Getting there

With Molly’s help, I'm starting to see the logic of the color application with this medium. It’s a curious mix of putting down certain lights, and then building up from dark to light in other places. I hope I can explain it better when fall semester rolls around.
    Molly thought my main problem was that I wasn’t using the pencils thickly enough.
    I still don’t have the hang of skin tones.

A moon picture is coming soon.

Good golly Miss Molly...

...she sure loves to draw! Molly is my very dear friend who, in addition to being my partner in crime for many adventures, was and will always be one of my drawing teachers. Every year, Molly comes up to my house (we live a little ways apart) and we sit and catch up and draw for the day. She is coming this week, and because of Covid, we are masking and drawing outside, but at least we still get to do it!
    Last year, I was envying Molly's illustrations in colored pencil for a book of poetry about bugs that that she has been working on. Molly is a master drawer and illustrator. I'm pretty sure that statement included the sentence "I wish I could do that". Molly looked up and said, ok, here! Try it! And she proceeded to give me a lesson.
    This time, since I made the (hopefully not rash) decision to assign colored pencils for my ARTS 101 classes this fall, I'm going into our session prepared with my recent efforts so she can help me figure out where I'm going wrong, and a new drawing that I can work on under her supervision.
    The new one is another little sketch I did of the Wheatland Music Festival kid buskers. This guy helped himself to one of our folding chairs in front of our tent and started strumming away. He was playing with all his heart, but wasn't really making any chords. So, to save my sanity, I went over and taught him how to play an e minor chord. It made a big difference in the atmosphere around our tent, I can tell you that.
    The colored one is my practice attempt on copy paper. Molly will have her teaching work cut out for her!

First Try

This is one of my first tries at colored pencil. It is not a model of control. 

About a year ago, I wanted to do a series of pieces based on the child buskers at Wheatland. I flirted with colored pencils then, but gave up to paint instead. This time I'm going to stick with it, and this little image will be my marker for improvement.

I just read that Wheatland is cancelled this year, so maybe I can help keep the Happy Wheatland spirit alive in this small way, until we can all meet again.

Gold Leaf the Easy Way

     I'm not sure exactly what this paper is, but it was a beautiful and recent gift from my friend Kathy when I told her I was thinking about tackling gold leaf again. I love the rich look of the old gold leaf panel paintings, but I wasn't looking forward to to sanding the bole. I have a terrible time getting a smooth surface with it. Kathy very kindly offered this paper to me to try. I think it may be some sort of illumination paper. This is my practice sheet. I already mucked it up, because I didn't transfer the figure properly. But so far, the paper is accepting the paint and taking layers. I think it might work!

    This is the basis for the figure (that is missing) on the gold paper above. When I was at Wheatland (http://www.wheatlandmusic.org) a couple of years ago, there were many talented young buskers showing off their work. This is based on a little girl who had written her songs on a piece of paper and stood and sang them for anyone who would listen. How cool is that?