Sketch roundup 18.Jul.2016

Some sketchbook pages from the last week or two.  

All the quotes are from the internet, not my original writing.  I don't know who the original sources are, since most of my quotes come from English translations of international facebook pages that pair quotes with photography.

I want to start a travel blog, or maybe slant this one to focus on my drawings and photography of specific places.  It's not exactly within my means right now to fly halfway around the world, so for now, I'm going to practice drawing around where I live.  When I do take that trip, I want to do the best work I can.

Throwing Out Sketchbooks

This is a sketchbook I finished last year.  Should I keep it?  

Serious question.  I always throw out my journals and sketchbooks. I buy the cheapest writing journals I can find because I know they're going to end up in the garbage.  I'm picky about sketchbooks for paper quality, but I still buy them knowing I'm probably going to trash it.  

In 2013, I threw out 15 years' worth of diaries/journals and ~10 years of personal sketchbooks.  I decided that carrying 20lbs of past around with you is dumb, and sacrificed them to the god of the trash chute.  I remember posting about my liberation in a Minimalist facebook group.  My post received an overwhelming response of horror, disbelief, and... my favorite... a chorus of middle aged women saying "you should have kept a few to share with your kids later on."  

Okay, listen up.  1) I am in a committed relationship with the next 20 years of my life.  2) There was nothing in these books that I want to look at again, much less show to the imaginary kids I'm not going to have.  

I have been throwing out my books since.  

I know I should want to keep them, but I don't.  

Okay, so I've kept three sketchbooks from college.  Two are reference books containing class notes and demonstrations, the third is a moleskine I took to Italy when I studied abroad.

I don't think I need to explain why I don't hold onto journals.  Or maybe I do, since aspiring minimalists were shocked that I chucked 'em.  I use journaling as a tool to resolve problems, and I can't think of one single good reason to dedicate space in my home to a list of things that bothered me last year.  My pre-2013 sketchbooks, barring the college stuff, were more or less a diary of low-lights.  Raise your hand if you draw when you're sad.  Keep it raised if looking at those drawings afterward makes you sad. 

As part of my minimalist journey, I made a commitment that I won't hold onto objects with negative associations, including artwork.  I've seen a lot of benefit from this.  Basically, you feel better overall if your home isn't a gallery of negative associations.  Even if you don't consciously realize that the stuff in your house is affecting you emotionally, it is. 

Which brings me to this.  I used this sketchbook from 2013-2015.  I can't decide if I want to keep it or not.  There are some nice breakthrough drawings in here that I care about, like my boats, but there is also some personal content I'd rather be without.  

I'm never going to be one of those artists who has a massive floor to ceiling bookcase full of old sketchbooks lined up neatly with dates on the spines.  I don't think it's necessary to keep every single drawing I do.  My old drawings are not irreplaceable, like a lot of people believe.  I can do another drawing.  In fact, I intend to.  

Maybe I'll keep it for now.  My first boat drawings are in here, and it will be the only past sketchbook I have that isn't school related.  

My Face Is To The Rising Sun

My personal sketchbooks are a bit of a mess-- a mix of bad drawings, good drawings, quotes, collage, and inspirational images pasted in.  I use Handbook journals because the paper can handle some abuse, and they look nice lined up on a shelf.  One of these days I want to try making my own sketchbook from loose sheets of 300lb watercolor paper.  I had a friend in college who made a beautiful travel journal in her bookbinding class and wrapped the cover in a map of the place she was visiting.

My Face Is To The Rising Sun is a small, independently published poetry collection I impulsively bought from a junk shop in Marblehead.  It spoke to me at the time, but the fact is, I have no taste for 1800s poetry with it's rigid, uptight form and strict meter.  It's like cramming words into a cage and expecting them to sing.  Strangely, I wanted to keep the book even though I didn't want to keep it.  I liked the title.  I gently removed the title page and put the rest of the book aside for donation with all of the poetry intact.  I doubt the next person who buys it from a thrift store would notice the absent title page.

Sotoportego (WIP)

A year later, I am still working on this painting, pulling it out when it suits me without any consistent commitment.  It stares at me balefully while I shift it from the back of my coat closet to the space behind my futon to any number of places it's less likely to get in the way, begging to be finished.  I have decided that I'm going to finish it once and for all, hopefully within the next month or so.  I have also decided that I want to get more serious about my painting, moving forward.  

