Slowly, slowly

Monday - 03 January 2022

I had a bit of time this morning and was able to add to my giant tortoise. It’s kind of fun seeing it emerge off the paper.

Progress on the giant tortoise

Art like a Giant Tortoise - Step by Step

Sunday - 02 January 2022

I’ve gotten into the practice over the past couple of years that when I show up to work on one of my drawings, I’ll put everything else off to the side and put my attention to my project for at least 30 minutes. If I want to do more, that’s always good, but I tell myself to be there for at least the minimum time.

I continued with my ink drawing of a giant tortoise. I was thinking that I’d add some watercolor pencil in to add traces of color and to fill in some darker areas. I may still do that. I got caught up with how can I shade and shadow using a very fine point fountain pen. I played with how I held the pen and how much pressure I used on the paper. Today it was very easy to go past my 30 minutes. It also helped I was listening to Krista Tippett’s On Being podcast with Gordon Hempton, Silence and the Presence of Everything. I highly recommend it.

Progress on my pen & ink drawing of a giant tortoise.

Detail on the giant tortoise

100 Days of Drawing Daily

Day 100. Progress on drawing Westerkerk in Amsterdam.

Today is the 100th day I’ve been working on my Drawing Amsterdam Dailies! I’m very pleased with myself to have done this. To celebrate, I’ve made a video with all 100 days of progress:

https://youtu.be/ItOoUG-008E

There’s a lot that can be accomplished by repeatedly showing up, day by day, little by little.

I challenged myself to draw for at least 30 minutes a day using photographs I took on a trip to Amsterdam last year with the additional goal to try to use something from every photo. I’ve been mostly successful with using every picture, but some have been more challenging to figure out how to include. Those few I’ve skipped over I’m keeping in the back of my mind to perhaps use later.

I plan to keep on showing up daily with this but if I miss a day, it won’t be the end of the world. I’ve really been enjoying this and seeing the drawings and spreads develop. I’ve spent a lot of time drawing but haven’t gotten very far geographically from where I started. The last drawing at Westerkerk is about a 20 minute walk from Amsterdam’s Central Station where I started from on Day 1. I like to look at details. :-)

Have you ever worked on a series or creative project and deliberately showed up daily for it? What kind of project was it?

Music in the video is Gypsy Caravan by Vendla.

Choose to Do What Works for You

Peace Statue at Nagasaki, Japan, drawn for Inktober 2017, Day 7

As I’m writing this post, the second week of Inktober (a challenge of doing 31 days of ink drawings) has begun and is well underway. There’s an official list of daily one word prompts as well as many, many variations on themed prompts. Look for #Inktober2020 on social media to see some examples. There are some really creative drawings to be found!

I love pen and ink work so I have participated at various times over the past several years. I love the idea of Inktober but I’ve never actually completed the full 31 days. Last year some of you may remember, I made an animals list from the book Life of Pi. I think I’m on Day 22 of those. Still not done. The year before that, I was drawing from my pictures from my time living in Japan. I only got to Day 7. It’s like failing on New Year’s Resolutions or trying to change habits.

I’m disappointed that I haven’t finished these Inktobers. How hard can it be to do a daily drawing? It turns out, for me, it’s a challenge.

I decided this year that I would adjust the parameters to work with the way I work.

I draw and draw a lot, but I don’t tend to finish drawings in one day. Experience has shown me that. I tend to draw fairly slowly and add a lot of detail. Working off of Inktober prompts means needing to complete a drawing a day. That has been my stumbling block. I decided instead to draw in ink everyday for 30 minutes and make daily progress on a project rather than completing daily drawings.

I love architecture and drawing details. I was in Amsterdam in 2019. I drew some while there, but I took a lot of pictures so I could draw from them later.

So for this year’s Inktober project, I am drawing everyday in ink for 30 minutes and I’m drawing Amsterdam from my photographs. I’m very pleased to have figured out a way to make meeting the challenge work for me. (You can see my progress on FaceBook and Instagram).

Is there some way you can tweak a challenge to work with your nature rather than fight it?

The Process of Drawing a Picture

I’ve been making a lot of sourdough bread recently and learning a little bit each time which goes towards making the next loaf a little bit better too. One of my loaves came out of the oven last week and was so pretty that I had to draw it.

A recent loaf of sesame topped sourdough bread that I made.

I’ve been wanting to do some more pen and ink drawing work and the details in this loaf of bread were calling to me. I roughly sketched the placement of the bread on my sketchbook page and then started inking with a favorite fine tipped pen, a Platinum Carbon fountain pen.

It’s always interesting seeing paintings and drawings in process because there’s always a stage of not really being sure that the thing is going in the direction one was hoping for. Then steps are taken to work out the issues and usually it turns out well in the end. It’s a bit like life, isn’t it? 

Sourdough Bread Process

This is the end of the first session’s drawing of about an hour or so.

Sourdough Bread Process

Most of the loaf is now drawn and the paper it’s sitting on has been included.

Sourdough Bread Process

The bread is complete. I wanted to include the paper and only make darks and lights using my one pen. It started looking like a mistake.

Sourdough Bread Process

This is the finished drawing. I decided to use a watercolor pencil to color the paper the bread is sitting on. It looks good in the end.

When Two Worlds Intersect

Recently I’ve been thinking that my drawing skills would benefit from a more deliberate study by working my way through a book that has caught my interest. The book I want to use is Alphonso Dunn’s Pen & Ink Drawing. I started making marks and doing line work in my sketchbook but then saw he also has a workbook, Pen & Ink Drawing Workbook. It is set up in a way that I like so I will continue my pen & ink practice work there. I have my pens. I have my book. I have my interest. Now to start.

But wait! I just learned about another book this past week which has also captivated me. It’s The Intentional Thread. A Guide to Drawing, Gesture, and Color in Stitch by Susan Brandeis. I now have a copy and it is lovely! I just want to pet it. What especially appeals to me in the book is the deliberate approach of practicing “drawing” with thread. She puts a lot of emphasis on how to translate marks on paper or textures in the outside world to make “marks” in thread on fabric. It turns out this book is very similar in approach to Pen & Ink Drawing but with needle and thread.

I am so happy to have two books that focus on different interests of mine but which work so well together. I look forward to seeing what I create and what ideas germinate and develop from my practice with these two books!

Have you come across any books recently that have made you so happy?