Shading Exercise Update

It's taken much longer than I anticipated but I finished my second shading exercise. This time I wanted to compare the two pencil sets I have. On the right are the two done with Derwent pencils, a set of H - 9B; on the left I used Faber-Castell, a 6H, a 5H and a set of 2H - 8B. This is not a sponsored post. I have mostly used my Faber-Castell pencils, I was given the Derwent pencils but over all I prefer the F-C and that was reaffirmed in this exercise. I generally prefer H/hard pencils to B/soft pencils. I really like the smoothness of the F-C pencils.
As for the exercise itself, practice makes perfect, I'd like to do one more, this time I want to make it as clean and crisp as possible.

Drawing excercises

I've set my sights on some new goals as an artist and what I'd like to achieve will require me to up my game. I've really worked at a lot of things over the years but drawing and other art "fundamentals" if you will, have slipped, so I'm making yet another effort to improve my drawing skills.
This is a very simple and unexciting exercise, I remember doing in on in my first high school art class, possibly in middle school as well. I remember being satisfied with my efforts in high school but it's been a long time. In middle school I used one pencil (usually a .5 mechanical pencil) to achieve the full range of values. I was introduced to the idea of using a range of pencils (hard to soft) to achieve the same effect, I became more aware of the range of papers available and how not to abuse them as I drew.
What I'm taking a long time to say is that I'm still getting used to the idea and process of using a whole range of drawing pencils to create my range of values. I should be much better at this by now but I've never put the work in. Hopefully I can do that and stick with it this time.
Here's my first attempt.

I'll do better on the next one.

Airports and the arts

So I finally got around to pulling the museum maps, etc. Out of my backpack from Paris. I found these two with the others.

A pamphlet of the art in the international terminal at the Dallas - Fort Worth airport and a pamphlet from at the museum space in SFO. I think it's genius to have a museum space in an airport. I spent about six hours at both of these airports and while it was cool to wander around and see the art in Dallas, it was much cooler to see the curated exhibits at SFO. They have four exhibit spaces in different parts of the airport and exhibits rotate around. I think you could even go see them without having to be going anywhere. I think they were outside of security. I wish more airports would do this!

An American Artist in Paris

A few weeks ago I was able to take a trip to Paris and fulfill many dreams. One of the coolest things I was able to do, was to go to the Louvre. When I went to Italy there were several moments when I was geeking out over beautiful art and things I'd studied in art history, the Louvre is even more like that. In one room they have practically a whole semesters worth of French art history. The Louvre has at least five da Vinci's, some quick googling tells me that, that's about a third of his paintings! There was an amazing Vermeer exhibit while we were there, it was so cool to see tons of Vermeer's in one place and the work of his contemporaries.

We took a flying tour of the Louvre, it's massive and I wanted to see as much as possible. The top of my list were the Mona Lisa (beautiful but obscured by selfie-ists) the rest of the da Vinci's ( so cool just to see a row of da Vinci paintings!) the winged victory (so beautiful!) and the Venus de Milo (also quite beautiful but obscured by many people).

We hit the Islamic art section, that was cool, many beautiful things there. One of these days I'll have to get a camera that works better in low light because museums are often dark (to protect the art).
I was interested by all the students/artists that were making sketches and studies in the Louvre. I wish that I had been assigned or encouraged to do that more when I was in school, we didn't have the Louvre of course but the MOA and the SMA have some really great exhibits.
One sad note about the Louvre, it is not very accessible for those with limited mobility (I'm not sure any of Europe really is), if you can't or don't want to climb the stairs and do all of the standing and walking, you might just want to google it.
We also went to the Musee d'Orsay, which is where the major impressionist collection is, it's pretty cool as well. We got a little burnt out when we were there, it was our third sight seeing event of the day.

The Orangerie was also very cool, there are two oval rooms that Monet designed for panels of his water lilies. They also have a smaller collection of more impressionists.

 I think those are all the museums we went to but we also went to some beautiful cathedrals, Notre Dame, and to Sainte-Chapelle. I think Sainte-Chapelle is lesser known but it is absolutely amazing, just walls and walls of stained glass.
Really all of Paris is kind of a work of art and there are statues and monuments everywhere. It was an amazing trip and I can't wait to go again someday!

