The Question

The ANSWER is "Draw"!  Draw anything, -  Any time!  Every time!

The question? - Much the same as that old one about how to get to Lincoln Center! (Or is that Carnegie Hall?)  It's always practice, practice and more practice!  It's not always the immediate result that's important so much as the fact that you are constantly looking and drawing!

The silver sugar bowl drawing on the right isn't perfect by any measure, - just a quick sketch while waiting for my coffee!   It's the result of a few minutes with pen in hand.  There is some severe distortion but hey, who's to say it wasn't previously damaged rather than poorly drawn?

The two drawings, above and directly below, were made with ordinary ball point pen.. As you may have gathered earlier, this is not my favorite drawing instrument. It was what I had at to work with at the time. I have to admit it works here! My favorite is the smooth ink pen I used on the "portrait" here on the left. I find "models" like her  in meetings, concerts, waiting rooms, etc. 

 

Anything in sight is good subject matter! It doesn't really matter at all what the subject is or what instrument you use on such occasions just as long as you put the time in to develop your skill. Pen, pencil or a combined  pen AND pencil like the SUV drawing here, - it doesn't matter! Use what you have!

          

I do have to confess: in this piece the penciled sky and cloud background was not done on site as the inked parts were. I did it later in order to show an example of combined media.  (I've told you now, so there's no deception. Don't point that finger at me!)

This very quick tree drawing was done with the stump of a soft pencil,  - It likely took little more than a minute. I was trying to capture the look of the sun behind the leafy tree.  I didn't quite get down what I saw but I tried! 

Be ready to draw anytime. Have a sketchbook with you, ready to take advantage of any odd moment that other- wise might be wasted.

               Just do it!






                     "Open your eyes and draw, look, look, look."   George Weymouth

Vacation Days

 I don't often have time to make detailed drawings like this when away from home but every once in a while the true meaning of "vacation" slips into my mind, hands me a pen and slows the clock while I record a summery view. Here's an early morning look out a third floor back window of the two hundred year old "Red Lion Inn" of western Massachusetts,  - a delightful old fashioned hotel with antique furnishings, a great New England menu and vintage village views.

The second drawing, this time with ball-point pen, is a narrow vista from my favorite vacation spot at home in up-state New York.  Here I can enjoy a beautiful summer afternoon recording the skyward view to the south. That spot is our lovely back deck, almost a tree house under a huge old maple, so that patch of sky and the leafy green bower above is the ceiling of this my "favorite room". - Another great vacation spot!


As you can see, a fine ball-point pen produces a softer mark, more like that of a  pencil than the crisp ink line of the first drawing. It's ALL good though. A slow vacation day or two minute parking lot drawing, putting time in your sketchbook everywhere you go is the best medicine for boredom and certainly the best practice for the health of your artistic life.




The quality of life is determined by its activities. (Aristotle)
Throw open your window and let the scenery of clouds and sky enter your room! (Yosa Buson) 

A Real Sketch

I've mentioned before that I keep a sketch-book in the car for those times when I may have to wait for doctor, wife or performance. These three pieces taken from my "waiting"  sketch-books, are for me the very definition of the word "sketch", - a drawing where details are barely noted, darks are massed hatchings and most lines are loose and approximate.  I use this technique when I'm sure that time is short and I want a work in which I can look back and feel that I know how the whole scene, object or building looked, - a good over-all impression.

Over the years I've found that people often use the word "sketch" as an alternative to the word "draw".  In the past when most of my drawings were many hours in the making, I cringed as they spoke, saying,  "No, a 'drawing' is a strong deliberate work, while a 'sketch' is a quick, almost off-hand sort of thing". It made sense to me, - but in the end,  as Gertrude Stein might have said, "A drawing is a drawing is a drawing".   I like it all!