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.

I have been working so hard on this drawing and it feels like it’s taking forever.  I am working uninterrupted now that my spring travels are behind me, but it still feels like such slow going!  This drawing is about 22″ x 26″ and there is so much snow and delicate detail to accomplish.  I think I’m going to basically execute the entire background and then go back and insert the fine details, such as little bits of debris on the snow, etc.   Maybe a touch more blood?  There is more blood in my original photograph, but I’m still deciding how much to put in.  Meanwhile, it’s a gorgeous spring here with everything in full bloom, the birds are singing, mating, worm hunting.  It’s an odd juxtaposition to find myself working on this winter scene.

I was recently interviewed by Paula DeMarco, the host of “Art Beat”, for a local cable station.  I’m attaching a link to the interview, which is available on line throughout the month of May.  You can access it here:  Art Beat interview.

As always, thanks for reading!

The hawk has it’s squirrel in it’s talons.  I am enjoying the challenges of this drawing -specificially the creation of all of the blurry masses.  And the contrast between the softness and structure of the hawk and it’s feathers versus the soft form of the squirrel’s fur.  I have moved onto the woodpile and adjacent snow, which is posing it’s own set of demands.  Stay tuned for an update.

“Rock/Candy”, my two-person show with colleague Kendra Bidwell-Ferreira, came down on March 31st.  It was a very colorful and fun exhibit, and I’m a little wistful to have it in the past.  But I have been working hard all along on this new drawing, pictured above in a very initial stage.  This is quite a large drawing compared to the sizes I have been working on in the past couple of years (it’s about 22″ x 28″) and I thought it would help me to start out with the hawk’s head staring out at me,  inviting (or taunting ?) me to keep working on it.

This initial photo shows the head, as well as some tree trunks in the distance that I quickly sketched in with Caran D’Ache Watercolor Pencils.  I did this to  help me to define the parameters of the composition.  The hawk has a squirrel in it’s talons, and I’ve placed it atop a snow-covered wood pile, with some tree trunks and foliage in the background.  I’m working from photographs taken in my yard, and some of you may recognize the hawk and squirrel photograph from my blog pages “Scenes from my birdfeeder #2″.  However, I wanted a more interesting setting and chose to place the hawk on snow-covered wood, similar to the setting of “Winter Throne”.

The photos below depict the development of the hawk’s tail.  In some parts of drawings I first execute layers of Caran D’Ache Watercolor pencils to help establish background layering and depth of color (usually in the darker areas).  (Please excuse the re-appearance of the hawk head photo.  I can’t seem to delete it without deleting it from above as well!)

The photo on the far left shows the tail with the initial layering of dry Caran D’Ache Watercolor pencils.  The photo in the middle shows the same area now blended with a wet brush.  This step aids in the build-up of color and provides me with a “road map”, so to speak, of how I want to develop the area.  The third photo shows the tail nearing completion.  I’ve also started to develop the squirrel’s body, and have been working the three areas (hawk, squirrel and surrounding snow) simultaneously, as there are so many blurred borders between them.  It was a challenge to take on, but I’m nearing completion of this area and will be posting an update next week.  Then it’s on to the wood pile. . .

Thanks for reading,  and happy spring!  ~Debbi

Wow!  How did I find myself with some extra time on Christmas Eve day (I’m hosting 15 people tonight. . .) and ready to update my blog?  Here is the first leaf litter drawing, almost finished.  As usual, I still have areas to tweak, mainly the rain drops, as I got very tired of doing them, and since they are so tiny I didn’t want to “overdo” them.  I am curious to know if anyone has suggestions about how to classify these drawings?  Are they landscapes?  Still-lives?  Any input or thoughts are most welcome.

I’m planning on doing a series of three of these drawings.  Here is the second one, very far along, and displaying some different aspects from the drawing above.  There is much more movement in this drawing, and I eliminated the rain drops. . . was I really that tired of drawing them?  No, I just this drawing to be more about the gorgeous and tattered green leaf that was lying over everything.  The second drawing is slightly larger than the first one, but both are in the 8 x 11 1/2 to 9 x 12 range.

A very warm and merry Christmas and New Years to all!  Thanks for visiting my blog in the past year – I appreciate it!

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.

I wanted to post a photo of this stage of my current drawing – I’m almost finished with the tree stump and snow, and about ready to start on the dark-eyed junco.  This piece is about 19 x 13 inches in size, and I’m pleased with how quickly the detailed stump has gone.  I know I’ll have to go back and forth with the snow contours once the bird is in place, and tweak some of the bark areas and shadows.  It’s been interesting to draw  the detailed snow and stump areas of the foreground and the less focused snow and stump areas of the background.