Gratitude Attitude in a Confusing Scary World

   William Cowper (pronounced Cooper) left us many beautiful, sadly nearly forgotten hymns in his troubled life.

  My favorite Bible study teacher, Dee Brestin, shared in her email list a link to a beautiful video of a song of his i'd never heard of. 

  May you find your celebration of Thanksgiving enhanced by the words and music.

  Links disappeared in the text?  Here they are separately:

Midweek Photo: Pencil Storage Again

 Two things i want to comment on:

My big pencil case holds 120 pencils.  

You'd think that would be enough for everyday use.  No, i've had to move greys and flesh tones to a smaller case.  And i resorted them to put only the most used ones in, which works out to mainly the Faber Castell ones, moving out all but one of the Luminance  ones and quite a few Derwents.

The amazing thing is how much lighter the case became, substituting narrower-barrelled FC and Lyra Rembrandts for the Coloursoft and Luminance.

Below, i've got a picture of my weirdly bent paperclip on a pencil case  zipper. i should remove it, the paperclip.  It's a relic of the days when i used primarily Prismacolors.  

With the Prismacolors, i sharpened the pencils a lot, going through them quickly.  And maybe 25-50 times in a two hour session i would have to use my paperclip to dig pencil parts out of the sharpener.  

i don't need to do that any more.  Though i do miss the fantastic range of Prismacolors.

 

Wordless Wednesday: Colorwheels Again

  Back at it - this is an exercise that lets me find what my colors can do and work on smoothing the areas i'm on.

  The photos are mostly in chronological order, and there are lots of free color wheel diagrams out there.  But at the end i will include the links from which i got my predrawn wheels and an article about making your own color wheel in colored pencil.

A Short Art Review: Dick Blick Studio Pencils

Originally published here https://wondersandmarvels-wonderfull.blogspot.com/2015/09/another-update-classes.html on this blog, this was done with Sharon's 12 recommended Prismacolors.  There's a new version below with Dick Blick pencils.

Midweek Post: New Art Tool and links on creativity

These are Prismacolor Art Stix, two sets, which i inherited from my mother in law.  i look forward to using them in laying down backgrounds - they are Prismacolor Premiere leads in stick form. 

BOOM: You get a trophy! And you get a trophy!

Hi, I'm Boom. I was born between 1982 and 1997, which makes me a millennial. (Yes, that's right. Even by the most generously late definitions, there are no millennials who are teenagers anymore.) And I have been given a participation trophy.

Wordless Wednesday: Up to the Minute Art

The first picture shows the remains of Cabin Coffee's delicious scone, and a page of practice marks, which i made this morning.  The second is a red flower, with info in the caption.

This is the sort of thing our art club, Indy Decorative Artists, does.  We're meeting again next Monday, and the project is a fabric painted shirt.  For this one, our President, Donna Harcourt, led the group in an acrylic painting from an Angela Anderson design. Mine is interpreted in colored pencils, with the black attempted in various pastels and pastel pencils.  i finally decided that the charcoal pencil gave the best approach to what i was after.

Wordless Wednesday: Up in the Clouds

Lesson sheet from a class, maybe 5 years ago, with Laura Tesdahl. It's a different style from the most recent colored pencil pages i've posted.  This is a time consuming realistic style, though i find the simpler use of colors maybe more fun.

Wordless Wednesday: "And again differently" (Journal flip)

And Again Differently

Do the Same Thing, Except Differently

Creativity, Drawn Out

  Boom and i are working on a video for you.  You may have seen other artists do a journal flip, and i thought i'd share one too.
  It will not

Not Quite Wordless Wednesday: Why this one?

From Christmas a few years ago: Boom is on the couch just below my crop.  He's leaning back and up, opening the drapes, while his cousin looks on.
If it were a new picture, i might throw it away.  Boom is the subject, and it's not a flattering view. 
But.
That's a lovely pattern in the curtains.  Maybe useful for something, as a background perhaps?  And his cousin is in a perfect profile.  Nice for cutting a silhouette if i wanted.
Seems i've heard that artists & writers are by nature cluttery people.  Who else would want to do something with this picture?

INKTOBER

Here's something fun you might want to try. 

Inktober is a month long art challenge created by artist Jake Parker that is focused on improving skill and developing positive drawing habits. Every day for the month of October anyone participating in the Inktober challenge creates an ink drawing and posts it online. Remember to use the hashtags #inktober and #inktober2019 if you want your art to be seen by everyone.

These are ALL the Inktober rules:
1) Make a drawing in ink (you can do a pencil under-drawing if you want).

2) Post it, on any social media account you want or just post it on your refrigerator. The point is to share your art with someone.

3) Hashtag it with #inktober and #inktober2019

4) Repeat

 https://inktober.com
Thanks to Pygmalion's Art Supplies for sharing this with me!

Wordless Wednesday: a painting from last fall

Some Arty Talk: Talent or Work?

  One thing i've said repeatedly on this blog, and in person, is that natural talent doesn't go far without effort, and just because your first efforts are unsatisfactory - well, that means you are NORMAL, not defective in artistic talent.
  Here's some other people's words on the subject:
https://emptyeasel.com/2019/01/17/is-natural-artistic-talent-a-myth/
https://www.artiststrong.com/artist-mythbusting-the-talented-artist/
https://www.liveabout.com/art-is-not-about-talent-2578393
https://www.bedlamfarm.com/2015/09/29/everyone-is-born-an-artist/

Nearly Wordless Wednesday: from my "Art Lessons" sketch book

  i think i did this book about five years ago, over several months, maybe a couple of years.  (Should've put the date in it!)

  You're seeing this now because these are the basics in the background of my doodles.  It's kinda equivalent to the computer expert knowing which button to push.   Nothing terribly difficult, just something worth knowing.
  The concept, and many of the pages are from Kathy Barbro's website, https://artprojectsforkids.org/
i came across them as individually published blog pages, but she's now collected her projects into several ebooks.
  Thank you, Kathy!

  You might notice that, though she is a school art teacher, and designs the projects, i use them myself.  Though i've been doing art since i was 2, i have learned a lot from this, and from time to time will refer to it.
  Next week i hope to show you mor pages from this, about specific attributes with which i work.

Behind the (not exactly) Scene: Dictionary of my strokes

This one began with a scribble, really, randomly moving my pen over the page.  You can see it in the outline. The froggie on the left was suggested to me by the shape of the area.

Boom asked how i come up with these.
No plan really; i have some

Midweek Image: One Step at a Time

   These are kinda doodles done while thinking of something else - yes, the top one was done over 2 or 3 hours.  i was watching a movie on TV.
  The lower one i did during book club, with my mind on the book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe..  The quote is from one of the pages we were reading, and i think there was  unicorn in the chapter.  Something else in the chapter, i don't remember what, evoked the image of the Bugling Beagle.

  Max is convinced, no matter what i say, that i know what i'm going for when i begin.  No, i have no clue.  Sometimes i deliberately choose one of more elements, and if i wanted to make "finished art" out of one of these, yes, i would plan in advance.
  But these things are something i do with my hands to keep me focused and awake while listening. 

If you'd like to make regular designs similar to these, you might check here  https://forestwoodfolkart.wordpress.com/2017/06/17/borders-art-design-art-beginners/
When i started these strokework things years ago, i used paint & brush, but the pencil/pen is handier.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday: Recent & Not so Recent Art Project

 

My work is below, and Mark's reference is in the window of my tote bag.

   A few years ago, i attended the SDP Conference in the Chicago area. The morning i took this class was - um, unique.