Foray into charcoal sketching

In the absence of long enough blocks of time to paint, I am finding sketching to be a handy tool to exercise some discipline. So far I had only used pencil or ink, mainly because of familiarity with the tools. Charcoal had always seemed far too messy to be able to carry around and use during the pauses of everyday life.

Recently I found charcoal pencils at the local art store and these appear to be a perfect solution for my needs. The idea for this first attempt at sketching with charcoal was provided by a mundane aspect of every home -- some arrangement of knick knacks that could serve as a stimulus for still life work. The varying sizes of the three vases offered design elements without any contrivance.

Three Vases is a simple little sketch that took me one step closer to overcoming my fear of drawing. A charcoal pencil and a kneadable eraser are a small price to pay for that important step.

Three Vases, Charcoal on paper, 4"x6", Not for sale

A Long Gap -- and More Practice

How can I explain my prolonged absence from the blog without a laundry list of pitiful excuses? Is earning a living and attending to the daily ups and downs of life enough reason?

Anyway, I am back and slowly returning to the rhythm of creativity. With no formal art training, one of the hardest things for me is to practice the discipline of drawing. So during "the break" (that is what I prefer to call my absence!), I decided that I would devote much more time to drawing before putting medium to ground.

The still life that I share here was inspired by a visit to a local farmer's market. North Carolina's long growing season allows for local produce to be enjoyed well into the fall. Among the most enjoyable bits of it involve tomatoes, especially heirloom tomatoes. Grown au naturel, they have all the imperfections nature intended -- including the surprise sweet-and-sour taste of a fresh fat fruit that is far from grocery-store perfect.

I arranged the large heirloom tomato next to sundried tomato halves (NC grown, of course) lit from the side. I drew a rough sketch that I could not finish in the few minutes I had so I took a number of photographs from which I completed the sketch.

Stay tuned for the completed painting.

Farmland in Monochrome

Watercolor always scares me due to the apparent finality that comes from contact between color and paper. There is no way to retrace steps once brush meets paper. Yet I have seen videos of watercolorists who seem to effortlessly correct "mistakes" and produce beautiful pictures. As a result I have played with watercolor more and am finding that accidents can be turned into unanticipated creativity.

That was not the case with this farmland picture, but the challenge I set here was to produce a watercolor picture with a restricted -- almost monochromatic -- palette. I used only burnt sienna, raw sienna and ultramarine blue. The effect is a rather pleasing dusky scene that is so reminiscent of the American midwest.

Farmland in Monochrome, Watercolor on 300lb paper, 9"x12", Not for sale