Billie & Bunny

 
I've been travelling to see a new grand child and am compiling sketches and images of the adventure that I'll post during this week.

Right now I'm getting my sea legs again with a 3.5 hour time difference to adjust to again and back to work in the morning.

However, I thought I'd share a quick drawing that I did of a friend's dog, Billie. Its about 12 x 15 done in pastel.   Billie is a truly lovely dog, laid back, gentle and loves to fetch and and carry in true retriever fashion.  This became very apparent as everytime I walked in the door or entered a room she would greet me bearing "bunny", her favourite toy to play fetch with.  I started to call her "Billie & Bunny".

Billie was adopted and came from a French Canadian background, so only responds to commands in French.   After a few false starts, my brain cells recalled French enough to communicate with the dog.   "Donnez-moi le lapin, Billie."  Yeah right she thought, fight me for it first.  And so the game would repeat itself over and over.

Je t'aime Billie!

A month of sketches

For the past month I, and several others, have been sharing sketches on my March Sketch a Day page.  The idea was to encourage sketching and drawing and provide an opportunity to share work with others by providing the ability to post thumbnails and links. 

So what have I learned from a month of sketching?

• I learned that I do enjoy sketching and a lot of my work tends to steer towards animal life.  (surprise, surprise)
• I learned that the sketching itself doesn't take a lot of time, but the posting does take a concentrated effort.  Maybe because I can't just plop a sketch on a blank page without telling the story around why it came to be.
• I learned that daily sketching enhances my drawing skills that are the backbone for my paintings.  The lines of sketches and drawings are my path and cannot be ignored.  If I can get across only one message to those who want to create art - good art - it is to learn to draw well.  Everything else falls into place from there.
• I learned that its very good to have company along the way.  Thank you to those who posted either daily or less frequently on the March Sketch a Day project.
• I learned that the most mundane things often make the most interesting subject material.
• I learned that drawing from life or from a photo of something you find interesting are equally valuable exercises.  Yes, the purists will disagree, but drawing is drawing.  If you can get accurate shapes and forms on paper, its never a bad thing. 
• I learned that I can sketch anywhere.  There is no elaborate set up, no rules, no subject that is out of bounds, no place forbidden.  I sketched in coffee shops, my studio, at my desk at lunchtime, on the sofa while the news was on, in the car, in airports, on planes...there is no limitation.

I had gotten into the habit of sketching most days prior to this project, but don't always share my work with the world. I may continue to let the world peek into my sketchbook with a weekly post on just that subject.  It doesn't become as onerous task if weekly than to create a new post daily.   I can share more of my painting work with you in additional posts during the week.

However, the blog may be quiet for a couple of weeks as I'm off on my travels again.  I hope I can fit in some sketches of  things new and different  (to me) and share them with you if possible - technology being willing.

Airport Heads II

Quite often I have layovers or waits for flights in airports and love to people watch and sketch when I do.   This trip was no different and I captured a couple of "airport heads" in my sketchbook.

People are quite distracted or bored in airports so rarely notice me sketching them. I pile as many heads as I can on a page to get information down quickly and not waste time changing pages.  After all these are just sketches not complete drawings.

I find people sometimes do try to make sketches into complete drawings instead of simply captured expression, shape or colour shifts.  To me, it defeats the purpose.  I see my sketchbook rather like an incomplete camera, able to take the essence of something and put it on paper instead of trying for a highly detailed image.

This is the last sketch of the March Sketch a Day project.  I'll share my thoughts on the project in a separate post, then I'll be absent for a couple of weeks, while I take a trip west.   If you haven't checked out the sketching project, please do, its fascinating to see the work and style of other artists who joined in during the month.

Dottie

I have this cute ceramic tea light holder that my daughter gave me.  Its in the shape of a hen with dots of colour all over it.  It always reminds me of spring.

Here's my version of it in graphite and white pastel on toned paper.

Cockpit

I don't particularly enjoy flying.  Its tedious and I like to be the driver, not the passenger, when it comes to take off and landing or at least see where I'm going.

