February « 2012 « MaryElizabethThompson.net

HumpDay How-to: Painting Portraits

I ~~enjoy~~ painting portraits. Scratch enjoy. Ok, well, I do enjoy it. But I always also find it terribly difficult and frustrating. Human faces pose a particular challenge to artists because while everyone is attracted to the face, everyone is also extremely sensitive to the shape, color, and relationship of the features, so that any small abnormality shows as a mistake.

Self-Portrait 2004

Personally, I have the damnest time with shadows on the face, and getting the colors to not read as either dirt or bruises.

So I’m always looking for information on how to do portraits better, especially since I want to do portraits of my loved ones and want to do them passably well. Which is why I bought and reviewed Kullberg’s Colored Pencil Portraits Step-by-Step a few weeks ago.

I also believe that we can learn from other artists, even outside our own chosen medium. My preferred mediums are pencils, colored pencil, and oil pastels, all of which avoid brushes (which drive me nuts) and allow me to use my hands instead. But I learn a lot by watching how other types of painters capture a likeness as well.

So I’ve found a few more resources that I want to share with you.

Written on February 29th, 2012 , Art, How-To Tags: painting, portraits

Creature Feature: Chameleons

You may remember some time back I posted a Creature Feature blog about frogs because some new research had been published about the world’s tiniest frog. Well, in the last couple weeks I’ve been reading newly published research about another new tiny creature: the world’s smallest chameleon, the Brookesia micra.

World's Tiniest Chameleon (image through likecool.com)

Of course after reading about that tiny little guy, I began to wonder what the world’s largest chameleon was. That would be the Furcifer oustaleti, measuring in at about 3′ long

Chameleons are best known for their ability to change colors, which is portrayed as a sort of ‘on purpose’ camouflage and that they can change to any color or pattern that is behind them. But that’s not true. According to this National Geographic article, out of the 100 or so species of chameleons, most can change from brown and green only, but only some can change almost any color, and it takes about 20 seconds.

Plus…. they don’t do it for camouflage. It’s done in response to light and temperature and maybe even mood. But it doesn’t seem to be a conscious effort to hide from danger.

Like my favorite group of birds, the woodpeckers, chameleons have zygodactyl feet, meaning they have two forward toes and two backward toes. Also like the woodpeckers, they have extremely long tongues. But the woodpeckers is only twice the length of its head. The chameleon’s is twice the length of its body.

Unlike most animals, I’ve always found chameleons to be particularly creepy. It’s something to do with their googly eyes. They can move each eye entirely independent of the other, giving them a 360° vision span. (Humans have only about 120° vision span.) They can also see in UV light as well as in our visible spectrum of light, as do most birds.

As a side note, “Karma Chameleon” by Culture Club came out in September 1983 and is still one of my favorite fun songs.

Written on February 26th, 2012 , Nature Tags: animals, chameleons

Saturday Status: Works in Progress

First, updates to last Saturday’s status report.

Shell Inlay Box

Gluing the shells to the shell inlay box never happened. I never felt I had enough time to get it all done at once.

Shadowbox: Rose Tints My World

I did finish painting the very pink shadowbox, and set it aside to dry, and haven’t touched it since. So it’s time to start the decorating phase.

Sunflower

I completely finished my sunflower. Here is it. I took a lot of photos along the way, so there will probably be a step-by-step demo sometime in the future. Including my misstarts.

Sunflower

In place of the sunflower, I now have on my easel….

Great Blue Heron #2

(I painted Great Blue Heron #1 back in December 2011.)

I take a lot of photos of Great Blue Herons, not only because they are fairly common birds around here year-round, but because I find them fascinating. They’re large, for one thing, and they allow the on-looker to get quite close sometimes. And they have a long curvy neck that is almost as much fun to draw as it is watch them fold it into a compact S to fly or stretch it out like a yardstick to peer at a fish beneath the water’s surface. And they have these huge beautiful wings that at first seem awkward and impossible, but then are so graceful and serene in the air.

Great Blue Heron Flying, Fri 24 Feb 2012, at Occoquan Bay NWR

(I’m saving the flying photo for a future painting, perhaps Great Blue Heron #3).

