Wax Bloom

What, exactly, does one say when they haven’t drawn anything in over a year? Do they explain why? Do they talk about the burnout and the boredom, or do they just post what they are finally working on now, and leave it at that.

Self Portrait VII | Colored Pencil on Pastelbord | 9 x 12"

The latter, it seems.

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Look at what finally came in the mail!

I’m pretty excited to get down to it – I’ve never painted in acrylics before, but spent a lot of time with oils in college, so I’m not a complete painting newbie. I’m thinking my first attempt will be a self portrait – it doesn’t seem fair to butcher someone else’s likeness in a new medium.

Big thanks to my parents, my sister and Rachel for the sundry art supply gift cards that made this possible.

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Wouldya lookatdat? The year is already over, and so is my break. I suppose its time to figure out the goals for 2009 and see if I managed to hit any of the ones from 2008!

2008’s Goals in Review

Start working larger

Well, sort of. The majority of the stuff I did towards the end of the year was 9×12", and I did a couple that were 9×16". While they aren’t massive, they are bigger than 8.5×11"

Point being, I suppose, that I did manage to get out of the 8.5×11" habit and start working in some more interesting dimensions which was more the goal than simply creating huge drawings.

Set up a Photography Area

Check! I bought myself a DSLR in October and have been happily taking better shots of my work since.

Get Back to Working with Clay

Oops…didn’t come close to getting that one. There’s always 2009…

Try Other Mediums

The only new medium I tried was carbon pencil. Though I did start working on Pastelbord and Colourfix paper this year – so I did at least try new supports.

Draw Things other than Faces

While not a rousing success, and the first didn’t show up until July, I did manage to do 4 non-portraits toward the end of 2008.

I also started working things other than faces into portraits, like clothing and such with several full body portraits, one with a plastic cup and one with a whole lake in the background.

Were you to compare 2007’s body of work with 2008’s, I think you’d find the difference quite apparent.

Pursue More Commission Work

In 2007, 6 of my 45 drawings were commissions. In 2008, out of 29 drawings, 8 were commissions. It’s a better ratio, to be sure, especially considering I had a couple of people back out of them due to economic reasons, and I also backed out of a couple because I didn’t care for the reference photos.

So not bad, but not a total win either. Lets look at 2009’s new and resurrected goals:

Goals for 2009

Regimented Subject Matter

This year I intend to limit myself to one or two portraits a month. Most likely just one with the portrait study group I’ve joined. The rest of the time will be spent with other subject matter; still lives, etc.

New mediums.

Specifically acrylics. I have $175.00 worth of art supply gift certificates burning a hole in my pocket, and its acrylic paints that are going to get the lion’s share of it.

More sellable work

The trouble with portraits is that to make any money with them, someone needs to hire you. This is related to the first goal, but I’m going to focus more of my time on doing work that could be attractive to any potential buyer.

Keep a sketchbook

I’ve been doodling in a moleskine for a few weeks now after Carolyn suggested it. I’ve found it to be quite enjoyable and lots of ideas have been popping out of it.

Less realism

I’ve been drawing a lot of silly things straight from my head in my sketchbook, and some of them could be pretty interesting as completed work.

Regimented Mediums

I intend to rotate through mediums this year – colored pencil, graphite/carbon, acrylic and clay. Never two of the same medium in a row! (I expect this to be broken within a month or so)

Lastly, these are my top three favorites from 2008:

1. Ganz, the Sequel
2. Self Portrait IV
3. Pink Sneakers

With honorable mentions going to Rachel, Preston G. and Jump!. You can see my entire 2008 body of work in my gallery to see if you agree.

And what about your goals for the new year? Leave a link to your post about what you intend to accomplish with your art (or whatever you enjoy) in the comments!

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You’re probably wondering why I’ve not posted the finished drawing that I’ve been working on. I pretty much ruined it. Its not even salvageable; I made a critical mistake in my original line drawing that I didn’t notice until it was too late to do anything about. I’m thinking it’s a by-product of the fits-and-starts method of working that I’ve been employing of late. I’m certain that if I were of a more dedicated mindset that I would have caught the error earlier…and now I’m just burned out because of it. To be fair, I was already feeling somewhat burned out and forcing myself to work…this mistake just pushed me over the edge.