Tools of the Trade

I was working out a new design and I was reminded of how helpful colored pencils are. One grid can begin endless designs so until you're very familiar with the based pattern, it's to mark out your design so you don't forget. You can work with the colors you intend to use and see how they work or you can just use random colors.

2017

It's a brand new year and I'm hoping to make 2017 a big art year. I have two solo shows coming up this year, the first one opens on February 2nd. It's been refreshing having time off from my day job and being able to spend more time working on art.
Here's to making dreams come true in the new year!

Zion Art Exhibition

Update: I didn't post this in time, sorry.

This exhibit closes soon but I really enjoyed it so I want to share that if you're in the area you should check it out. I didn't love every piece but there were a lot of really great works and I was reminded of the things that I want to be as an artist and what I want to bring to my art. It's a good reminder and motivator for me to make art a priority in my life. I just started a new full time job and making art is giing to be more challenging but it's soo important to me.

I had an art filled weekend, I checked out the exhibits at the MOA, this was my favorite. Then we hit up the Springville Museum of Art, this was a fun and informative exhibit.
It's good to be visiting art exhibits again, I haven't done that enough recently. Here's to being better going forward.

The Getty Villa

So about a month ago I got the opportunity to go to the Getty Villa in Southern California and it was amazing! The Getty Villa is a recreation of a Roman Villa based on an actual villa preserved by Vesuvius at Herculaneum.

It was amazing to see the collection antiquities at the Villa, I am in awe of the talents and skill of ancient artists.

Possibly one of the coolest thing about the Getty is that they're an independently wealthy museum and as such they can do all sorts of cool things that most museums could only dream of doing.

Precision and Perfection

I've read or been taught that in Islamic art and designs, the artist or craftsman will make a mistake or a flaw in the design on purpose because only Alah\God is perfect. I am not anywhere skilled enough yet to need to include a flaw on purpose.

I generally need a lot more precision in my work and the above image is a perfect example of this. I started drawing this new design and I was a little off, I should have fixed things then but I went forward hoping for the best. I got so far off that I couldn't even complete what I was doing and it was a lot worse to try and fix.
I can still pull something out of this jumble but it won't be what I was hoping for.
Learn frommy folly! I will try and learn as well.

Tools of the trade

Today we're talking about modern good of the trade, nothing da Vinci etc. worried about. Today we live in the digital age where we can take and share hundreds and thousands of pictures all the time and that can be a real help in the art world.
I mostly take photos of my own work.

I use a Samsung point and shoot, it's not an amazing camera but it's pretty effective. I have a very crude set up and no real photographic trading. I general use natural light, lay my work on the floor (not directly) shoot several photos from above and try to get a variety of angles.
Then next step is to upload the photos to my computer and crop them using a free program called Irfanview. I also sometimes use Corel paintshop pro when I want to polish my images a bit more.
I have on ocassion had professional images taken and I've gone to David Hawkinson for that, he does a really good job and I believe his rates are reasonable.

Museums in the Bay Area

I just got back from a trip to Palo Alto and San Francisco and my family indulged my love of art while we were there. I was able to go to three museums while there and saw so much amazing art. It was interesting and sort of sad, as I went through with my camera, I had to remind myself to actually look at the art and enjoy it while I was actually there, rather than focusing on just taking pictures of the art I liked. I think that's a real challenge of this day and age, to be there in the moment, rather than just documenting.
Anyway the first museum we went to was the De Young in Golden Gate Park. Golden Gate Park is sort of the Central Park of the West, I'd like to see more of it some day. The De Young was not on the top of my list of things to do with our afternoon and evening in SF but I was pleased to learn that you can get into both the De Young and the Legion of Honor for $10. You could pay about that much or more than that just to see a museum at a college campus, it's an incredible deal. If you only have time for one of the two, my personal preference would be the Legion of Honor, but that's a matter of taste. You can see from the De Young's very architecture that it is more of a modern/contemporary focus. The De Young does have a wonderful collection of American Art, like the beginning of America onward.

We went to the Legion of Honor next. The Legion of Honor is closer to the coast, there is a beautiful view of Golden Gate Bridge from the grounds.

The building is neoclassical and very beautiful. There are several Rodin's that highlight the collection and work's by all kinds of big name artists. It is always a thrill for me, an art nerd, to see works by artists I've studied and looked up to: Degas, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, etc.