I was in Ottawa for a few days and on the way back today, there was a stopover  in Halifax.  I wasn't allowed to leave the plane and had been given a premium seat with a view direct into the cockpit.  All those buttons and gages...mind boggling and rather different from driving a car.

So between people coming and going in the limited time the door to the cockpit was open, I did a quick sketch of the co-pilot and part of his working environment.  If you think seats are tight on airplanes, these guys don't have it any easier I thought as I watched the pilot literally vault into his seat using an above head hand grip for guidance.  No way to do that gracefully, either in or out.

Just two more days left in the March Sketch a Day project!  Thanks so much to the artists who participated, it was great to see you join in and the diverse range of work that was produced.  I'll do a little synopsis of my thoughts on the whole project on April 1st.

Duck skull

 
When I had ducks they had the freedom of the farm to wander and some would be adventurous and explore the meadow or the vegetable field, sometimes venturing to the edge of the woods.

Now we all know that its dangerous to go into the woods don't we?  Or so we tell our children.  Those fairytales of big bad wolf, trolls and goblins were all designed to prevent children wandering off, getting lost or getting eaten by something!

Unfortunately the little Khaki Campbell ducks were disobedient children and did go to the edge of the woods.  Where a fox was waiting.

This was a duck skull which I found in the woods, near where several disappeared.  The only good thing out of this is that I have a skull to draw from and they can be difficult to find.  If you've never drawn part of the skeletal structure of an animal or person, I strongly recommend it.  You learn so much about anatomy and how the body moves from it.

Goldfish

 
I think many people have had a goldfish as a pet at one time or other in their life and there's usually a story to go along with how it came home with you.


As a child I never had a goldfish, and never recall seeing them for sale or as prizes at a fair - not that there were any fairs here in Newfoundland then, just the Regatta in the summer.   So I think I made up for it by gathering up fish of all kinds later in life.

I used to have many, many fish at one point, both cold water goldfish, koi and tropical fish as well.  The goldfish mostly lived in a little pond in the garden but a few that were more exotic were always the inside pets.

I have no fish right now, but feel the need for a few live models arising. There is nothing better than watching them move and seeing the light reflect on the gold and orange scales.

Its time to get another goldfish I believe.

Seeds of thought

Sketches, while part of my March Sketch a Day project, often are the first step in the process of creating a piece of art.  From the gelling of an idea, to a rough thumbnail, then a more detailed sketch and finally transformation into something more solid.

This sketch was an original idea which turned into the relief print shown below.  There was a lot of transformation, cutting, altering, errors, corrections and swearing while it went through its metamorphosis, but it emerged on the other side and is now available as an open edition print through my website and  Daily Paintworks.

I use several different types of Japanese paper to print with as I love their ability to take up the ink crisply and dry quickly.  I use oil based inks for printing and find they produce a much more defined piece compared to water-based inks.  I do use water-soluable inks as they're easier to clean up, but am trying some Daniel Smith oil based inks and quite like how they perform too.  The clean up is rather messier so I'll be doing longer printing sessions when I use these I think.

Dreamer

5 x 7

Soaring

As I write this it is dark and I can hear the foghorn's low tone on the headland.  The seagulls have settled in for the night, no more flights til morning. No more soaring on the air currents. Tonight they are grounded to the lonely beaches, cliff ledges and shoreline until dawn releases them again.

Grandmother's footsteps

Who remembers this game from childhood?  In England, the game is either called "Grandmother's Footsteps" and sometimes "Statues" where the person who is "it" turns to make sure that the players are not moving if they hear movement, or it's called "Mr Wolf's Dinnertime", where "Mr Wolf" has to try and catch anyone moving - if "Mr Wolf" cries 'dinnertime' then s/he has to race everyone back to the start line, trying to catch as much 'dinner' as possible.

So what's the connection between a game and a cow?  Its back to the farm in Somerset again.   It was a dairy farm and I rented a cottage on the farm smack dab in the middle between acres of cow fields and hay barns.  As a result, there were lots of cows around and close to the house...sometimes too close.

