Drawing Ideas

When I am not painting, I usually am working with pencil and paper.

My favorite drawing pencils are Derwent Inktense, they are colored pencils that when you paint over them with water take on an intense colored ink appearance, and once dry are permanent. Places that you can find these pencils are; on line at  Dick Blick  http://www.dickblick.com/products/derwent-inktense-pencils/ and locally at Boundless Arts in Grand Blanc MI  http://boundlessarts.com/ .

      Some of the sketches I use as reference for future paintings, others are finished art, and still others become subjects for digital art.  An example is the red and orange tone drawing, that I photo copied and changed colors on my PC to see what a different version would look like.  The digital image looked so good on it’s own that it became an art work that I loaded to my web site; http://fineartamerica.com/art/digital+art/schiros/all 
For more examples of digital art check out Digital Art on Fine Art America.

original drawing

Photo shop changes to original

Cat Printing and Musings on Art

Cat helped printing

The Cat Artist…..I just want to share the finished work from my last post.  Also, sharing the secret of how the last print was completed.  I started with a red printing of my design and planned the second layer to be a light teal color.  I completed 12 prints that I proudly set a side to dry, when my crazy domestic Bengal cat managed to sneak into the studio and proceed to pounce on the drying pile of prints.  Six prints survived and 6 others had a variety of paw prints added.  After chasing my four legged painting partner out, I gather up the ruined prints and started to throw them out.  Throwing out art work in hard to do and I just could not let them drop in to the trash can.  So, I rolled out some fresh black ink and added one more layer.  Well, I guess my cat had a better plan than mine; the last six prints are now my favorite.

test print of the top layer

where I had planned to stop

printing over a mono print, there is a cat under that top pattern

 

My musing for the day….It is interesting looking at the printing I have been doing, I think the designs could be worked up in photo shop or cut and pasted from glossy magazine art.  But, the process of carving the lines and rolling the ink is what makes this art work.  Viewing the work you can see the texture of the ink, that slight rise and sheen that it creates and that is the character of relief printing.  I just hope that young artists don’t get cut short by technology and miss the process, that part of creating that comes only from working with ink covered hands.

And I always finish my printing day with a finger paint mono print from the left over ink.

Fall Season Art

Fall Leaves Ink 1

 

I Love Fall

When the leaves start falling, it is time to start those wonderful fall pictures.

A few days ago, I gathered a few leaves of various shapes and put them in books to

flatten then out and get them a little dryer.  When I had some time I spread them out on

Arranging leaves to trace on paper

drawing paper, in random arrangements and traced the outlines, some over lapping others

to make it interesting.  Then I got out my favorite ink markers, a mix of Faber-Castell Pitt

pens and Picma Micron by Sakura, both are permanent and don’t tend to bleed through

the paper.  Then just took my time creating interesting patterns in each shape.  These drawings help me to focus on composition and pattern.  I limit the colors to keep my focus there.  This is an interesting and relaxing exercise that makes some unusual works of art.  Latter I will use this idea but use some watercolor paper that has been already painted with fall a background in fall colors.  This is a fun fall project, now go collect some leaves and give it a try.

one out line arrangement

Another outline arrangement. pencil on drawing paper

Starting to fill in shapes with patterns

Fall Leaves Ink 2, 11 by 14 inches