Debbi Friedman’s Blog

When I start a new drawing on paper, I jump right in and start laying out the drawing directly on the drawing surface.  Not so with a sanded surface, such as the Rtistx board I’m using for my new drawing of stones in a bowl of water.  The sanded surface is nearly impossible to erase lines from, so I follow a system that seems to work well for me, and I think many artists must do very much the same.  (I would be most interested to hear what others do when laying out a drawing on Ampersand Pastel board, Rtistx, or a sanded paper – so feel free to share!)

My first step is to create a basic line drawing – not too detailed, but everything in it’s place, on drawing paper at actual size, as below.

Then I make a copy of this drawing onto a piece of tracing paper, as follows.

Next I take the tracing paper drawing and layer it on top of the Rtistx board, with a piece of transfer paper in between, to offset the drawing onto the board.

Below is the finished product, a transferred line drawing of my future drawing on the piece of Rtistx board.

I’ve been working on this piece for a week and making good progress, so my next post will include a recent photo of the drawing.  To close I wanted to share something that  I discovered for the first time, which I know many other colored pencil artists have experienced. . . . inconsistent product color.  As you can see in the photo below, both pencils are Prismacolor Grayed Lavender, but the lead color is quite different.  Fortunately I had several pencils of each, varying shade and was able to continue without difficulty.  But it was a head’s up for me to always check the consistency of color when changing pencils.

Here is a new painting I’ve started, a “rock slide”.  I set this up inside an antique wooden crate, and lined the back of the crate with some very dark paper.  The top photograph shows very initial oil washes to reinforce the pencil layout.  The second photograph shows a second layer of oil washes, with the paint applied a bit more opaquely.  I want to explore painting varying shades of white tones in this piece, so I have started to separate the rocks from one another by mixing different shades of greys.

I’m also going to be starting a large colored pencil piece on Rtistx board tomorrow, and I’m very excited about this one!  More on that soon.

I’m also working on getting details together to have my website updated.  I can’t quite believe it hasn’t been updated since May of 2009.  More information will follow on that – specifically when a new “gallery” page is in place of my new stones pieces.

Happy New Year to all!  I can’t believe it’s been over a month since my last entry.  It was a busy and fun holiday season, especially with my older son home from college and all of us together as a family, but I’m glad it’s over and we can move back into our “normal” schedules and closer to spring.

I’ve been working on this small oil (8″ x 10″) and while it’s still not finished, it’s nearing completion.  It’s difficult to paint a very white rock, and I’m finding that getting the subtle, embedded color variations requires lots of layering.  I have also started another oil painting of stones, and done an artists trading card for the first time.  It’s very interesting to work on such a small scale, and seems to require an entirely different way of thinking about composition and scale.

I still have a couple more ideas for oils and drawings in this series.  I want to do at least one large oil (approximately 3′ x 4′) and see what that brings to the table, so to speak.  I used to work at that size and larger, so it will be fun to try it again.

I hope the New Year is going well for everyone, and would love to hear from any and all with a comment!

Okay, it’s not very often that I will unabashedly state that I love one of my drawings.  I love this drawing!  I was so skeptical when I started it that it was going to amount to anything.  If you look at the last post, you can see that the prelimary background work is nebulous.  There is still some detail to be added to a couple of rocks, but the combination of the paper color, background work, rock tones, and glass reflections have combined, in my opinion, to make one of my more interesting rock drawings.

I welcome any comments or critiques!  I’m on to a new oil painting – a small 8″ x 10″ panel of a rock still life.  I want to make it have a very “jewel-like” appearance.  I want to do two more oils and then assess where I am with this series.

I’ve started a new drawing and I find it interesting to note how different my approach is to this one compared to a similar one I recently completed.  Both are of stones in glass vases, but in the first one I drew the rock and glass first and the background last.  With this newest drawing I executed the background first, then moved on to the glass vase, and saved the rocks and vase interior for last.  This drawing also contains a water element; the rocks are resting in water in the vase.  In the first drawing there isn’t any water.  I’ve posted the comparable stage post below.