When the heifers (young cows) were in the field and I had to cross it for whatever reason, they would, as a large group, follow me, presumably thinking I either had food or were taking them somewhere.  They would tramp along behind me, running to catch up and I could hear their heavy breath and loud footsteps. It was like being followed by an army! I often wondered if I'd get trampled in the herd.   However, if I turned to face them, they'd all freeze, mid stride, as a group and wouldn't move a muscle until I turned to walk again.  It became a bit of a game with them at times seeing how many times they'd stop before I got to the fence and scrambled over, leaving them looking a bit perplexed.

I have to admit I felt a bit uncomfortable with them all behind me at times, as they'd get closer and braver as we got nearer the fence.

March hare

Mad as a March hare.

The first time I saw that expression come to life was a peek through a tall hedge on a tiny back road near the farm I lived on, close to Combe St. Nicholas in Somerset.   I was walking the dogs and  a movement in the field caught my eye.  Two large hares were standing on their hind legs, whacking furiously at each other with their front paws.  I stood watching them for a short time, fascinated at their strange dance/fight.  The dogs, of course, wanted to join in, so it was best to move on with them.

This is a common territorial dispute around hare mating time which extends past March I'm told and I was lucky to have seen it in real life.  Of course no digital cameras or cell phones to capture the action then, just my memory.

March Hare in Newfoundland means something different, even through there are hares present, mostly Arctic hares, often mistaken for rabbits.  March Hare was once a little get together on the west coast of the province to break up a long dreary winter, but now has turned into an international literary festival, including work of local poets as well as some of the best writers in Canada and the world as well as the finest professional musicians from across the province.

My March Hare is a memory of the ones I saw in the hedge-lined field in Somerset years ago.  Done with a charcoal under drawing with pastel overlaid on newsprint.  And here's what they looked like in the field.

Puffin

An Atlantic Puffin.  These birds are in the Auk family with a stocky build and colourful beak in breeding season.

Nesting colonies can be seen offshore on the southern shore of the Avalon Peninsula, a short boat ride away.  Often called "sea parrots" because of their coloured beaks, in Newfoundland they're sometimes called "sea potatoes" because of their chunky shape.  Such effort these little birds put into flying, with wings beating up to 400 times per minute and able to reach speeds of 55 miles per hour.  They swim underwater as well as they fly, but only for short submersion times of 20 or 30 seconds.

In December 2011, a baby puffin was found wandering on the streets of Montreal and flown by Air Canada back to Newfoundland for some TLC before being released.

The Line up

The first day of school.  Nervousness, anticipation, excitement, new shoes, new bag, new pencils.  And lining up.

School is often the first formal lining up a child has to experience. Seeing the little faces makes me wonder what's going through their minds and their behaviour and tolerance for the ritual of order gives a glimpse into their personalities and future.

This sketch is of my grand daughter's first day of school.  Head of the line, she looks like she's been there, done that and has the t-shirt.

What's in yours?

Your refrigerator that is.

For the last seven months I've been on a health kick and have lost a significant amount of weight.  As a result, the contents of my fridge have changed a lot.  One, there is a lot less generally in there.  Two, the contents consist mostly of fresh fruit and veg, meat and a variety of salad dressings.

Over on Daily Paintworks, where my small paintings now reside, a challenge is provided weekly.  This week it was What's in Your Fridge?   I'd never drawn or painted the contents of my fridge and thought it could make interesting compositions, so I took a few shots and found some that I liked.  Plein aire isn't really possible with the fridge door open for ages...

I haven't painted it yet, but here's a sketch of what's in part of the fridge door.   The small glass bottles of diet Coke I bought so long ago, they're probably gone off by now.  Like many things, I buy them as art props but still haven't gotten around to using these yet.   I rarely drink soft drinks, so there's little appeal to me to consume them, but the green tinged bottle with the classic shape appeals for a painting.

Hmmm, perhaps its time to have another look in the fridge.

Tripod

 Tripod's been the "adopted child" for more than six years.   He was a cat living wild for a couple of years around the farm, then through a series of events ended up in the house and has stayed ever since.

