Happy 2014!

If you know me, you know that I don't really believe in New Years' resolutions.  I believe that we should be 'resolving' to be a better person than we were yesterday, every day.  Rather than making a grandiose list of things you want to do differently but probably aren't going to, I guarantee you'll make a much more significant difference by incorporating small goals into your everyday existence.

Case in point: my attempted "drawing a day" project that is ongoing.  It turned into something more like "a drawing a few times a week," but that's okay, and here's why.  If I flip through my Handbook, I can see improvement from one week to the next.  That's the goal, isn't it?

That said, one of my goals for the next... significant length of time is to tackle the largely intimidating project traditional Venetian mask making.  After researching the process extensively, my plan is to start with a small scale model and work my way up to creating wearable face masks as my technique improves.

See?  Got my supplies.  Nothing you can't buy at any art store, or even Amazon Prime.

Step 1: make mask positive for molding purposes out of oil-based clay.  The crappy factory made mask is just there as a three-dimensional reference that I don't have to worry about messing up.  My authentic Venetian jester isn't going anywhere near odd-smelling grease clay.
Step 2: use clay positive to cast plaster negative.
Step 3: use plaster negative to create "stuck paper" positive (noted as being different from paper mache)
Step 4: cut out eyes and nostrils; sand edges smooth.
Step 5: coat "stuck paper" positive with several layers of white acrylic paint
Step 6: decorate!

Tanzanite Venezia

© Chromeheart

Venetian streets are very narrow, often dark despite full daylight.  Looking down one of these narrow streets is like peeping through a keyhole; you only get to see what's straight ahead.  You see faded, sunwashed partial scenes through (that hackneyed) dark tunnel.  Indistinct.  The City's alive, and she's choosing what she wants to show you.  If you want to see more, it's up to you to put one foot in front of the other and make some moves.  It's not like, say, Boston or NYC where you can see what's ahead of you at least a few blocks in any given direction.  Nah, Venezia wants you to get to know her the old fashioned way.

My pen got skippy toward the end of this sketch, so I had to improvise a bit and added the wash.  I think I might have dropped the pen on the floor one too many times.  Don't buy a Pilot Metro if you're a frequent pen dropper.  The ink handles nicely in Private Reserve fashion, but I'm more than a little disappointed that "tanzanite" is warm blue instead of... tanzanite color.

Interior sketch

Had some extra time today, so I did a more involved sketch than usual.  My apartment building has a policy about decorations that are visible from outside, but fortunately, they don't care much about little lights in the windows.  If I stuck up a giant LED santa claus, that would be a different story.

Morning Sketches

Dec. 10, 10:01am

Diamine Salamander, Lamy Safari F, Hand.book journal, wet Q-tip.  Almost-done votive candle.

Between my cream sketchbook paper and the warm lighting in my snapshots, the green tint of the Salamander ink often gets lost.  Diamine Salamander is actually a top notch example of what I consider to be a good ink: an ink that darkens almost to black, and shows a prominent hue when it's thinned out without being too saturated.

Plus, Diamine inks come in these nifty vintage style bottles.

© Oscura Photography
www.viaoscura.blogspot.com

Now, if only they'd ship the bottles with a handmade glass pen!  Nabbed this one at a glass art gallery in Stone Harbor, New Jersey.  Glass pen feature coming soon.

Dec. 9 2013, 9:46am

I got a little behind this weekend, as a result of a NYC trip (more later!) so this is the first sketch I've done since Thursday last week.  After months of not drawing, I'm challenging myself to draw something every day.  It doesn't matter what it is--a Classical portrait or a ten minute doodle while I'm drinking my coffee.  It doesn't matter if I do it with a pen or a brush or a stick from the backyard.  None of the variables matter, as long as it's a drawing.

Diamine Salamander, Lamy Safari F, Handbook journal.

Oxblood Sketch

Quick breakfast sketch from a few mornings ago.  Zucchini frittata.  Diamine Oxblood in a Pilot Metro Medium nib. It's easily one of my favorite inks.  The color ranges from that of merlot to recently dried blood depending on the tone of the paper, and thins to a lovely coral hue.  For those that aren't aware, fountain pen ink is extremely water soluble even after it's dried; even moreso than dried watercolor paint.  That's so it doesn't clog the pen.  If I'm doing a painting with a FP ink in more than one pass, the solubility drives me bathouse crazy.  For quick sketches on the go, however, it makes life so much simpler and my travel sketch kit so much smaller!  I can achieve a painted effect simply by swiping a wet Q-tip across an area of hatching.  So simple.

