charcoal love with a latte

my mom was able to come over for some studio time on saturday afternoon and told me she was bringing along some charcoal and lattes. i was thinking, "sweet! i love lattes!" little did i know that we were not going to drink the lattes.....we were going to paint with the lattes. and if you know us at all- we have done weirder things...

we decided to head outside for the painting portion of our play; and thank goodness, because we painted, splattered, and threw latte at our drawings (and it does get a bit sticky).

we started by drawing with charcoal on watercolor paper. my mom had various hardness of charcoal available to draw with. i had a couple of other options for us which included stabilo pencils.

my mom had a wonderful size watercolor pad that we shared for our first attempt. below was our first attempts.

we did discover that the harder the charcoal, the more it really "sat" on the paper and almost refused to move; so if you wanted some movement, you needed to incorporate some softer charcoal.

*our disclaimer...some of these drawings were better others :)....but, we did have a great time

happy labor day!

art journal girl- yet another

i did sneak a little time this morning to play in the studio. have i mentioned how thoroughly i have been enjoying my gelli plate for making back grounds?......blank art journal page + print, print,print + face= HAPPINESS!

i have been layering the prints until i am happy and then, drawing a face on top. i have several more backgrounds ready to go and had bought a new pencil to try out.

i have several charcoal and sketch and wash pencils, and i was looking for something in between. i found a pastel pencil and thought i would give it a try. i liked that it was more stable than my charcoal and sketch and wash pencils when adding paint- like at her eye; but, will wash out and blend with direct contact- like at the lips.

art journal- new doodles & collage

a small tree just off the porch

collage with my new napkins....love the colors and the diamond shape.

i had used the q-tips for "painting" and had to keep them because of the good colors and an excuse to use my new tape.

again...a portion of one of my new napkins with a little watercolor.

figure drawing- 1st attempt

i am lucky enough to live close to a larger city with universities...ones with great art departments. my mom and a few friends have been going to this drawing time for quite a while, and i had been wanting to give it a try. it finally worked out last night. drawing is not necessarily my strongest suit, but, i would like to change that. this group normally meets on thursday evenings and rotates models between male and female. i was using a sketch and wash pencil to do my initial drawing. then, it blends nicely with a little water.

here we were getting more into the drawing after the warm ups....i only showed you a couple of my first ones because i have not done figure drawing before and he would only hold the pose for about 8 minutes....i was barely getting anything down! this one was a little better- although, i purposely cut off the bottom of the drawing. his legs and the bench that he was sitting on got a little weird. i did use my white soft oil pastel to sketch my initial outside shape and then, went back in with the sketch and wash and india ink.

this was my favorite drawing. our model sat in this pose for the last hour. after my previous drawing above, i decided i was not going to tackle the legs and bench again- so i only drew his upper half. i used a hot pink soft oil pastel to sketch the outside initial shape. i filled in some shadow with a sketch and wash pencil and then broke out my india ink; and finished up going back in with a black and white soft oil pastel.

stretching and growing

let me introduce you to mr gerald brommer. he is who i spent the last week with, along with about 20 other people taking his class.

our first day was all about line and shape. i am normally not much of one for sketching or drawing, but, i needed to give it a whirl....so here is one of my first.

this was also from the first day now with my color shape. i was feeling the abstract.

this was from day 2....the color is actually collage papers that were tinted with watercolor.

this was from day 3 and one of my favorites!! i actually had someone who wanted to buy it from me at class, but, i was selfish and kept it for myself.....