This Little Wonder 4

The lower hand is now complete, and the watch band is mapped out and ready to make its appearance. This will be followed by the little chick. The bottom hand was quite a struggle. The lighting of the pic made it a very odd shade (I work from color pics). Between light reflections and suntanned skin, it has been a journey. There will be lighter hairs that will be added later, along with a little evening of tones.

I do prefer to work from colored reference photos. I feel I achieve better shading... Maybe not text book method of shading in a sense, but intensity of shades as I see them. If you were to turn this one's reference pic into black and white, I doubt it would match up. I find black and white photos to be flat and 2 dimensional, which for some reason confuses my brain immensely. (And unfortunately, the work created translates as flat.) It is hard to explain... I guess I let my eye give certain colors their own value scale, and color transformed into graphite just seems to enrich my interpretation in the end result. (Or at least I hope so ;-) !) Or maybe this just translates into extra work, but the difference that I have seen in my finished work is night and day. I have never been accused of doing anything in my life in a conventional way!

This Little Wonder 3

As you can see the top hand has made its complete appearance. After the background is put in, I will be adding hair onto the skin of the lower part of the hand and wrist area. The lower hand is getting mapped in from the thumb knuckle over. I thought it would be a good time to stop and take a picture to show the beginning stages of the mapping process. In the next step, this will get blended in and virtually lost. I will go back and sketch in the areas again and build up the value. Right now it looks awfully 'leopardy' but will smooth out to show the natural perfection (or imperfections) of human skin. Like the top hand, I will add the hair after the background.

It is amazing to get such a close look at human hands. The subtle changes to the skin tone can make one go crazy 'with a want' to make the shading too dark. Even the veins in the wrist can be detected as a slight discoloration to the skin tone. It makes me want to render them more clearly (darker) when I am looking at them up close. It helps to step back a lot from the drawing surface and sketch the base skin tones from a distance. There is always the fear that too much detail can be fatal...

This Little Wonder 2

I haven't had a whole lot of time at the drawing board lately. My cross stitch embroidery won out for most of the week! ;-) I have a tendency to immerse myself in one project for days on end. I desperately need to make a schedule to mix things up. Today, I vowed to put some time at the drawing board and was able to make a little progress. It was such a nice change. You may notice that I went back and pushed my darks a little more than in the previous work. The fingers were looking to washed out. That 9b pencil can work miracles! The parts of the hands that are yet to be rendered will be very light in value and detail. I think that change will throw the focus onto the little chick. Well enough of a break... back to the drawing board!

This Little Wonder Cont.

Here is my progress since my last post. I managed to fit in a vacation in my absence from the blogosphere. The line drawing on Bristol went with me on my travels, but poor lighting and the lack of space to pack a drawing board, forced me to abandon my hopes of getting any of this drawing completed. Prop as I might, it just didn't feel right! Oh well... I received the news on Monday that my services were not needed at work on Tuesday. So, I was able to spend most of the daytime hours blissfully working away at my drawing board between loads of laundry.

I started this drawing on the thumb area. This was not the smartest of choices, since the thumb has a moderately dark value around the nail. After struggling for an hour, I decided to move to the top finger and its lighter shades. What a relief -- as I have been moving happily down the fingers since! At any rate, that is why you see the lonesome thumb started but not completed.

So how did I spend my summer vacation? Well, for the last 8 years we have been going on the 127 Corridor Yard Sale / Flea Market ( http://www.127sale.com/ ). For those who are not familiar, the 127 Corridor is a scenic route through Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama. It originally was 500 miles of yard sales and flea markets lining the road. Now it begins in Michigan and is extended to 675 miles. Although we arrived to our motel in 101 degree heat, the temps were really not that bad. From sun up to sun down, we walked through countless numbers of sales making our way down the corridor. It is a true modern day adventure.

Here is a small section of the highway. I think we were in Tennessee at the time. This is how a lot of the road looks heading towards Alabama for us. They flank both sides. Sales can be found in fields, fair grounds, abandoned buildings, parks, parking lots, and you name it!! Where ever they can set up. The vendors and travelers come from all over the country. It is the most amazing experience. The vendors bring the most interesting items to dig through, and our fellow travelers are the friendliest people to share stories with at the end of the day. I highly recommend this trip if you love flea marketing, but it does get hot...so remember to pack a lot of water in the cooler!!

