Drawing practice 10/22/12

Watercolor nude 2

Thanks to pixelovely for the photos. Great for the rare times when live models aren’t artistically lounging in your studio.

Watercolor nude 1

I’m waitlisted for 30/30/30 and will only get to do it if someone else cancels, so my oil painting productivity has slowed down this week. Instead, it’s watercolors and nudes all the time, which I find more inspiring than still lifes. If I get to do 30/30/30 after all, I’ll do something in this style instead. It’s just more fun.

Willow

After painting feverishly last week I took a break for a nature walk and saw a branch on the ground that looked a little like this. The repetition was compelling so I came home and drew it from memory.

The many ways Brian Eno helps with art

Painting is a humbling pursuit. I often feel stuck, so I make myself little encouraging notes. This time on Japanese stationery.

Listening to Brian Eno reminded me of his Oblique Strategies cards, which I have on my computer dashboard but would use more if they were on paper. So I made a few. Not the whole deck.

P.S. “Spinning Away” is the best Brian Eno song to listen to while drawing, because it’s about drawing and also the entire universe. The lyrics are on the covers of a couple of my sketchbooks. (For example this one.)

Massive productivity

I signed up for this thing to make 30 works of art in 30 days (9 of which I’ll be traveling and not painting) and to say I’m not a little nervous would be a big fat lie. So I’m practicing churning out multiple paintings at once.

Here’s the setup and day one’s accomplishments. They needed to dry a bit or else I’d have done more.

Here’s where day two got me. Still lots more work to do on these, but if I can get them about done with one more day’s work, I’ll be content with my pace.

Stay tuned for the next post, where I reveal what I do when I feel stuck about a painting.

Repetition exercise

I checked out a few drawing books from the library for inspiration. Carla Sonheim (in Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists) recommends drawing the same subject on 20 index cards. Here’s my version, in the sketchbook of course.