I have been so apprehensive about this painting.  I have never done anything this large before (24"x30") and I'm nervous about messing it up.  Big brushes feel clumsy in my hands, used to small scale work from years and years of practicing illustration.  A couple months ago, I got to a point in the painting where I froze and I wouldn't move forward for fear of making a mess.  I procrastinated  by taking up mixed media collage, learning how to cook, and getting an instagram (@viaoscura) where I post pictures of everything except the painting I'm not finishing.  

It hit me when I woke up this morning.  I sat up and looked at the Leonid Afremov painting hanging across from my bed, and I knew what to do next-- forget the brush and use a palette knife.  If you're painting with a tool that is imprecise by nature, it forces you to loosen up.  Besides, I like the look of palette knife paintings, otherwise I probably wouldn't have put an Afremov street scene in my bedroom.  

(this is the Afremov painting)

I have been reading about minimalism and "decluttering" recently.  Most of the worthwhile books about it specifically call out unfinished projects, explaining that they are a subconscious energy drain in addition to taking up valuable space you could use for something else.  And it's true.  Having a huge pile of half done projects and unread books demanding attention stresses me out so much!  This weekend, I made a list of the unfinished business I'm likely to get to within the next 6 months to a year and ditched the rest.

Projects I Will Actually Finish List!
-This painting
-Crochet projects incl. a hat, scarf, throw pillow, and some gift items I won't list in case an intended recipient is reading
-Processing my photos from Plum Island
-Life size clay head (I'll explain later)
-6 fiction books to read
-3 poetry books to read

It should be a lot easier to focus on visual art without a huge to-do hanging over my head.

Oh, and did I mention that I started doing yoga?  Maybe I'd be better at finishing projects, or even updating this blog, if there weren't so many other interesting things to try.  Only so much time in a day, right?

The Intuition

Ink: Private Reserve Black Cherry

The boats are out!
As the weather turns warm, I like to sit outside and draw the boats in the marina.  Boats fascinate me, from the lowliest kayak to seafaring giants.

Anything that will take you somewhere, really.  Boats, planes, trains, etc, etc.  You get inside, and it takes you somewhere.  Trains don't stand still long enough to draw them and planes, well, the TSA wouldn't like me loitering in airports...

So I draw the boats in the marina.

Easter Painting WIP

Second pass on the painting I started last week.  (Missed it?  Here's the post.)
It's coming together pretty well, I think.  I introduced two new colors and added some depth to the mug/coaster situation.  The handle's a bit wonky, but I can fix that after it dries completely.  Don't like your acrylic painting?  Wait ten or twenty minutes and paint over it.

If you're wondering about my weird paint palette, it is a Fage yogurt lid.  Funny story about that...

I have spent literally hours of my life, possibly even days, scraping paint off a glass palette just to put more paint on it.  One day I got so fed up with it that I grabbed a clear tub lid out of my recycling bin and used that instead of spending another hour in the sink with the glass palette that I'd come to despise.

The yogurt lid worked like a charm, and when it got too cruddy to continue using, I tossed it out and got another.  I still have a bunch of them hanging around, but I've since stopped buying yogurt because dairy isn't Paleo.

So what can I use that is similar to a Fage yogurt lid without buying yogurt...

Clear plastic disposable plates.  The best disposable palette money can buy is 40 cents a pop at most grocery stores.  Take that, "palette paper" pads.


--

Now, it's Easter, and I love everything about peeps except eating them.  Sugar coated sugar with so much food coloring you can actually taste it?  Really?  Why do I like these things?  I usually buy one pack, eat three or four of them, and toss the rest out.  This year, I got a tiny peep plush instead.  He's so nice.  He even stands up on his own.

When I went to move my hydrangea off the glass table (I buy them every year... love the smell) before I could start painting, I noticed a funny lump on the outside of the pot.  I pulled back the paper and found a little green shoot there.

There's a secret daffodil growing out of the hole on the bottom of the pot!  I have never seen a plant do this before.

If you celebrate Easter, I hope you're having a wonderful holiday.  If you don't, there's no reason not to enjoy the chocolate!  

I'm Alive! + Painting WIP

Greetings!  