The new drawing is almost complete, and I’ll be posting a photograph of it soon!  Listening to books on tape/CD is really helping my output, especially when the genre is mystery/thriller.  I can’t stop working and can’t wait to get back to work . . . .

Here is a photograph of the latest drawing I’ve been working on – an array of stones.  I really did get them to balance like that!  My friend, the photographer Jan Reiss, dubbed me “Andrea Goldsworthy”.  I love environmental art – organic matter arranged in nature and then photographed, or visited before it vanishes.  The colors of the stones have been accentuated, but they only take on a more pronounced hue of the color they really are.

I’ve started another drawing on Canson Mi-Tientes, and am off to buy more art supplies tomorrow to start a new oil painting.  I spent several days this past week attempting to stage and photograph ideas I have in my head.  Does anyone else find that they get these glimpses in their imagination of what they want to create, only to find it so difficult to try and create the vision in real life?  It’s almost like operating in a dream state, and it’s very frustrating.  Maybe I’ll get better at it, but I did manage to accomplish some semblance of my ideas. . . .we’ll see where it takes me.  Any tips or advice from anyone?

I’ve just finished the second oil painting of stones, and am happy with my progress.  There were several things I was looking to accomplish -  better blending and change of colors in the background, more realistic colors and details in the stones.  Believe it or not, this stone pile was photographed on the same bookbinding fabric as the last painting.  It’s amazing how much variation there can be in the fabric based on the way the light is hitting it.  I have updated this post with a more color-wise more accurate photograph, but still, there’s a reason why I’m not a photographer!  The colors still aren’t anywhere close to how they really look, but it is better.  For comparison, see the small photograph below of the “redder” version.   This piece is 11″ x 14″.

I’m also almost finished with the little rock drawing being done on Canson Mi-tientes, and will post a photograph of it as soon as it’s done.

Here is my first oil painting in two or more years!  That was a long time to be away from painting, and the tubes of paint let me know in no uncertain terms, as they were stuck shut and I needed to use a pliers to get the tops off!

I completed this small (12″ x 12″) painting in about two weeks, working on it part-time, as I also have another drawing going, which is also almost finished.  Basically I’m pleased with what I accomplished which was to get back into painting.  It’s a little clumsy in places, but  a decent effort overall.  I set up several rock piles on some bookbinding fabric, and the fabric has a sheen to it, so it changes from one color to another (or two) depending on which way the light is hitting it.  One thing that is so much quicker and easier about oils, versus colored pencils, is doing the backgrounds.  Large areas of color can be laid down and gone over again more quickly.  However, I miss the unusual and vibrant colors achieved by layering transparent pencil colors.

I’m trying to push myself outside my comfort zone, and to that end, I’m going to continue working an oil painting along side a drawing for the indefinite future.  I’m off to start a new oil painting today, and part with a quote from the Boston Globe’s “Reflection for the Day” that I found rather amusing:

A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.      Benjamin Franklin

I think this drawing is finished!  It’s larger (14.5 x 19.5 inches) and more finished than the previous drawings in the stones series, and I’m very happy with the outcome.   I would probably still be working on the background had I not switched from paper to Rtistx board for a surface.  I used a lot of watersolubles to lay down initial layers of color, and tried to let the variations (specifically  in the background) show through for some movement and basically a less neat and/or perfect look.   It was a lot of fun to draw the water in the bowl and what happens between the rocks and the lighting, which I may play around with in future pieces.  But for now I think I’m going to move onto trying out some ideas in oils.

Several posts ago I mentioned that I had started a large stone drawing, only to find that it was going to take forever to complete if I continued on the Canson Mi-tientes I had started on.  I bought some Rtistx board and started over, ran out of needed colors of Derwent Inktense pencils for the color wash background, and started a small graphite piece while waiting for the shipment of pencils.  Here’s a photo of this piece that I finished last week.  It’s done with graphite pencils and light layers of Derwent Graphitints in some of the stones.  I wanted it to have a bit of the feel of a hand-colored photograph.  I’m well underway with the larger piece and an really having fun pulling it together.  More on that one later!

