Debbi Friedman’s Blog

Here’s the new piece I’m working on with the secondary leaf layer in place.  I’m having fun working from “back to front” on this one, and have started on the primary/top layer.  There are a lot of blurred and disappearing edges in this drawing which is a change for me.  I’m curious to see what it looks like when the last, crisply focused layer is drawn.  Stay tuned, and thanks for checking out my work.

Here’s my new drawing and I’m beginning, yet again, in a different fashion.  Can you tell what this is a drawing of?  Probably, because the pencil sketch is pretty visible.  I’m working from the depths forward, starting with the darkest areas that are also the blurriest, and working up to the foreground.  Once the darkest areas are complete I’m planning to move onto the next layers. .. .

I’ve also been repairing “Amber Bowl”, which I picked up from the Springfield Art Museum yesterday.  It had some wax bloom, which was a first for me.  I’m hoping that a more thorough fixative application will prevent this from recurring.  I have to ship it to New York City in a couple of days for the Allied Artists of America’s  97th Annual Juried Exhibition.

This is the first post of my current drawing, a dark-eyed junco perched atop a snow-covered tree stump.  I’m approaching this drawing in an entirely different manner than usual.  First of all, I’m not using any watercolor based colored pencils to build up areas before moving onto dry pencil.  Secondly, I usually work top to bottom, left to right when doing a bird drawing, but this time I’ve filled the huge area of the stump, and am working more from bottom to top, right to left.  I have no idea why I began working this way on this drawing, but I’m enjoying the process and the change.  It’s pretty evident where the detailed areas and flat areas meet.

I built up basic flat areas of lighter and darker wood tones, and am subsequently going back into them with tape and a pencil and removing highlights and texture.  Then I’m following up with more detail with darker pencils, and in some cases varying wood tones where I might have removed too much base color with the tape.  It’s looking very detailed, but in reality it’s just a different way of creating detail, and I like the quickness and freedom of this method.  The snow is also done in a much looser and quicker manner,  loosely layering various colors (French Gray 10%, Grayed Lavander, Slate Gray, Cool Gray %70, and then surrounding wood colors) over a white base of colored pencil.

The bird will be the last part to draw, and it’s difficult to see where it’s going to sit at present.  I think one can just make out faint delineations of the wings in the upper right area.

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.

At this stage I am tweaking the drawing. I’ve worked a little more on the butterfly’s body, the wood and the background coloring. (Click on thumbnail for enlargement). I would say this piece is done! One of the reasons this drawing went so quickly is that it is small – only 8.5 x 11 inches. Any comments are welcomed.

Day Seven and the drawing is almost done. I’ve gone back into the both the wood and the shadow underneath. I’ve included a photograph of with the edges showing so that you can see the faint “halo” of color I added at the top. (Click on thumbnails for enlargement).

I’ve worked on the butterfly for another couple of hours and it’s nearing completion, but not quite there yet. It’s clear now that I need to go back into the wood and develop it more. The butterfly has more definition and darks, and the wood needs to balance this as well.  (Click on thumbnails for enlargement).

Here are four early stages of the butterfly. The first photo is sepia tones only. The second photo adds orange ochre tones, and the third adds yellows, peach and violet. Then I found it hard to stop working to take a photo for a while, so you can see that the last photo shows quite a bit more development – browns, blacks and more oranges have been added. More tomorrow!

The wood is even more developed than day three, with fine detail being applied in all areas. There is still a lot of detail to add, but much of that will come when the butterfly has been added, to balance out the drawing. Okay, can anyone tell me what has been added on Day Four? Leave a comment if you notice. Thanks, and any feedback is always welcome.

The bark is becoming much more developed. All areas have solid background layers of color that have been blended with a brush.
In addition, some areas have been gone back into with more minute detail. (Click on thumbnail for enlargement).

Here is the piece at the end of two days of work. Notice the increased color values. Many additional layers of color have been added in some, but not all, areas. (Click on thumbnail 2x for biggest enlargement).

I have begun a new piece and will be posting each day’s work to chart the development of a small piece. This drawing is of an Eastern Comma butterfly resting on a piece of Sycamore bark. At this point I have only started to work on the bark and there are about 6 layers of color in some areas. The butterfly is just sketched out in gray pencil and is at the top of the bark. (Click on photo thumbnail for enlargement).

I’m very excited about having a blog and being able to show working stages of my artwork. It may take a week or two for me to get some new work on here so please check back soon! Feel free to leave a comment. Thanks!