His wild days still manifest themselves in his hunting ability, his blood curdling growls in his sleep, his fights with other cats who venture onto the property and, of course, his missing limb.

He's showing the signs of aging.  I don't know his age and the vet says his teeth are those of an older cat, so who knows precisely.  The injury to his front leg that caused the amputation is an unknown too, perhaps a snare, another animal, its hard to tell.  And I suspect there's  a direct link to his eye on the same side as it never opens fully and in this sketch, lying on his beloved newspaper, he looks a bit like a pirate.

Things you may or may not know about Tripod:

• He adores lying on paper.  As soon as preparation is made to light a fire, he makes a beeline for the newspaper laid on the floor, hindering use.

• He only eats human grade tuna and dry cat food, one particular brand.  He obviously had never eaten it when he first arrived and would not chew it, nearly choking.  I was trying to figure out how to do a Heimlich manoevere on a cat...

• He will not eat freshly cooked fish or meat of any kind.  Ever.  He looks at it, sniffs it, looks at me in disgust and walks away.

• He will only drink water from a puddle or stream outside, never from a dish inside.

• His three-legged mobility state can go from Tiny Tim the cripple, to seek attention, to faster than a speeding bullet if a rabbit is in view.

• If slippers are left on the floor, he lies down and puts his 1.5 front feet in one of them and lies there til disturbed.  Why, I have no idea.

• He despises dogs.  He will stalk and physically attack any dog, any size, any disposition.  It can be the most cat-friendly dog in the world and Tripod will launch himself at it unprovoked.  I know there are foxes and coyotes and hunting dogs in the woods around the farm and I imagine he had his fair share of confrontations in his wild days, so this may account for his behaviour.
• Unless shut in the house when you go outside, he follows like a dog.  Anywhere you go.  And flings himself down on the ground in front of you, often tripping you. People wonder why I go for a run with a cat under my arm.  Well, its because I have to bring him back home because he's followed me and its just easier to carry him than wait for him to catch up.

Yes, this cat is very, very different.  You'd really have to experience him to understand.  He's not your average cat at all, more like a dog in many behaviours.

Equality

.

Equality.  Whether size, shape, colour or sexual preference, are differences really strong enough to cause hurt over?


Others could compare all the differences but none of the similarities, make these two keep hiding in the confines of the sugar bowl forever.

“Once upon a time they was two girls," I say. "one girl had black skin, one girl had white."

Mae Mobley look up at me. She listening.

"Little colored girl say to little white girl, 'How come your skin be so pale?' White girl say, 'I don't know. How come your skin be so black? What you think that mean?'

"But neither one a them little girls knew. So little white girl say, 'Well, let's see. You got hair, I got hair.'"

I gives Mae Mobley a little tousle on her head.

"Little colored girl say 'I got a nose, you got a nose.'"

I gives her little snout a tweak. She got to reach up and do the same to me.

"Little white girl say, 'I got toes, you got toes.' And I do the little thing with her toes, but she can't get to mine cause I got my white work shoes on.

"'So we's the same. Just a different color', say that little colored girl. The little white girl she agreed and they was friends. The End."

Baby Girl just look at me. Law, that was a sorry story if I ever heard one. Wasn't even no plot to it. But Mae Mobley, she smile and say, "Tell it again.”

― Kathryn Stockett, The Help

Mackerel

 Mackerel

6" x 12"  

Available from my Daily Paintworks gallery

I was sketching out some ideas for new prints and one of them is a mackerel.  These fish are found in many parts of the world and there are a lot of variants within the species.   I love their torpedo like shape and dark stripes along the dorsal section.

This started as a simple sketch, then I added watercolour over that, then a little pen work and finally some touches of soft pastel to finish it off.

You can watch for another variation in print form in my Fishy Bits series this year.

The catch

The salt-cod fishery was a mainstay of Newfoundland and Labrador’s economy throughout the nineteenth century. It consisted of three branches: an inshore fishery off the island’s coast, a Labrador fishery, and an offshore bank fishery. Of these, the inshore fishery was both the oldest and largest, with roots in an English migratory fishery dating back to the 1500s.

