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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

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

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: , , ,
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

Red Crossbill. Carbon Pencil.

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

Indian Skimmer

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

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

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

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 2

Pencil Roll Open

 

Written on February 22nd, 2012 , Art, How-To Tags: , ,
Too-Short Pencils

In my colored pencil books, the advice was to Superglue a too-short pencil nub onto a fresh pencil, thereby lengthening it and getting to use more of the pencil before having to toss it out.

I didn’t like the idea of gluing it to another pencil, so I took some pieces of dowels I had leftover from another project and glued a too-short pencil onto one of those. But I didn’t have Superglue on hand. I had PVC, glue stick, paste, wood putty, and E-6000. I figured E-6000 was the strongest glue I had, so I tried it. I held the dowel to the pencil nub for a couple minutes, then braced it in a standing position.

After 10 minutes, it was still not set. I went away and came back in an hour. It came apart easily. Obviously, E-6000 wasn’t the right glue for the project.

Which still seems odd to me. I’d have thought that an industrial strength glue would certainly bond two pieces of wood together. But alas, no.

So when I went to Michael’s later on, I picked up a little tube of Superglue Gel, especially formulated for porous materials like wood. I held the pencil and the dowel together, then braced it upright. When I checked it after 15 minutes, it was set up solid. It even withstood the electric sharpener.

Pencil blued to Dowel with close-up

Pencil blued to Dowel with close-up

Using the Pencil

Using the Pencil

But when I had used the nub down to less than an inch and wanted to detach it before I ended up running the glue through the sharpener, I worried I might not be able to separate the two pieces without a saw. But to my surprise, they snapped apart fairly easily, with just pressure from my bare hands.

I’ve Superglued several too-short pencils to dowels now and haven’t had any problem with any of them.

Written on January 10th, 2012 , Art, How-To Tags: , ,

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