I was very excited last week to receive in the mail one of the new Derwent “12 Graphic Soft” pencil tins featuring my commissioned drawing on the cover.  I had been waiting until I saw it with my own eyes to officially announce the news on my blog.  They’ve also designed all new inserts highlighting their sketching and drawing ranges, and my piece is included in a montage on that cover as well, along with two beautiful drawings of a red fox and a seashell.   The new tins will most likely be available in art stores in the US in about one and a half months, as they are currently being shipped.

I also had a small exhibition of colored pencil drawings last night in conjunction with a wonderful concert by the Choir of King’s College London.  This was part of the St. Andrew’s Performing Arts Series (SAPAS).  More information about upcoming SAPAS events can be found at www.sapas.org.

These college students gave a superb performance of Renaissance and contemporary choral works.   The Choir of King’s College London is one of the most acclaimed mixed voice university choirs in England, comprising about 27 undergraduates who are awarded choral scholarships, and in addition to performing Renaissance polyphony, they have an extensive and well-reviewed collection of discography available.

I wanted to include a copy of the program cover, which includes my name in such a prominent way that, had they not put “(colored pencil)” after my name, it looks like I was a star soloist!  I found this quite amusing, as it’s the closest I’ll ever get to performing with my voice in public!

Finally!  I can’t believe two weeks has gone by since my last post, but it really has been a busy time.  We had a wonderful week of scuba diving in Curacao and man is it hot at the equator in August!  There are so many wonderful birds down there on the island including Venezualan Trupial, Yellow Orioles, Brown Pelicans, Brown Footed Boobys, Yellow Warblers and my new favorite island bird, the Bananaquit.  These little birds, called “Honey Bears” by the locals, come up to your dining table and try to fly away with sugar packets, drink your orange juice, or scrounge fruit off your plate.  We took to feeding them (for photographic purposes, of course!) and as the week progressed we found that a nice piece of watermelon with some raw sugar on top was just the trick for attracting lots of birds.  Check out the photos below.

Okay, one more vacation photo, just one more. . . . promise.  I couldn’t resist putting this guy on here.  My son found this iguana resting in the shade of it’s self-dug hole in the midday heat.

On to my drawing, which I finished today.  I really like this one, but like most things I work on, I feel too close to it right now to see it clearly.  I am really enjoying developing this body of work, which is surprising to me, as I originally thought of doing perhaps one or two rock drawings.

I’ve already started the layout of the next piece, which will be much larger than the previous drawings in this series.  I’ve been keeping them to approximately 9 x 12 inches in size, either horizontally or vertically.  I’ve decided to work larger on this particular drawing, and am starting out with dimensions of 15 x 20, although it may change some with the cropping for framing.  I going for a more dramatic presence and lighting with the new piece, and I think increasing the scale will help accentuate that.

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been working on a little graphite drawing, and here it is.  It’s a very simple and  zen-like composition.  A black stone used in hot stone therapy that was given to me by a masseuse,  a small peacock feather, placed upside down atop the stone and some shadows are all that composes the drawing.  It’s small – maybe about 7″ x 7″.

I’m eager to move onto the next drawing in my rock series, and plan to try and incorporate water in the drawing.  Coincidentally, I’m just back from the 17th Annual Exhibition and Convention of the Colored Pencil Society of America, where I took a workshop with CPSA Artist Pat Averill on the power of water. . . entitled “Unleash the power of water in your drawings”.  Below are two photographs from the workshop: one of friends Dee Overly (left) and Mari Kaye Moehl (right) working on one of the four projects we tackled that day, and the other of workshop instructor Pat Averill.  I’m not sure that the workshop concepts will transfer to my drawing, but you never know!  We worked on the distortion of images in reflected water, drawing moving water (ie – surf), drawing water moving over rocks, and looking at wet sand to dry sand within the context of a seascape.

Here is the finished version of “Balancing Act”.  I have actually grown to like the green paper and the way colors of the rocks look on it.  It was, however, very difficult to achieve certain colors with the green as a background – and difficult to create as many subtle gradations as is possible on the tan or blue backgrounds.  Any comments about this, or anything regarding the drawing, are most welcome!

Most of these drawings are approximately 9 x 12 (or 12 x 9) inches in size.  I’m going to start a smaller drawing in graphite on white paper of a stone with another object, and then return to working on the colored papers.