Until 1992, when the moratorium was announced.   The fishery is now a ghost of its former past.

And this is part of its past.   An old photo from the archives of a young fisherman selling his catch on the wharf at St. John's harbour in the early 1900s caught my attention as I browsed the archives.  The stance. the features, hand in pocket of overalls to keep warm, told the story of a life that comes with harvesting from the sea.  I needed to capture that in a quick oil sketch.

Spring - SOLD

 Spring - SOLD
acrylic on stretched canvas 7" x 5"

Available from my Daily Paintworks gallery

You know when it arrives.

The sun is brighter, the air is warmer.  You swear you think the grass is getting green again and there's a promise of daffodils and tulips poking their way through the soil.

You fling open every window in the house to release the winter worn air and replace it with the new season.

Then you start cleaning.

Pre-flight test

Young ducklings are such fun.  They’re curious and active and talkative.  Their bodies seem to grow before your eyes as they get taller and stronger.

Then one day during the wing testing exercises, the stretching, flapping and running across the yard and suddenly they become airborne.  The flight is usually short and they seem surprised that they can actually do this.   Most of the ducks test their flying ability in the first year and seem to lose interest after that, preferring to stick closer to the barn or field, which is likely a good thing with predators never far away.

The Chase

It's here! The Chase is the print for March in my Fishy Bits! project 

The codfish is a classic Newfoundland image.  A codfish chasing a capelin still common especially in summer when the capelin are plentiful and the cod become too full to ever be tempted by a fisherman.

A few weeks each year recreational cod fishery is open and many people take to the water to get their quota of five fish daily.   Last year the fish they came back with were huge - too large to sacrifice to me for printing.   So I made my own!   You can purchase your very own cod/capelin chase hanging on your wall by visiting my website  

These are printed using oil based ink on Japanese papers.  The piece here is printed on Masa paper. 

I'm presenting the finished prints in various frame options over time to give you an idea of how they look framed.

This is a simple frame, 13" x 13" square with a 5" x 7" opening.  The print area is 4" x 6" and the larger opening allows space for the signature and title to show.   Sorry about the reflection of me ghosting the image, a hazard of photographing glass.

Left or right?

Which is your drawing hand?  Left or right?  Or are you ambidextrous?

My right hand is my drawing hand, my most everything hand.  The left goes along for the ride but doesn't have the dexterity for fine skills such as drawing.  Any drawing I've tried with my left look like a child's drawing - shaky, broken lines without the smooth strokes that the right hand can produce.

This sketch is of my right hand.  I was lying in bed, considering light and shapes and hands and took some shots of my right hand and wrist with my cell phone camera.  Drawing extremeties can be challenging for artists, but as with most everything, if its broken down into simple shapes then built up from there, the intricacies can be figured out.  The idea of a small series of hand drawings, perhaps in charcoal piques my interest.

Did you know?

• Approximately 8 to 15% of the adult population is left-handed.
• Studies indicate that left-handedness is more common in males than females.
• Left-handedness, in comparison to the general population, also appears to occur more frequently in identical twins, and several groups of neurologically disordered individuals
• Statistically, the identical twin of a left-handed person has a 76% chance of being left-handed, identifying the cause(s) as partly genetic and partly environmental.
• It is also noted that many bisexuals and homosexuals are left-handed more than their heterosexual counterparts.
• Also people of South Asian, Eastern European, Southeast Asian descent are more left-handed than any other ethnic groups in the world, while people of Western European, Northern European, and African descent are less left-handed.

Jellyfish

 I'm fascinated with jellyfish and depicting their shape and movement in the water.  Light passes through them and creates amazing colours that you'd never think possible.  Blues, yellows, purples, reds...  However, this sketch is simple pen and ink, finely hatched.  The beauty of the jellyfish is that the shape is simple but complex too, allowing the pen to build up layers to create form without worrying about strokes out of place.