I think I’m going to take the rest of the year off. I hate to end 2008 with a crap drawing, but I’m just not feeling it right now. I’m going to ruminate on some changes to my style and subject matter during what’s left of 2008 and start fresh in 2009.

See you in a few weeks!

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Do you listen to music while working? Me, I can’t do without it. I also can’t abide my iPod on shuffle; its too distracting to stop and skip a song I don’t feel like listening to, so I have a few specific albums I’ll spin up to get myself into the zone. My current top five are:

1. Dax Riggs, We Sing Only of Blood or Love
2. Serj Tankian, Elect the Dead
3. Faith No More, Angel Dust
4. Flyleaf, Flyleaf
5. Deadboy and the Elephantmen, If This is Hell I’m Lucky

Some close runner’s ups, in no particular order, are:

• Murdocks, Surrenderender
• Danzig, Danzig & Danzig II – Lucifuge
• Agents of Oblivion, Agents of Oblivion
• And of course, Slayer trumps everything.

I also have a Pandora station seeded with the Dead Kennedys, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Dax Riggs and Slayer that I listen to pretty regularly. For those unfamiliar, Pandora asks you what sort of music you like, and then plays stuff that it thinks you’ll also like.

And you? What do you listen to in your studio?

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So there’s a reason I called my most recent drawing Ganz, the Sequel. This is the second time I have drawn my friend Steve Ganz, the first being in March of 2007. This was not terribly long after I had returned to drawing, and was just my 5th after returning from a considerably long hiatus from art. 

I’d like this post to serve as a reminder to myself, as well as those of you out there who may be faltering in your quest to refine your abilities, or not feeling like you are making enough progress fast enough – because Lord knows I feel that way a lot. I have been drawing for a few hours nearly every day for the past year and a half, and I want to share with you the progress I have made in that time in both ability, competence with the medium, color and composition. 

March 2007 vs October 2008

Seriously, looking at that feels really, really good.

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Here’s where the portrait stands this morning:

Ganz, The Sequel | Colored Pencil on Pastelbord | 12 x 9"

And as promised, here are a couple more close-up shots taken in better light. Images link to their full sized counterpart:

And lastly, compiled for a question from a Flickr user, this is the palette I am using with this drawing:

• Peach
• Nectar
• Beige
• Blush Pink
• Copenhagen Blue
• Dark Umber
• White
• Terra Cotta
• Salmon Pink
• Light Umber
• Sand
• Light Peach
• Blue Slate
• Moss Green
• Scarlet Lake
• Deco Pink (used sparingly, as just a tiny tiny nub is all thats left of this discontinued color)
• Cream
• Pink Rose
• Sky Blue Light
• Sienna Brown
• Burnt Ochre
• Crimson Lake
• Peacock Blue
• Warm Gray 90%
• Black
• Derwent Rose Pink (poor substitute for Deco Pink)
• Cool Gray 70%
• Sandbar Brown
• Dark Green
• Cool Gray 10%
• Warm Gray 30%
• Cool Gray 50%
• Yellow Ochre
• Parma Violet
• Lilac

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A couple of folks have asked if I would post close up, high resolution photos of this drawing to allow them to better examine the color layering and pencil strokes. Hopefully these are what you guys are after – the images link to their original 3888×2592 photos. I’ll take some additional photos tomorrow morning in daylight for better color accuracy – these are all a bit on the red side.

My stroke is always small, circular motions. I leave lots of gaps when laying down initial layers for other colors to fill in. For the most part its fairly erratic as you can tell from what’s been laid down on the fringes.

Here’s where the drawing stands at the moment, by the way:

And for no particular reason, here’s a photo of my pencils that I thought turned out interesting:

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The image on the left is the one I took with my old point-and-shoot. The one on the right is with my new camera, and is incredibly faithful to the original drawing.

I obvisously have a lot of re-shooting to do.

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Teresa Mallen was kind enough to mention my work in her October 2008 Newsletter - thanks Teresa, I’m honored! 

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