Debbi Friedman’s Blog

I spent the past two weeks working on these three little stones drawings.  It’s always fun to do these smaller pieces and work out some ideas quickly.  Well, I suppose quick is a relative term – quick for me!

I have more ideas for little drawings to do in the future, but now I’m on to another larger stones drawing.  It’s a piece that is being executed for publication in an art magazine that wants an “exclusive”, so I can’t reveal the image until it’s completed and published.  It’s exciting to think about sharing the stages of my drawings in this venue.  I would have been doing this piece regardless, but their timing was excellent.  It’s going to make me think more clearly about delineating the stages of my more complex drawings.  That’s always good practice and helps one to be able to better “present” their art, whether it’s verbally or pictorally.

Thanks for reading!

And Presto-Magic, the rocks appear!!!  I had a lot of fun drawing these stones. The reflections, shadows and distortions were quite challenging, especially where they all converge at the same point.  The most obvious place for this is just under the meniscus line.  The overall color probably isn’t accurate due to the lighting in my studio and my photography skills, so I am very excited to see how it looks after my photographer does her work.

I’ve started work on two new pieces, both of stones.  One is a small,  zen little drawing, and the other is a larger composition of stones in a water vase with new angles and colors.  I’m going to see how it goes working on two pieces simultaneously, as I’d love to increase my output.  (I know, wouldn’t we all!)  As always, thanks for reading.

Here is the second stage of my current and very violet/fuschia still life. And Oh Em Gee, it looks like I forgot to draw the stones (wink wink Jeff George)!

No, it did not take me two weeks to draw this much of the glass!  I am almost done with the stones.  The colors are really working wonderfully off of the background and it amazes me how much it pulls together when the concreteness of the stones are in place.  I know I mentioned in my last post that the glass was definitely the most challenging part of the drawing, but it’s not!  These stones have very intricate interplay with the glass and water, creating complex light distortion and reflections. I used a piece of glass propped up on blocks when I set up the initial still life,  and then cut a hole in the fabric directly under the vase.  Then I played around with shining a flashlight up through the bottom, as well as having another light source from above.  It’s subtle, but doing this did create different illuminations in the set-up.

It’s really been quite fun to do this one.  Next post will be the finished drawing.  Thanks for reading.

Here is the first stage of my new still-life drawing, and as mentioned in my last post, it’s very purple – or fuschia, magenta, plum, eggplant. . . . whatever you want to call it!  It’s also large (for me) measuring in at 22″ x 16.5″.  I’ve completed as much of the background as I’m going to do for now, and will most likely tweak some areas later when the vase, stones and water are in place.  I used a Caran d’Ache watercolor pencil layer to begin, and after blending it with water  I started in on the dry layers of Prismacolor pencils:  #924 solid color stick, more loosely applied for texture, and then Black Cherry, Lavender, Raspberry, and then Indigo, Dark Umber, Violet Blue, Black Grape, Tuscan Red, Orange and Olive Green in places, depending on the desired color effect.

I’ve started on the glass now, and it’s definitely the most challenging part of the drawing.  The top of the vase has so many aspects to it:  light shining through it, light reflecting off of it, color distorting through the glass, and stones/water reflecting on the sides.  Plus I’m changing the colors from my two reference photos, as one is very pink and the other is very dark purple.  So this is really a color creation.  I’ll post another photo when it reaches the stage where all of the glass/water areas are complete, but not the rock areas.  I’m executing this one with the same approach as “Counterpoint in Green”, which is archived on my blog in  April, May and June of 2010, if anyone is interested in referencing it.

Here is the little Hawaiian Pebbles drawing I recently finished. My sister-in-law who often visits family in Hawaii gave me these little stones and they are all quite “aqua” in tone. But to accentuate them, I photographed them after wetting them in water. It really brought out the colors. If I have time, I plan to do another drawing of them “dry”, as the color is so delicate and soft.