I love to see them floating in the water, long tentacles trailing into the dark water.  Their movement is so graceful, like a ballet in water. But have you ever seen a jellyfish like this one?  The comb jellyfish, a voracious feeder, eating its own weight in food daily.

What does $25 buy?

What does $25 buy? You could buy a decent lunch. A weeks' worth of fancy coffee at Starbucks. A really good bottle of wine. But what do you have to show for it besides a memory after its gone?

Your contribution of $25 to my Indiegogo campaign gets you an original relief print from the January, February or March collections of Fishy Bits printed on Japanese paper. To keep. Forever. And a lovely hand printed thank you card from me.

Your $25 invests in local art, future printmaking and knowledge sharing. In this age of instant everything, artists who invest time to learn traditional techniques and share their inspiration through the creation of quality art are a dying  breed and need your support.

Of course if you would like to contribute more than $25, it would be very welcome and the investment return is more substantial. And if you'd like to contribute less, that's possible too. If you have no spare money at all and could only share this post or campaign link, you'll have good karma always.

I'd love to share my art with you and make you the proud owner of one of Newfoundland and Labrador's cold water marine fish. Find out how your contribution can help make it possible by clicking on the campaign information below. 

Or cut and paste this direct campaign link to Facebook, Twitter or a blog post to share with your networks.

 http://igg.me/at/jeanettejobson/x/653310

On March 15th, a new Fishy Bits print will be released and available from my website. I can't wait to share it with you.

Starting from scratch

Ages ago I bought a round gallery canvas.  I don’t know what possessed me to as I had no idea of what I’d paint on it.  Until today.

I was thinking of fish again and the sketch of what I wanted appeared under my pencil.  its good to see something evolve from concept to finished piece.  Now to work on enlarging and transferring the drawing. The painting may not start til this weekend simply due to lack of time.

I keep looking at the sketch and wondering if I should give it a turn and if it would look better a quarter turn to the left, like this.  Which do you prefer?

Red-breasted Nuthatch

These are frequent visitors to the bird feeder and are seen daily scrambling head downwards on tree trunks.  They are tiny birds compared to the others that arrive at the seed diner and never stay for long darting back to the safety of a tree or to the woods in case a hawk appears.

Originally called Le Torchepot du Canada, the Red-breasted Nuthatch is familiar to most North American bird watchers. Its present name in French is La Sittelle à poitrine rousse, a literal translation of its standard English name. It has been locally called "upside-down bird" (Newfoundland and Labrador)

Started on newsprint with charcoal, here's the original sketch then I added soft pastels.

George Street

 
In St. John's, there's a famous street in the downtown core called George Street.  Its home to a pedestrian only  two blocks of bars, pubs, restaurants – and nothing else. Its the entertainment centre of amusement, alcohol, music, dancing, and crime - not in any particular order.

Its rare that I go to George Street, even though all ages tend to populate it, however, it is predominantly a younger group.  When people visit from other places, they want to see George Street at night in all its glory and its then that I venture downtown as tour guide.

And of course when there I tend to people watch and sometimes try to sketch.  This is the result of me tucked into a corner trying to be unobtrusive and a woman watching me watching her. She never said anything or approached me and I tried my best to avoid her gaze and blend into the background.

Ducks

There are only two ducks left in the barn now.  B.D. and Lucky.

B.D. is a Muscovy duck and my very favourite boy.  Appropriately named  Big Duck (BD for short) as he's large, about goose size.  Muscovies don't quack but make a hissing sound and BD greets me like an old dog when he's out of the barn, rushing forward, crest up, hissing madly, tail wagging furiously. 

Lucky, the other duck, is a Pekin, the classic white duck of fairytales and nursery rhymes and who the sketch is based on.  Pekins are lovely ducks but very, very chatty.  They are constantly on the prowl, sifting through grass and talking to anything that will stand still long enough.

Lucky was so named as he survived a bad attack by a mink and then another by an owl. A tendon in Lucky's neck was damaged so his neck is crooked, aside from that he's just fine.   He and the two remaining ducks who survived the mink attack had been placed in a pen in the meadow til the owl visit, that killed his two companions. BD had recently lost his constant companion Buddy, so he and Lucky joined forces and are inseparable.  One would be lost without the other.