 

They also have some beautiful and very exciting ancient pieces: Egyptian, Greek, Roman, etc.

The last museum was the Cantor Center for the Arts on Stanford University Campus. We were there for graduation and it had been a long hot day, so I wasn't able to fully see the museum but what I saw was fantastic. The art museums I make it to most frequently are two college museums and they have some wonderful things in their collections but it's hard to compete with the money behind Stanford, the Cantor has an amzing collection and it's free to attend. There are more Rodin's and some Greek/Roman, and other cool things that I'm forgetting, I was in there for less than a half an hour.
If you're ever in the area, check these museums out!

Tools of the trade

It's been a while since I've shared a tool of the trade but these thave been a game changer for me.

While I often draw the patterns I use by hand, I have loved having these two stencils! It can be very difficult to create a tesselating pattern with accuracy, there's still room for error using the stencil but it takes off some of the time and pressure.
You'll likely recognize these from my work.

Lisa DeLong TEDxBYU

I wasn't able to be here for this but happily they filmed it. It's a great talk, a great introduction to Sacred Geometry!

Drawing

I am a 2D artist, for me that means painting and drawing. I primarily work in watercolor and with that you want draw as little as possible because watercolor is transparent and your lines will probably be seen. I haven't been drawing as much. I have to work harder at my drawing and so I get lazy and stop.
I worry about my skills diminishing and so as I was reviewing some goals, etc. I decided that I better get drawing. I did some random drawing one day and came upon an expirament to start drawing again. The plan was to simply set a timer and draw for 5 minutes. After a few days I decided to up the time to 7 minutes. It may seem like hardly any time and it is, but it's working for me. I can set the timer and focus in on drawing and I can even do it while waiting for paintings to dry. It's not too big of a commitment and I can work my way up if I want.

Anyway, here's what I drew this week.

Saving the world

There's a qote I love from Dostoyevsky: "Beauty will save the world." I believe that's true. I believe that things of beauty make us better, whether in art, music, nature, family or relations or elsewhere. There may be those who find beauty in an equation or reaction but the world must be saved by beauty, true beauty. Ugliness makes things worse, ugly words, ugly actions, ugly thoughts and intents. We crave beauty but we often settle for ugliness, or atleast I do. We can all do more to bring beauty into the world, to preserve its beauty or to make it a more beautiful place. Don't get caught up in the everyday ugliness, seek out beauty!

Something new?

It's the first official day of winter break, I'm free from my day job and excited for the time to focus on my art! I'm also excited by a new dream or goal I've just dared to have. It's too early to share just yet but I hope to share bits and pieces of it along the way and if/when this happens, believe me, I'll be sharing it. Here's to tantalizing new possibilities!

color theory

So it's a little hard to see but I wanted to share. I was working on a painting and noticed color theory in action. The same color will look different depending on its surrounding colors.

The green (though it looks more grey in the picture) triangles are completely the same but they looked different in the orange ring verses the blue. Color theory is cool.

The Process

I've been working on a new painting, I haven't actually started painting it yet but a lot of work has gone into it already.

It starts off in the sketch book, I try different things to see what might work and what doesn't. The next phase is to make a study, I haven't always done this but I'm trying to get better at it rather than winging it as much. Anyway in the study I draw out what I think the painting will or should look like and use colored pencil to give and idea of the colors I want and what they might look like. Things might change from the study to the painting. Drawing out the painting is the final step before painting.

More Museums

I was able to visit two of my local museums a few days ago and it was great. The Springville Museum had a variety of exhibits but the one I was most intrigued by was Fahimeh Amiri's miniatures, she learned the tradition and technique when she was a child, they are fascinating.

I also returned home to my alma mater and visited the MOA. They have a stunning exhibit, Treasures of British Art 1400-2000. I was thrilled to see paintings dating from the renaissance and of such famous subjects as the Tudors. I highly recommend checking it out!

"New" Designs

I've been wanting to get back into geometric designs since I stopped working on the Eight Fold series. I tried some hexagonal based designs inspired by some I've seen from Lisa DeLong, Jeea Mirza, and others. I've been trying something new with the paintings I've been working on and I'm not loving it, so today I took a break from them to try something different. I tried a couple of new (to me) designs from this book.

It probably should have been obvious but pastels are not the best for precision work. We live and learn. It's my first real attempt at pastels.