Morning Sketch

Diamine Salamander, Lamy Safari F, and a teeny weeny espresso mug.  The crochet project is a secret, but it isn't far enough along for any of y'all to figure out what it is.  ;)

Diamine Blaze Orange (ink test)

I hesitate to call this an ink "review" per se.  I'm not a fountain pen connoisseur, and I don't test inks by writing "the quick brown fox jumped over a lazy dog" then drawing some squiggles and dripping water on the paper.  I care more about the ink's functionality as a paint or sketch medium than how wet or dry or whatever it is in some $200 pen that I don't intend to purchase.

© Chromeheart

Generally speaking, the more saturated the color of an ink, the worse the shading is, so I honestly wasn't expecting much in terms of writing quality.  I guess it goes to show, one shouldn't judge an ink by the way it looks in a vial.This photo is color accurate, and as you can see, it shades quite beautifully from pale orange to carmine.

Writing test done in a basic Fabriano sketchbook with cream paper, since that's what I normally write in.  Fabriano paper is actually manufactured in Italy, unlike many of their competitors, and it doesn't bleed through or feather.  Don't even get me started on the "Italian"-but-actually-Chinese bad excuse for stationery otherwise known as Moleskine.

The fact that this ink is a midtone at its darkest shade makes it very limiting in terms of painting, unless I decide I want to do a series of low contrast orange cityscapes or something.  (actually, that's not a bad idea).  Anyway, the point, I'm not really feeling monochrome orange in my sketchbook.  Although it looks pretty out of a medium nib, I don't think the color lends itself very well to ink wash painting.  Furthermore, the water solubility of this ink is so dramatic that it pools and makes a mess if I try to work another layer over an area that's already dried.  On the upside, that quality would force me to stop being so darned finicky and commit to whatever I put down on the first pass.  It could go either way, really.

Paintsketch done in Handbook journal.  Cream paper with a slight bit of tooth, which snags on dry writing nibs just enough to annoy me.  American made handblown-glass pen, I don't remember the artist off the top of my head.

Extra Ordinary

© Chromeheart / Oscura Photography

First off, I don't normally use my kitchen as an art studio.  I'm weird, but I'm not that weird.

I had a professor at Montserrat who was always telling me to "make the ordinary extraordinary."  Translate: draw the most boring crap you can possibly find in a way that makes it look interesting, instead of just drawing stuff that looks interesting to begin with.  It forces you to focus more on your technique, to use execution as a tool to create interest.  To say "hey, look how beautiful this thing is, that you walk past every day without noticing."

If I look around my apartment, I don't own a whole hell of a lot that isn't innately interesting; it's a side effect of having very Baroque taste.  My coffee mugs are shaped like owls, my lamps are almost all antique, and there's a jester mask on the coffee table.  Normal, normal, where to find some normal?

Hmm...

No matter what you do to it, kitchen paraphernalia always looks boring and mundane.  I'm not even sure if it's possible to weird up food prep.  So I grabbed a pen, and a brush, and pulled a stool up to the counter to draw me some normal in bright orange ink.

Thanksgiving Weekend Sketch

© Chromeheart

Window in my old bedroom.  The jar of Old Lyme beach sand lives there, since I seem to have misplaced its lid.  The absence of lid makes it difficult if not impossible to transport without spilling.  However, truth be told, I'm not experiencing any burning need to transfer about a cup of 'nostalgia sand' from the Fourth of July into a practical, travel safe container, and that's okay.  At the end of the day, it's just another jar of dirt.

Some Things I'm Excited About

+Latest Barnes & Noble bargain find: an entire coffee table size book that literally explains how to build a Gothic cathedral, with diagrams and everything!  So inspirational.

+Blank leather book, handmade in Firenze:  I haven't decided if I'm going to use it for writing or drawing yet.  Or at all, because it's just so pretty.

+Bracelet in progress: Mainstream fashion finally did something right!  I don't usually follow current  trends, because I don't usually find "trends" attractive.  Case in point, I'm still waiting for male skinny jeans to go back to whatever hell they came from.  Whoever came up with that must have been blind.  BUT.  I'm seriously digging the chunky chain bracelets with ribbon, leather, thread, etc woven between the links.  This guy is my own twist on the woven curb chain trend, and they'll be available for purchase in my Etsy sooner rather than later.

+It finally occurring to me that I should watermark my photos.  I love my signature typeface!  I am, however, working on a blackletter Oscura O logo with an edgy modern twist.