I spent the year sketching Fair Goers who Earth’s World had captured at Fairs and Festivals. (See #earthsworld, @earthsworld on Instagram and Flicker; Earth permits artists to use the photos as sketching reference with attribution!)
Even in May I kept thinking I’d better practice just in case.
No Fair for me this year, but I think practice is always good.
I hope you’re finding some way to keep your drawing practice going daily.
I’m going to have to get one of those hat mannequins and put a ball cap on it so I can practice that next! Hats in space. The tilt of the brim.
Are you sketching any of the Queen’s hoopla? I could see you doing that!
Faith, I have an ambivalence about Queen Elizabeth. Having been her subject for 5.5 years I have a sort of knee-jerk reaction to at least nod in tribute, but I’ve been a US citizen my entire life and so I have the anti-royalty attitudes of the Founders. I am very sorry for the sadness and loss that everyone in her family is feeling. I’m impressed by the long life of leadership she inhabited, but I really don’t think I can weigh in with images made from afar. It’s something that really needs boots on the ground, to draw in person. And as for distant/remote tributes so many, even US artists, are posting now—well, I’m just confused as to why people are sketching her from photos instead of, say, Jean-Luc Godard who died yesterday? Tuesday? He has certainly had more impact on my life than Queen Elizabeth I would think.
Anyway, as I started to say, I’m deeply ambivalent, except in the sincere expression of condolence to all of QEII’s and JLD’s family and friends for the loss of their loved one.
I see that you’re using your green-lined journal for the sketch, and I enjoy how you make art on so many surfaces. I’m fascinated with the drawings and paintings of the late artist Dawn Clements, and the “crinkled paper” she glued/stitched together to create the organic storybook painting of her life. Do you know what paper she used? Wouldn’t it have to hold up to ink and watermedia, not smear, bleed or chromatograph?
Thank you for sharing your observations on paper and sketchbooks. I’m still a fan of the Strathmore Mixed Media 500 series sketchbook that you recommended years ago.
Jeanne, thanks for writing. I had never heard of Dawn Clements or her work, so I did a google. Wow, so much fun. I will have to do more digging and see what writings she has left. I so enjoy putting my “piecemeal” paintings together bit by bit as I work but I’m always just trying to get more of the model in the space, she’s getting a whole panorama of a setting.It’s very exciting. The little bit of quotation I found in an article on her said she started drawing from movies (something else she did, but I haven’t found photos of those yet) when she was studying film and they only got to see a film two times. Other fun comments too. I will definitely have to look more into her work.
On the images I could find there is no comment about the paper type. In one the paper seems very lightweight, in another it seems a little more hefty but definitely not watercolor paper. Another, seems hefty, but still pliable, and very creased. I believe it’s probably some sort of drawing paper. There are so many types available in large sheets that she could have used, and which, with care would take the “gouache, ballpoint pen, and graphite” listed.
There are available drawing papers, printmaking papers, and some regular printing papers used in commercial printing that would have all stood up to her work on them. Since I’ve never seen any of her work until today, and none of it in person, I really couldn’t begin to guess what paper she was using. If you are near a gallery that has her work you might, in person, be able to read watermarks, or recognize paper if you happen to use similar.
I did find one brief write up that referred to her cutting paper from a roll and that would make sense to me looking at the pieces online. That brings us back to a ton of available papers in rolls, which would stand up to this type of work.
Thank you for bringing her work to my attention. She has a wonderful talent for capturing detail. I found a couple that filled the corners of rooms, i.e., floor to ceiling on both sides of the corner.
Sad to hear she has passed away.