Christopher's Profile

Christopher was nice and posed for me.

EDM #188 - Draw a Peanut in the Shell or Out

I never really looked at a peanut before. The patterns in the shell are very beautiful. Mechanical pencil in my Strathmore 400 Series Sketch Book.

Ike didn't do much to Dallas. Just a little rain.

My brother and sister-in-law, who live in Nassau Bay, Texas, drive to Dallas today. They stayed in a hotel near Houston Hobby Airport during Ike and had planned to return home today. But there is no electricity in Houston and they cannot get to their home due to flood waters, so they will come to our house until they can return to Nassau Bay.

Galveston Island

We go to Galveston at least once a year for vacation. Here are some pictures from this year's summer vacation. I love Galveston. It has a rich history, having been home to or visited by Native Americans, the Spanish, the French, the pirate Jean Lafitte, and soldiers from both sides of the US Civil War. It has lovely Victorian homes, which are probably flooded now. People still talk about the Great Storm of 1900, which destroyed Galveston. Maybe in 100 years people will talk about the Great Storm of 2008.

My husband took these photos.

The first 2 pictures show the sea wall, which was built after the Great Storm of 1900. The sea wall was breached well before Ike made landfall.


The next picture shows the hotel where we stayed. Every room has a view of the gulf.

The next 2 pictures were taken at dawn from our balcony.

The final 2 pictures show the typical waves in the gulf. Nothing like what we are seeing on the Weather Channel.

Ike will reach Dallas this afternoon. Dallas is expected to get 4-6 inches of heavy rain later today. I will not go to my oil painting class today, since it is a 30 minute drive and the biggest danger in Dallas is being in a car and getting carried away by a flash flood.

Happy Birthday, Mom

Happy Birthday to my mom, Esther, who is 79 years young today. She was born in 1929 in Kitchener, Ontario, and now lives in Vernon, New York.

This is a painting of a statuette named Angel of Faithfulness. The statuette is dressed in traditional Eastern European or Russian costume, carries a chicken and a basket of eggs, and has wings. My younger son Christopher saw her at a Hallmark store and begged me to buy her. I did, and she now sits on our kitchen table. Christopher insists that she face him while he eats.

Chicken, Prepared 2 Ways

Chicken #1 is oil paint, and chicken #2 is pen. One chicken model.

EDM #184 - Draw a Park Bench

My family spent a few hours yesterday in a local park. It is getting cooler in Dallas, so outdoor activities are enjoyable once again. While I drew this bench, my husband took photographs and my boys played in a rocky creek. My youngest got dirty and wet, which is a sure sign he enjoyed himself. Mechanical pencil in a Moleskine.

EDM #185 - Draw a Cat

For this challenge, I stalked my three cats and filled pages in my sketch book with drawings of cats. The drawing above (Jake) is the best drawing of the lot. I have always enjoyed drawing from life, but I mainly draw still life (for obvious reasons). This challenge encouraged me to stretch a little and draw living, breathing things. Here are some lessons I learned during this challenge:

• I cannot sit in my favorite chair in the living room and expect our three cats to come and pose for me. In my mind, I give them food, water, medical care, and a clean litter box, so they should be more than happy to pose for me. Cats, however, seem to see the world differently.
• I need to follow the cats with my sketching equipment and sketch what I can. Eventually, they will settle down and I can get a complete drawing.
• I will get many, many partial sketches. Only a few will be good.
• I need to build drawing from memory skills, so I can sketch the main idea and fill in the details after the cat moves.
• Cats tend to repeat the same poses, even if they do not hold any one pose for long. I can start a number of different poses and then go back and add to them when the cat returns to that pose.
• I create the best drawings when I am relaxed, am concentrating, and am not too concerned about outcome. The more I relax, the more I observe.
• I have great admiration for artists who lived before the invention of photography and who convincingly depicted living, moving animals. They had amazing observation and drawing skills.

I used both a 6B pencil and a Micron .05 pen in my sketches. Here is one of my pen drawings of my cat Max. I like using different mediums for variety, but am more comfortable with pencil. I will try additional mediums in the future, such as water soluble pencil and ink.

EDM #183 - Draw Something Dangerous

Every child has heard the warning "Don't run with scissors!".

EDM #182 - Draw a Truck

This is a drawing of one of my son's trucks. I've never actually seen a truck like this. It has a spotlight on the back. Is this truck used to make movies? To shed light on crime scenes? To find survivors in nighttime accidents? I have no idea. Trucks are very, very complicated and thus provide good drawing practice.

Oil Painting from Life: Class #2

In my second Oil Painting from Life class, we did a 20-minute pose followed by a 45-minute pose. We used a paint brush to draw the figure and then blocked in opaque color. I used Burnt Sienna, Cadmium Yellow, White, and Black. My third class is next Saturday.