First time with Pastels

This is a friend's house up here in Mt. Washington. My first attempt with pastels, it took me almost 3 hours to get the guts to start it. Overall I am happy - but pastels need to be bigger in order to include detail in the work.

I'll post it on FB and then in 'skineart and hopefully do a second version as a gift for the owners of the house.

Orange study

Image from March of this year

The image below was the first orange study I did. I only had seven colored pencils. Immediately after drawing this image I searched everywhere for my Prismacolors. Once I found them I continued drawing the same orange eight more times. My son made fun of me and said they looked the same. He called it my fruit book. I told him to take another look, because they were all different. Different strokes and intensity of orange color.

Germans In the Woods

Germans in the Woods from Rauch Brothers on Vimeo.

Very touching story from a veteran of World War II

Blogger Stephen Gardner's latest sketch

Visited Stephen Gardner's blog today...he does some great work. Please visit his site, "Sketch of the Day"

Here is his most recent post.

What I like is that he tries to post his drawing as often as possible. I may not be able to do a sketch a day like he does...so I will start a bit conservative and try to do a sketch a week.

Today is veterans day and I have the day off.

I am reading Dan Brown's latest book "The Lost Symbol". He makes me curious with his many references, Albrecht Durer as an example. So I did a google search of the engraving below and came across a large jpeg in a blogger's site. Whom had an interesting entry about making life simple so I posted it. See my entry of "10 Simple Rules for Living My Life" Back to Dan Brown's book. He makes reference to Albrecht Durer's symbols in the engraving Melancolia I which leads to another blogger, Theodor Pavlopoulis' The Peacock Tail and a interpretation of images form the Durer engraving and the golden ratio. Makes for some interesting reading, but makes me feel like there is so much to learn in this world and so much we do not know. Mysteries as well as reality.

10 Simple rules for living my life

This has been borrowed from another blogger. "north does not mean up", she simply identifies herself as kristina and I find her entries rather inspiring and wanted to pass it on to anyone else that reads my blog.

This is from The Complete Life’s Little Instruction Book. How many of these can you say you honestly accomplish? Stop judging others. Look at yourself. Are you doing all of these 10 things every day? You may find you are better at some than others. Do your bit – but don’t expect these of others. It’s not your place. Change yourself, change the world.

1. Do battle against prejudice and discrimination wherever you find it.
2. Be romantic.
3. Let people know what you stand for and what you won’t stand for.
4. Be insatiably curious. Ask “why” a lot.
5. Measure people by the size of their hearts, not the size of their bank accounts.
6. Don’t forget, a person’s greatest emotional need is to feel appreciated.
7. Don’t waste time grieving over past mistakes. Learn from them and move on.
8. Keep your promises.
9. Seek out the good in people.
10. Take good care of those you love.

“Sometimes I lie awake at night and I ask, ‘Is life a multiple choice test or is it a true or false test?’… Then a voice comes to me out of the dark and says, ‘We hate to tell you this, but life is a thousand word essay.’” — Charles M. Schultz

Sketches from Chicago and October Peppers

Felt it necessary to draw the lamp I use to hang my three peppers. Even more reason to complete a studio. Mary gets inpatient with my drawing material all over the place, even though I only take up 30% of our table. Not to complain, I understand...but should I be sequestered in the studio all the time? I'm letting the peppers dry up so I can do at least one more drawing. She loves my work, that I know.

Some sketches from my trip to Chicago in July. So interesting drawing people, some ignore me as I draw, others become very uncomfortable and re-locate. I try to catch some of their personality in the drawings. A little of who they are. No name, no background. I moment of their life in this place with me on this day in our lives.

Illustration Friday 11-5-2009 Skinny Pepper

Re-posted this image at a smaller resolution so I can submit to Illustration Friday. I've been monitoring the peppers and I am almost ready to draw more in their current whithered state. Then on to something new. Still looking for a reputable figure drawing session.

Life is so fun...thank God he invited me.