I started a new painting... in acrylic!  I'm going to do a second pass in acrylic with my limited palette, and then finish it in oils to add depth and interest.  It's obvious enough that it's a painting of a coffee cup on a thing with an abstracted background, but my end goal isn't quite so straightforward.  You're just going to have to check back later and see what I do with it.  ;) 

This is the first "direct" painting I've done in a long time; I normally fall back on the Venetian technique.  It's also the first acrylic painting I've done in a long time.  You can tell how much love I've given my acrylics by the fact that I'm still using the long discontinued Finity line.  I also purchased these before I learned enough about pigment to know that Naples Yellow is a pointless color.

Exactly a week ago, I rediscovered my acrylic paints in the middle of a spring cleaning escapade and wondered if I shouldn't just throw them out. I'd become an oil paint convert partway into art college and hadn't touched acrylic since... but then I remembered why I bothered investing in a full set of artist grade acrylic paints in the first place.

It dries in ten or twenty minutes.  It cleans up with plain soap and water.  It handles best with cheapo nylon paintbrushes that I don't need to care about destroying.  I can finish a painting in one sitting if I want to, and if I make a mistake, I just wait for it to dry and paint over it.

I decided to keep the acrylics.

Now, here's why I've been off the artistic grid for so long.
Last fall, I transitioned from working part time with no commute to full time with an hour commute each way, and it has actually taken me these past several months to arrive at a time management routine wherein I can get all the "domestic stuff" done and still have time for my personal pursuits.

I stopped painting because oil paint takes forever.  By the time I set up, it's almost time to put it away again.  Cleanup takes twice as long as setup, and then there's the drying time.  Considering the lack of winter daylight and the fact that I now typically get home from work around 6:30-7pm, I just plain didn't have time for that.  

I got so wrapped up in my love of oils that I forgot why I'd initially foregone them for acrylics.  With a simple change of medium, I suddenly have time to paint again.  (Although daylight savings time also helps.)

Pumpkins, Paintings, and People

It's been a bit of a while since the last update, so here's what I've been working on lately: 

Finished the underpainting and begun "dead coloring" on my Venetian canal painting.  It's based on a photo that I took during a trip to Venice.  I'm taking my time with this one.

© Oscura Photography

It's pumpkin season!  You know what that means.  Baking pumpkins, eating pumpkins, taking pictures of pumpkins and photoshopping them onto my body for ha-has.... I mean... okay, maybe not that last one.

I made this little guy in pretty harvest colors, following a free crochet pattern from Little Muggles.  It was a fun break from drawing, painting, and job searching in my new locale.  

A little drawing of an eye, with an Alda Merini quote.  Mostly I wanted to play with my inks, and mixing colors.  An unlikely combination, mixing a true violet with Antelope Brown yields some very lovely warm tones.  I'm definitely going to use this color combination in some larger projects.  

And, lastly, sketching people at the beach.  They're little because I was spending maybe twenty seconds on each doodle, since the people who go to the beach in 60 degree weather move around a lot more than the typical sunbathers.  Fun stuff!  It's also the same violet ink I used in the eye.  

Teatime Musings

© Chromeheart

I'll let you in on a little secret... half the time when I glue art paper into my sketchbook, it's covering up a drawing or something that I didn't like so much.  Some Italian blackletter that came out wrong is hiding under this one, and nobody would ever know just by looking at it.  Books are for secrets.

Flipping back through this sketchbook, which I started about eighteen months ago, I realize that I haven't been using it right.  After all this time, I'm still trying too hard to be "good."  I still want to go back and cover up everything that didn't come out so well; glue my pages together so nobody can see what's inside and paint over old mistakes until you can't tell what they were.

You can hide your mistakes, but there isn't enough paint in the world to make them go away.

Maddy Rose

© Chromeheart

I haven't done a messy pen sketch (as opposed to a not-messy pen that has the ink inside of it) outside in a public space since Italy.  When I started using fountain pens, I decided that carrying ink bottles and dip pens and a cleanup kit around is too much hassle and the potential for an ink accident is too high.  Once upon a time I accidentally dumped a bottle of acrylic ink across my hands, my pants, and my watercolor block while sketching outside in this manner.  

This is hands down my favorite drawing pen.  If there is a non-messy pen that handles anything like this, I haven't found it yet.  It's a D. Leonardt mapping nib, purchased in Italy while I was studying abroad.  It's possible to find them in the states, but a bit difficult.  

Today's supplies: HB pencil, my favorite pen, F.W. Artist's Acrylic in Red Earth, a cappuccino, my Travelogue Handbook, and a small bottle of water for cleanup.  Cappuccino is totally an art supply.

