  I attended classes in two beautiful buildings, former elementary schools built in the early part of the last century. Both Savannah and SCAD are a great place to visit.

More Sketching

I can't stop!   Here are the ones I have done the last few days.

Giant Rudbeckia hirte

Preparing my paint pans for a class in Savannah, Georgia.

I bought a large mushroom?

More from Florida

I also did a companion page in the sketchbook from our trip to Florida.

My Drawing Pens

I have a lot of drawing pens, some I use, most I do not. So I needed to be familiar with the differences,  and I needed to know how they react to water.  Sometimes I want it to bleed and other times I do not.  So I spent most of the day working on this.  ( I saw something similar on line and thought it was a good idea.)  I might make a poster out of this to use in my high school art classes.  Many of my students love to draw in ink.

Pens and Inks and Watercolor and one Sketch and Wash Pencil

Lesson 4 in Sketchbook Skool with Jane LaFazio

This one was a little outside my comfort zone but I just went with it as quickly as I could.  Jane said not to overthink it, so I had no plan. We were to create a 9 square grid and add some veggies or natural objects in the grid without making it just 9 squares of "stuff."  We could overlap squares etc.  I went to the market and bought some random veggies with no plan in mind, just wanting interesting contours and colors. I took photos of the veggies in front of the window and noticed there was some blue reflection from the sky outside.  I wanted a background of some sort so I used a blue wash with acrylic paint before I started the grid.  I kept saying in my head, "Don't overthink this!"  So I tried to be random.  After I completed the 2 peppers and the onions, I was sort of stuck.  I needed some other pieces of something, but I really didn't want to introduce another veggie, so I cut up the pepper. (Side note:  I did not know it was a habenaro!!!  Got in on my hands, rubbed my lips and must have touched my nose.  Yikes!!  I suffered for a while.)  So the whole thing evolved into something HOT and became hot like the 4th of July. I wanted some confetti or something Salsa-like and thought about splattering, but decided to repeat the seed shapes and added pieces of green onions.  Some to fhb squirrely lines were done to cover up some background stuff I didn't like.  I am pleased with the way it happened - without a plan in the beginning.  That is so hard for me. And it was fun.  I will do another one.

Watercolor, Acrylic, and Micron pen