At present I have started a much larger drawing of stones in a water vase, with a very plum-colored fabric background. Mean Mr. Plum, Purple Haze, Purple Rain, hmmmm, I can’t think of any other purple connections – can anyone else? The color is super-saturated and not for the faint of heart. I’m going to start blogging more actively now that summer is coming to a close, so look for a photo update soon! Thanks for reading.

Here is a post of my newest drawing, another “Balancing Act”. . . in stages.  I started out, as I mentioned in my last post, working with only Faber-Castell Polychromos on Canson Mi-Tientes peach-toned paper.  I have notated under the images which colors were used in that particular photo/stage (reading left to right, top to bottom).  I know there’s a big jump from the stages to the finished drawing, but after a while it’s just too tedious to continue working in this fashion.  Perhaps the stones are calling, and I want to start to do the more creative blending and drawing?   I’ve now started work on a smallish  drawing of some gorgeous, aqua-colored stones from Hawaii that someone gave to me.  I’m using a different approach for this drawing, working on white Bristol Board paper with Caran D’Ache Aquarelles and then dry layers of Prismacolors.

Tomorrow I’m off to Dallas to join other artists at the 19th Annual CPSA convention and exhibition.  My piece, Counterpoint in Green, was juried into the show, and I’m also excited to be receiving my CPSA Signature Status this year.  This is awarded to artists who have been juried into three shows within ten years.  I’ll post some photos from the convention when I get back.  Meanwhile it’s time to finish packing the coolest clothes I can find!

Finally here is my latest drawing.  I wanted to have it done before I went to the CPSA convention from July 28th through August 1st in San Jose, CA, but it just didn’t work out timing-wise.  This drawing is about the same size as the other pieces in this series (a. 15 x 21 inches and done on Rtistx board), but it’s exploring some slightly different aspects of the stones in water, glass reflections, and color distortions, with less clear boundries.  I find it challenging not to tighten up all of the edges of transitions, and had to force myself to put the drawing at arm’s length and study it more than I usually do.

I’m starting a new drawing of a bird in a winter setting – a dark-eyed junco perched on a crusty snow-covered tree stump.   I’m in the mood for a change at the moment, and haven’t done a bird drawing in over a year.  It’s amusing to think of drawing a winter scene as we are in the midst of one of the most beautiful, hot and dry summers that New England has seen in recent years.

It’s been a busy summer with lots of travel and several exhibitions including my artwork.  Although my pieces were not juried into the 18th International CPSA Exhibition, I have had work in the following shows and magazines these past few months:

• Academic Artists Association’s 60th National Juried Exhibition,  April-May 2010, recipient of the Windsor Newton Award for Graphics
• Connecticut Academy of Fine Art’s 99th Annual Juried Exhibition, May-July 2010
• Academic Artists Association’s Annual Members Exhibition, July 2010, recipient of the Art Patron Award
• Attleboro Arts Museum’s “Seeing Double”, a National Juried Exhibtion, July-August 2010
• The Artists Magazine, July/August 2010 issue, “The Artist’s Life” Column, Award Winners of the 2010 On-line Media Competition, first place in Graphics for “Amber Bowl”

and these upcoming exhibitions:

• Academic Artists Association’s 60th Anniversary Invitational Exhibition, September-October 2010
• Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club, Inc. 114th Annual Juried Exhibition, October 2010

Thanks for following my blog!  – Debbi

I am very excited to have this drawing at it’s completion!  It’s actually been finished since the end of last week, but as usual, I have spent a little time tweaking it here and there to tidy up some edges and colors, etc.  I particularly love the area where the rocks and water line meet and all of the complexities of those interactions.  Now it’s on to trying to come up with a name for this piece.  That’s one of my more challenging tasks.  I usually end up using somewhat mundane sounding titles, basically they help me to know which piece it is, but I find it difficult to convey much more than that in a title.  Any comments or suggestions from other artists out there?

I’m moving on quickly to a new piece, and will write more about that when it’s underway.  Meanwhile, it’s been a busy spring with several shows going on in the New England area.  Lapis Light was just accepted into the Connecticut Academy of Fine Art’s 99th Annual Juried Show, which is up at the Mystic Arts Center (Mystic, CT) from May 28th to July 17th.  More information can be found at either of these websites:  Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts or Mystic Arts Center.