(seriously, though, don't use an open ink bottle as a paperweight ESPECIALLY if it's windy)

Ca d'Oro in Ink and Watercolor

Finished sketch

The Ca d'Oro is a famous Venetian palazzo on the Grand Canal, so named because its entire front facade was radiant gold in its heyday.  Of course, most of the gold has come off over the past few centuries, but the Ca d'Oro remains a prime example of Venetian-Gothic splendor, regally presiding over the inevitable traffic jams between gondolas, vaporetti, and assorted motor boats below.

In progress

I began this sketch with a loose layer of liquid watercolor, added detail in waterproof acrylic ink with one of my favorite D. Leonardt nibs, and finished it off with an overlay of pink to hint at the sunset.  Original photo sourced from Pinterest; I do not know who the photographer is to credit them.  No copyright infringement is intended.  This work is solely a personal enrichment exercise from which I receive no monetary benefit.  

You've probably noticed that I've been inactive for quite some time-- well, here's the story.  After a lot of stressful job-and-apartment-hunting, I have moved back to the North Shore and and am just beginning to get settled, quite happily.  I can smell the ocean in my living room, when the wind blows the right way.  It doesn't get any better than that.  

And God said: Let There Be Coffee... so I started unpacking in order of importance.

It might have been the place...

©Chromeheart (images only)

Since I've begun experimenting with fountain pen inks (which are very water-soluble once dry), I thought I might try revisiting the one wet media that I could never learn to like.  These sketches are both done in a mixture of fountain pen ink and pan watercolor, and I'm surprisingly pleased with the results.

Quotes are sourced from an ebook called Carnival for the Dead, and I am merely scribbling passages I enjoyed in my personal sketchbook for no reason other than personal enrichment.  No copyright infringement is intended and I do not stand to profit from this work.

Dispossession

© Chromeheart

Inks: J.H. Poussiere d' Lune, R&K Scabiosa
Yes, I know I spelled dispossession wrong on the page.  Whoopsie.

© Chromeheart

I have so many interests that I must rotate them due to a lack of hours in the day; which is to say that if I'm focusing on writing, I'm not drawing much.  If I'm drawing, I'm not really writing.  If I'm crocheting or taking photos, I'm probably not writing or drawing.  To be able to write a poem every day, post a drawing every week, make a blanket to keep me warm, and continue developing my photography all at the same time, I'd have to quit my day job!

Maybe in a perfect world... but in the words of a fictional character, "Nothing's perfect.  The world's not perfect... and that's what makes it so damned beautiful."

My Shadows #5: Terminus

© Chromeheart

Inks: J.H. Terre de Feu, Diamine Brown, R&K Scabiosa

Quotes:

"Take a lesson..." --Gemini Syndrome, Pay For This

"I remember..." --Nonpoint, That Day

(Yeah, I use vintage wine glasses for my paintbrush water.  Old jam jars, yogurt cups, or whatever people normally use are just plain ugly.)

I took my sketchbook to the last round of the CrossFit Open intending to draw people doing burpees and thrusters, and dropped it after the second heat to make myself useful as a cheerleader.  The unfinished page eventually became this.  

CrossFit's about realizing with every step forward that you're a stronger person than you were yesterday.  

Shadows 4: Yours, Not Mine

© Chromeheart

Inks used: J. Herbin Terre de Feu,  F.W. Sepia

While spring cleaning, I came across a box of pretty collage papers that I'd acquired for another project.  The other project didn't pan out and I've always liked the look of altered books and scrappy art journals held together by little more than glue and string.

© Chromeheart

Since I'm not trying to impress anyone, any more, it might be nice to try mixed media collage myself rather than idly admiring other artists' work.  In the world of art college, it was an unspoken rule that Professional Artists didn't do amateurish hobby crafts if they wanted to be taken seriously.  I don't think visual journals should be so easily filed in the same category as paint by humber kits or stringing beads on wire according to a pattern someone else made.

Maybe that's just me.

Shadows #3: Lost In Translation

© Chromeheart

Somehow I've accidentally made a hobby of attempting to translate the quotes on the Italian photo blogs I follow into English; this usually works by pasting phrases individually into three different online translators and combining them into whatever makes the most sense.  Sometimes it's spot on; sometimes it's... not.  Every the quote is famous enough to have an English translation out there, it's completely different from the translated meaning.