I think I would too.

People watching

I love watching the interaction of people with the world around them. While uniquely individual, they are all the same in terms of repetitive motion.  That's what makes sketching in public easier for me

People change position, move around, walk, bend, eat, drink and I put down a few lines here and there then wait til they resume the position again, which they invariably do.   I move from person to person with a line here and there then back again and hope they don't leave the scene entirely before I'm done.  I like to test myself with just how much information I can get down in a very short time frame.

While waiting today, I sketched heads of others.  I find most people that I sketch are engrossed in their own activities and rarely aware or interested in what I'm doing. The lead in my mechanical pencil gave up the ghost mid sketch and all I could find today was a ballpoint pen in my bag to sketch with, but it fits the bill to capture lines.  I think the next challenge will have to be about unusual tools for drawing.  Toothpicks, twigs, etc. etc.  Never be afraid that your sketchbook is too precious or your drawing not perfect enough.   Each line is a moment in history.  Your history. 

Keep mark making.

Inchworm

Bugs.  Shudder.

Those who know me know I don’t tolerate insects well.  I’ve been known to sleep in other rooms if a moth invades.  Wasps and bees freak me out and I loathe spiders and barely tolerate earthworms. Even butterflies are just colourful moths to me and I don’t want them anywhere near me.

Inchworms?  Well they’re a little different.  They’re tiny, or at least the ones I knew were, and a lovely chartreuse colour. I remember playing games with them with I was a child, watching them pull up their centres and stretch out again to move ahead.  I loved seeing their strength as they extended their tiny bodies to test for the next landing point, waving gently back and forth

Who remembers this song and your own adventures with inchworms?

Cup o’ Joe

A couple of years ago, several dozen seagulls in St. John’s met their untimely end due to ingestion of coffee grounds.  Seagulls seem to populate every part of town and are voracious eaters, tackling any garbage bag they see and I imagine there are coffee grounds in many bags, especially if they find one from a local coffee shop.

The expression on this bird seems a little surprised. Its that wide-eyed look, a little frantic and undertone of calm supporting it, verging on the edge of wanting to go back for more, but feeling that he shouldn’t.

I love gulls, crazy, pugnacious and greedy as they are.  Drawing this one was very enjoyable.  This is day seven of my March Sketch a Day project.   Each day sharing a sketch with you on a blog page devoted to just that.  You can take part too and add your sketch during March.  Doesn't matter if its each day or only one, its all about the drawing practice!

Talking about aggressive, take a minute to watch the video below of a very bold seagull who swiped a woman’s camera in San Francisco while she was filming the sunset.

The camera was still filming and the gull eventually relinquished it in another spot after determining it wasn’t edible.  The gull-eye view footage, including the thief’s getaway, was included.

Little things

On February 24th, my eldest daughter had her first child, a boy.  I'm looking forward to meeting him for the first time in early April, but until then I have to be content with virtual visits and photographs.

This is the first sketch of my new grandson and I'm sure there will be many more to come.

Reynard II

Reynard the Fox was a medieval European trickster figure, a nasty but charismatic character who was always in trouble but always able to talk his way out of any retribution.

I'm not so sure whether this fellow is quite so willing to talk his way out of trouble.  He lies in wait in the grasses at the edge of the meadow, hidden enough from view but with full view of his surroundings.

Foxes have very cat-like features I think and quite delicate faces, legs and feet.  I've had quite a few encounters with them on the farm and just the other morning saw a silver fox race across the road as I left for work.  Red foxes are much more commonly seen so the silver one was a treat.

This fox is drawn on newsprint in pastel.  12" x 12" approximately.

Veiled

Drawing casts is a traditional method of learning to draw form.  All kinds of sculpture is used to draw from and good lighting helps the artist create the play of light and dark that gives the piece shape.

This is a form of gargoyle found on many buildings, little heads with various expressions that populate churches, cathedrals and buildings of importance.