And finally, I also like these birds because – although they’re called ‘blue’ – they aren’t really blue at all. They’re some type of slate blue or slate gray or bluish gray that I find satisfyingly challenging to recreate in my painting.

And painting in all the ripples in the water is fun too.

Here’s my underpainting for Great Blue Heron #2, which I did last night.

Great Blue Heron #2 Underpainting

And you may have noticed I changed my background image again. I took this image yesterday at Occoquan Bay NWR. And if you scroll the post box all the way up, you’ll notice a great blue heron standing in the water, center stage.

Written on February 25th, 2012 , Art, Goals Tags: birds, oil pastels, progress

Checking My Work

Lately in the evenings as I sit with my husband and watch TV, I’ve been practicing my drawing, using reference photos from birding magazines. I’ve been very pleased with myself at how my birds not only look like birds, but they look like the bird they were intended to be. I blogged about this a couple days ago in a blog about labeling my drawing pencils.

So this morning, I decided to check my work and see how closely I was actually coming to my reference photos.

Meadowlarks Side-by-Side

I’m not good at seeing the differences when the two images are side by side in person, but when I scan them into the computer and open them in Photoshop, I can see that something’s off. I just can’t tell what exactly. My sketch is easily identifiable as a meadowlark. But it’s just not quite right.

Meadowlarks Overlaid

But when I lay my sketch over the reference and decrease the opacity to about 60%, then I can see my mistakes. Although the left-hand side of my bird is pretty close, the entire right-hand side of my bird is way off. I wonder if this is a common error made by most beginners, or if it’s common to right-handers, or if it’s just something about me that skews things that way. Is it a left-brain/right-brain thing?

I’ve noticed this in past drawings I did, years ago. One side of my wine bottle, for example, would be lined up pretty well, but the other side would be skewed in some strange way that I had the damnest time recognizing and fixing. Now, I can’t remember which side was good… the left or right side.

The weird thing is, why can’t I see it? Why can I get a complicated bit close to correct, like the open beak on the left, but then get a simple bit like the back of the head on the right, a mere inch away, so far off? It’s so very weird.

If you have any answers let me know. Until then, I’ll keep trying.

Written on February 24th, 2012 , Art, Goals Tags: birds, drawing, pencils, Photoshop

HumpDay How-to: Label Your Drawing Pencils

I love to draw. And between in-person lessons, online lessons, and practice, I have gotten to the point that I’m not half-bad at it. That is, when I draw a bird it not only looks like a bird, but a specific species of bird, and the species I intended.

Red Crossbill. Carbon Pencil.

Lately, I’m even drawing freehand, without a grid, without tracing. Which, for me, is happying beyond belief.

Indian Skimmer. Carbon Pencil.

Anyway.

I have a set of Koh-I-Noor Woodless Graphite Pencils that I like to use much more than the traditional Derwent pencils. So I gave all my Derwents to my daughter and use only the Koh-I-Noors now. My only complaint about the Koh-I-Noors is that the print on them is so small and in a color that doesn’t contrast with the pencil itself. It was difficult and frustrating to try to see whether I had a 2B or a 8B in my hand.

Koh-I-Noor Pencils Before

I mentioned this aloud and said that I was going to write the number on a bit of masking tape and stick it on each pencil. But my daughter suggested using the label maker. So I tried it.

Koh-I-Noor Pencils After

I can certainly see which pencil is which now.

Now, the problem is that the label tape doesn’t stick to itself very well and the edge comes up a smidge. I’m going to use a tiny smear of PVA to seal it down. I expect that to do the trick. If not, I’ll update you.

Even better than these graphite pencils, however, I like my Royal Sovereign Wolff’s Carbon pencils, which I also labeled just for consistency’s sake. I like them because they have ‘wolf’ in the name, but also because I can achieve much darker darks with them than with the graphites. J. D. Hillberry mixes graphite, carbon, and charcoal, and if it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for me. So I’m going to start trying it in order to get a full range of grayscale in my drawings.

Also, you might be interested in how I store and carry my pencils.

Pencil Roll Closed

My daughter made this pencil roll for me. I also have a red one for my colored pencils. If you visit her Etsy store, you can request she make a custom one for you in any color you like.

Pencil Roll Open

Written on February 22nd, 2012 , Art, How-To Tags: drawing, how-to, pencils

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