Another week and a new rock drawing underway.  Isn’t that green paper wild?  It feels so to me.  I’m not sure I entirely like it, and it’s difficult to control the colors I want for the rocks with the green base.  But it’s fun to experiment with these things, and overall I’m enjoying and liking the drawing.

We’re going to Little Compton, Rhode Island for the weekend, and the beaches are covered with these rocks.  That’s where I collect most of my rocks, and I plan to do some more collecting this weekend.  I’m always looking for interesting shapes, colors and rocks with lines on them, rocks that are very flat, rocks with interesting flaws, rocks that are almost round. . .. .. pretty soon I’m going to have the whole beach in my studio!

I’m very excited about this new drawing I’ve almost finished.  I love the glow of the bag on the white rocks inside, as well as the composition.  I’ve posted three photographs below, the first one is the start, working up the darks to establish where they are.  I don’t usually draw this way, and it was fun to do so for a change.  The second photograph is with the bag pretty much finished and the rocks waiting to be worked on.  I left the bag  “looser” than I usually work as I like how the texture of the paper lends itself to the texture of the paper bag.  The third photograph is the drawing as it is now, almost complete.  Just some tweaking on the shadows underneath the rocks, and maybe some adjustments to the lines between the rocks.

Since my younger son is coming home from sleep-away camp today, and I had an unexpected but fun trip to Baltimore last week, I’ve had to reassess my initial thoughts that I might complete 10 drawings this summer.  I realize that’s not possible now, not with going to the CPSA convention at the end of July, and away on a family vacation in August.  But I’m going to do my best to finish them by September 21st or so, which is technically the end of summer.  I have lots of ideas about how to proceed with this series, doing at least one variation piece for each idea, so that there are two ways of looking at, say, the rocks in the glass vase, or the rocks with a split rock, etc.

I’ve almost finished this drawing of rocks which I have entitled “Fault Line”.  As is usually the case with my posts, there are areas that aren’t complete and need more development and tweaking – the two red rocks, the white rock and the broken granite rock.

I’ve already developed my next idea for this rock series and am eager to move along, so I hope to finish this drawing tomorrow.

I’m finally getting back to work in my studio.  My younger son is off to camp for three weeks, and I’m recuperating from a minor surgical procedure yesterday on my right leg.  My mind finally feels freed up again.  I don’t think I realized how preoccupied I was with the surgery as it loomed in front of me – I’m so happy to have it behind me.  And since I can’t ice skate or exercise for at least one week,  I have plenty of time to catch up on all sorts of things in my studio!  I’ve already organized many details that I had let slide – completing a list of unframed and framed drawing sizes; deciding which competitions to enter for the remainder of 2009, those types of things.

Now I am playing with stones in my studio, and toying with the idea of doing a series of 10 drawings and trying to complete them this summer.  Working on the Canson Mi-tientes goes a little faster than the Strathmore Paper I usually use, so maybe this is possible?  I have all sorts of ideas about combining stones with other simple elements, much like the drawing I just completed – “Rocks and Egg in Vase”.  It’s an entirely different thing to see if it works.  But I like the idea and am going to try and run with it!

Happy Summer, and if you live in the Northeast, let’s hope the sun comes out soon.

Wow that was a long break, and believe me, I did not spend all of that time working on this drawing.  In fact, I have had very little work time lately, and none at all this past week.  This drawing is basically finished; and as always, I will probably go back and tweak some areas for a day or so.  I like the way it came out, especially the light filtering through the glass vase, and the colors.  It was also a lot of fun to switch back and forth between colored pencils and Derwent Graphitint pencils.  I may try doing a drawing with the Graphitints exclusively at some point in the future.

I have another idea for a drawing of rocks that I will have to play around with and see if I can make it work.  I saw such amazing rock cliffs and formations on my recent tour of the Desert Southwest, and I have a vision in my mind that may or may not work!

I came across this “Reflection of the Day” today in the Boston Globe and it really struck a chord with me and made me smile.

“Being in doubt is uncomfortable, but being certain is ridiculous”

-  Voltaire