This is a quick sketch done at lunch today that will be turned into a drawing.  I have vowed to produce several complete drawings this year and this will be one of them.  I think I hear charcoal calling for this one...

Reynard the Fox

Living in the country, there's always animals around.  Some wanted, some not so wanted.

Foxes are elegant opportunists.  They watch unseen from the woods and lurk on the edge of the field, waiting for a moment to grab a chicken or duck that's wandered too far or if very bold, they venture into the barn to see what's available.

Although I don't like it if they do kill one of the birds, I also have a degree of sympathy for them, as I know they're simply looking for a meal to feed themselves or a den of kits.

This sketch is the start of a small oil painting of Monsieur Reynard.  Drawing is the backbone of art and the need to draw and sketch daily pushes me to keep those hard earned skills intact.

You can add your sketch for one or all days in March on my March Sketch a Day page.  Simply add your name, blog post url and image to the Add my Link button on that page.

Youth

 The classic lines in this fellow's face appealed to me and it may be worth expanding into a portrait.  For now, just a sketch.

Afternoon stroll

 
Still in Vilnius, I came across this older woman out for a stroll in the dappled sunshine.  It seems the world over the stance, hair and accessories remain the same.  These sketches are being completed in a 3" x 5" trave e logue sketchbook.  The paper is fairly substantial and holds water well, so I thought I'd take advantage of that fact.

If you'd like to add your sketches during March, go to the March Sketch a Day page on my blog (see the page tabs above) and use the button to to add your image and link back to your blog post.  Let's see how many people will join in this month!

March sketching

Drawing has always been my comfort zone, but painting does eat into that and I while I usually sketch something most days, I don't usually share it.

I've decided that I will devote March to sharing a sketch a day.  One, it puts a bit of pressure on me to ensure that I do produce and two, it continues to ensure I keep my drawing skills honed.

I'll be posting the sketches in a Facebook album and also sharing them on my blog on the March Sketch A Day page.  I'd love others to join in and share what they've drawn during the month. You can add a thumbnail of your sketch on my March Sketch a Day page which also links directly to your blog post. The basis of the sketch should be a drawn line, but colour always livens things up after you have the "bones" down.

I'll start the month off with a sketch of a row of sheds on the side of a road in Vilnius, Lithuania.  If you're looking for something new to sketch try The Virtual Paint Out.  You never know what's waiting for you there!

Glass continued

 

I like the methodical build up of paint when working on something that is transparent. The  subtle changes in values are easy to miss, but become crucial in pulling off an object in realism.

This is why I rarely use a photograph if working from a reference piece but leave it on the computer. That way I can zoom in and see detail and colour that no printer, no matter what the quality of output, can ever produce. Here is the current work's progress, using layers of oils on top of the acrylic from the last post.

There's still lots more to do and I want to leave it for a couple of day to dry a little then start some glazes over the glass surface in some areas.

Painting glass

I've determined that my love of painting water and fish and reflective objects is all down to that play of light and how it forms shapes so well.  Capturing the reflective quality is a challenge to me and a bit like a puzzle that I always enjoy tackling. Glass tends to be one of those perceived difficulties for artists who view the whole and panic, wishing there was a "glass" paint to achieve the transparent and reflective surface.

Reflective surfaces need to be studied carefully to understand just what makes up their form.  When you dissect a highly reflective object in bright light, you see that the lines between values are very well marked and break the general rules in painting and drawing of not having crisp edges between values.   It is that edge that defines what we see and interpret and shiny.  If the bright light was not reflecting off the surface, the effect would still be there, but less intense.

      

Yesterday I created the study of a glass bottle (top of page) using watercolour in a 6 x 12 multimedia sketchbook.  I love my studies as many of you know and wanted to see if this would be worthwhile to turn into a painting.  And I believe it is. 

The form and reflections work well and I've drawn the bottle again freehand with acrylic paint and blocked in some form with dilute acrylic washes.  Next I'll start adding colour in oils.   Acrylic backgrounds are almost another form of study, letting me block in colour quickly to set the stage for what is to come. 

This is on a 9" x 12" canvas panel.