This poem is a case in point.  It was supposed to be a fragment of "Conversation with a Stone" by Wislawa Szymborska.  The official English translation is a poem about a nosy woman pestering a stone to see the inside of its house.  A few choice expressions that got lost in translation resulted in a completely different poem... a poem more meaningful to me than the original.  Maybe the Italian translation from the original Polish was faulty; who knows.

My Shadows #2

These sketches and poetry are about forgetting what I learned, and remembering what I forgot. It's easy to (for)get lost, when you've got all pins and no needles.

© Chromeheart

Someone once told me to forget everything I learned in art school.  At the time, I thought he was an imbecile.  Now, I'm not so sure.  A lot of things have changed since then.  I'm beginning to think there might have been something to it.  Might have.  Somewhere in the vein of coulda, woulda, shoulda, &etc.

I want to forget when art making evolved from an expression of myself into an expression of what I thought others wanted from me.  I want to forget how my sketchbook was depersonalized into a graded homework assignment.  Most of all, I want to forget how important it was to be good.  To be as close to the best as you can.

© Chromeheart / Oscura Photography

I stopped enjoying art when I started thinking about good.  If the professor would see how hard I tried to be a good artist, a good student, and give me a favorable mark.  If my classmates would hate my drawing and rip me a new one over too much this or not enough that.  My art wasn't mine any more; it was everyone else's except mine, in the name of good-ness.

What good is "good" if I'm not enjoying myself?
Maybe it's not so important after all.

My Shadows #1

© Chromeheart

Out of the inky 54th Massachusetts blue, the drawing bug bit me.
I'd taken an extended break from the blogosphere to write my novel--which, at my anticipated length of 95,000 words, is only 2/3 of the way done.  I'm a slow writer, but that's okay.  I write for me, not for anybody else.  Being that, I may as well savor the writing experience.  The familiar friction of pen to paper, every word a lonely fragment of a half-remembered dream.

© Chromeheart / Oscura Photography

As I've mentioned before, I mainly use facebook to follow a few dozen Italy-based photo blogs that post lovely images paired with poetic quotes for the better part of the day.  None of it's in English, but if I like the photo enough, I'll bung a functional translation and 'share' the whole shebang.  Often times, the quote pairing lends a depth of meaning to the photograph that I otherwise wouldn't have noted.  You can follow me on facebook as A Chrome Heart.

That's part of what I'm getting at here.
I know what this picture means to me, but that's a secret.  A shadow.  Oscura.  Chiaroscuro.
What does it say to you?  (you may reply in the comments, if you wish)

Black Cherry Sketchbook Spread

© Chromeheart

PR Black Cherry is quickly becoming one of my favorite inks, with just the right amount of saturation for my taste.  The sketch on the right is of an archway cut into a wall, with steps leading down directly into a canal.  Although that seems quite strange at first glance, I assume the purpose is to get on and off a boat with ease. This is the Venice you don't see in glossy, oversaturated tourism photos.

Little Luna Part I

There's one moment in Venice that I remember very clearly: I tried on a gilded mask shaped like a crescent moon with a strikingly androgynous face.  It was a beautiful mask, but it looked strange on someone with my height and build.  I bought a Tarot jester instead, but I couldn't stop thinking about the Luna mask.  Why don't I simply make a Luna mask of my own?

sculpture © Chromeheart Illustration

I began with a small scale mock-up of my Luna to get a feel for the basic process.  I'm a little nervous about this, being that I never had an interest in sculpture before recently discovering its function in mask-making.  Little Luna is made out of Roma Plastilina no. 2, an oil-based clay that is often used for mold making.  

The next step will be to pour a plaster negative of Little Luna.  I've never used Plaster of Paris before either, so this is going to be a bit of an adventure.  

© Chromeheart Illustration 

Truth be told, I'm having a blast with the Luna character.  I did this little sketch earlier today, inspired by one of the more elaborate Luna e Sole masks I came across in my research.  Ink: Private Reserve Black Cherry.  I'm already in love with the color.  

sketches © Chromeheart Illustration

These are the preliminary sketches I did for my Luna mask, and some inspiration references from the Internet.  I want my Luna's facial expression to be relaxed and dreamy, with an underlying intelligence and that slight smirk that almost seems to whisper, "I have a secret." Luna is a monarch of the night, of sleep and dreams, and the night is for secrets.  The facial expression will be more distinct when I build the full scale mask.