Colder Feburary days have me indoors trying to work out some drawings and plans for an upcoming 3 day watercolor workshop brought to our area by the Markleeville Gallary. The watercolorist is a lady from Auburn Ca, Jeanie Vodden. I need to get some drawings onto the streched watercolor paper and be prepared to paint, according to the flier. Anyhow, this helps me plan for new pastel paintings as well. Using a grid, I have tried to size up a photo of 4 calves from one of our branding days. They are still youngsters, not weaned but marked! It is difficult to do drawings from photo's and get the placing right, and perspective but it can be done and better with practise. This took quite awhile, and the pencil strokes are not like they would be if this was to be a graphite drawing as the end result---rather this is for size and shape , then the finnish work can be in whatever medium you chose- - -or more than one! You could even trace the shaps , and do again in graphite for a finnished work if I chose. I do this for animal paintings, and not so much this way for a landscape---althought sometimes I do----but mostly do notan's and thumbnails for plein-air or landscapes. I also did this way, an old photo of my old cat sitting in a chair in the sunshine. Turned out well, so now I have 2 new ones to consider for this watercolor workshop.
Have also been enjoying browsing websites and blogs latley. Bill Cone's blog is a must for all you artists out there! Also http://www.raybrownart.com/ is one to see. Here is my drawing for today. I have plans for the background, and I think I will raise them higher on the paper, with a lot of foreground space- - - just thoughts- - but now they are isolated from the photo, I am free to design whatever! That is liberating for me.
Very nice drawing! Can't wait to see what you do in the watercolor workshop!
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