This Little Wonder

Remember those little chicks that my son brought home? Well, here is the drawing that has begun and is based on a pic of my husband holding one of our smallest chicks. The drawing will be roughly 9 x 7". The dimensions may change when I get to the background. I am not really happy with the area to the left, so it might get shaved down a half of an inch. As you can see, not much goes into my initial rough. It is mainly done to get the outline to the main characters. The background is not even roughed in. I find that since my backgrounds are usually in some form of 'out of focus' that is usually best to have no semblance of hard lines visible. There will not be as much detail to this drawing, so it will be fun to see how it transforms.

I had thought about alternating subjects and getting away from the 'hands' theme on this one, but I fell in love with this pic from the beginning. The photo was taken as I began the last drawing, and I spent the whole time creating that one and thinking of this one. :-( That took a considerable amount of fun out of the creative process. At any rate, I am going to get this one in progress! As always, this drawing will use Bristol as the support, a 2b mechanical pencil, 9b wood case pencil, kneaded eraser, stick eraser, and several stumps!!

Speaking of the chicks, here they are present day. Whoops, Whitey is showing everyone his fine tail feathers. It is hard to get good pics when they are constantly in motion!! They get to wander in their little flock outside now. (Only under supervision.) They taunt each other and jump strait up in the air like little jumping beans. It is so funny to watch. Now and then, one will bully another, the whole flock will start jumping up and down, and run in circles. Poor little Blackie will taunt the air. (I think he has imaginary enemies ;)! ) He is extremely energetic and a lot smaller than the rest of the group, but he is a tough little guy!! So many different personalities. I could spend hours watching them play. Unfortunately, they will be leaving soon. I can honestly say this was a great group to end my chick raising days with. Their antics are better than any prime time show!!

Chick in Hand Finished

Happy Birthday to me!! I kept a promise to myself that I would be able to put this one up in its entirety on my birthday, and I am happy to say, "Mission complete." My first completed work of the start of my 42 nd year of life. I look forward to completing many more!!

It seems like a long time since the word finished has been written here. It will sit on the board for a few days before I revisit and touch up. The finished work is 8 x 7 inches. The background photographed a little grainy. It must be the work lights, but I was determined to finish up and post tonight. I look forward to moving onto a drawing with a little less detail!

Chick Drawing 5

The dreaded cuff has now come into view!! I would have really liked to come onto the blog this morning and tell you that the cuff was nowhere near the challenge my mind had made it into... but that would be far from the truth. So many lines!! Honestly speaking, the graph was the sanity saver in this whole scenario. Normally the graph is used to be a loose form of line placement. For the cuff, I clung to it pretty tightly to show me where all those little lines needed to be placed. In the end, I had to do the 3 foot step back and make the piece cohesive with my eyes. It is pretty close right now but will probably get some alterations before it is called finished.

One thing learned during the progress of this drawing is that I must be building more confidence in my abilities as an artist. When I start a drawing, my normal method of building a project is to go object by object of my choosing. (Not very smart I know, but it is my brain I am dealing with! ;-)) In the Dani Exercise Drawing, I picked the most difficult object first...the ball. In this drawing, I knew that the cuff was the problem, and it was put in the final slot of the three main objects. (Natural avoidance!) I never would have taken a chance like that at the beginning of the year. I really didn't think about what I had done (thank heavens!) until I had reached the lower third of the cuff. I'd like to think this is some breakthrough...Time will tell!!

Back to the drawing, I did have to break out the 9b pencil. The shadows between the fingers were darkened, and it had a huge impact on the depth of the cuff. During the drawing of the cuff, I threw a piece of paper over the chick and hand. I was careful not to shift my hand without lifting, so not to smear the drawing underneath. The paper could have been turned during this process to avoid that, but I really didn't want to add to the challenge of the cuff. I will turn the paper when doing the background. With all the dark values on the paper, the chance of smearing the work is so much higher. So this is where I am at right now. Very relieved and ready to go on to the background.