One of my favorite little drawings, Nocturne at Sea, is currently hanging in the Academic Artists Association’s Annual Member’s Exhibition, and was awarded the “Art Patron’s Award”.

Happy upcoming summer to all, and thanks for checking out my blog!

With the the glass vase complete it’s on to the really fun stuff! But as I write that I should note that the vase isn’t really finished.  Already since I’ve taken this photograph I’ve deepened some areas where it interfaces with the rocks.  But the fun stuff it watching it all pull together and come alive as each stone is drawn.  I start with the darkest stones and move on to the lightest; and in this drawing, the darkest stones are the three on the bottom.  I like the way the glass and reflections have developed, but it won’t really pull together until it’s all in place, and one can see why certain reflections are where they are.

I’ve been working on this new drawing for about four weeks and the background and top of the glass vase are almost done.  It’s a large drawing (about 20 x 15 inches) on Bristol Board, and it’s interesting to switch back to a flat paper surface after working on the textured Rtistx for a couple of pieces.  I have to be very careful to leave the whiter/lighter areas intact, as there’s no going back once they go too dark.  On the sanded surface, you can keep changing the color, adding whites or light tones on top of darks, nothing is a problem.  But on paper that type of option is lost very quickly.  I started the background by layering two to four different shades of Caran D’ache Aquarelle pencil colors and then blending the colors with a wet brush.  Then I started in with Prismacolor pencils, first using Limepeel, then Grass Green, Olive Green, Peacock Green, Black Cherry and some Dark Umber.  Certain lighter places have some Yellow Ochre in them, and most places (except the darkest darks) are burnished with a pale light blue.  I know it’s not the most simplistic approach, but I love the color transparencies that one can achieve by layering this way.

My drawing “Amber Bowl” is currently in the Academic Artist Association’s 60th Annual National Exhibition in Springfield, MA, and was awarded the Windsor-Newton Award.  The big red letter day fast approaching for all of us colored pencil artists is the announcement of the jurying results for this year’s  CPSA International Exhibition, which will be made public on April 26th.

I finished this graphite drawing, titled “Front Side/Back Side” over a week ago, and have been tending to art business details in the interim.  I guess it should be pretty evident that this stone is reflected in a mirror, so one can see two sides (or more, since more than one side is showing on the rock in the foreground).  In this series I always aspire to do a companion piece to each drawing, an opposite of sorts.  For this one, I envision drawing a whiter rock on a darker background with a mirror image.  But I’ve moved on to a yet larger colored pencil still life of stones in a vase with water, seen from straight on, rather than a bird’s eye view.  It has a lot of green in it – I’m so happy it’s spring!

I’m very excited to share this new drawing in my Stones series.  Will you look at those colors!  It’s so stunning when the  pale, discreet colors of the rocks become submerged in water.  This still life has a straight above, bird’s eye view, and the bowl is cropped; in comparison to the Amber Bowl, which is viewed slightly at an angle, and the bowl is entirely contained in the composition.  As a result, in this piece the water is less prominent, but different and  interesting aspects are created.  I had so much fun exploring the different ways light and reflection danced around the piece.

I’m starting a graphite drawing of stones reflecting in a mirror, and planning to resume work on the last oil painting I posted a while back.  It’s been sitting on the back burner (in this case, my studio easel) for too long!

Here is an installment after two weeks of work.  I approached the beginning of this drawing in the same fashion as the still-life that I featured in my blog post of October 15, 2009.  I worked in the background first, and then started in on the bowl from the outside in.  This will leave the rocks and water for last.  I’m  having a lot of fun working on this, but there is a challenge in the colors, as I’m slightly tweaking the color to a more “blueish” shade than a more “purple-ish” shade. There are no blacks in the drawing, so the darks are made by layering blues, purples and browns.  I am so excited to move on to the reflections that continue on the glass down into the water.

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.