Saturday, April 23, 2011

Watercolor Lesson: Pigeons













Here's lesson one of my "pigeons" for watercolorists:


Inspiration:


I was inspired by the way warm light shone into the shed, illuminating a mood of safety inside and allure outside; a metaphor for taking creative risks. I wondered what type of bird built the nest. I thought about a childhood story of the pigeon who gave all of his silver feathers to help the less fortunate and was reborn a golden phoenix.


Techniques:


First I blocked in the basic colors and values of the shed in my large sketch book.



Next I did numerous pigeon sketches until I absorbed their forms and attitudes.



A couple of poses that would symbolize the homebody and the traveller caught my eye; one bird looks back at the nest while the other looks outside.



Using rubber cement, I roughed in a resist of these two on 140lb hot press (smooth) D'Arches watercolor paper and subsequently washed in some light color areas while refering to my original shed sketch.



I plan on a "Wizard of Oz" effect: the light outside and where it strikes pigeons will have color and the interior of the dark shed will be mostly black and white.


(More later as this piece develops)

Monday, April 18, 2011

Aniwah Workshop







I coined the hybrid word "Aniwah" as a combination of "Animals" and "Haniwa". Haniwa are ancient Japanese tomb sculpture. My Aniwah sculptures relate to these tomb figures to express my sadness at the death of certain animals, extinction of species and loss of nature. Yet there is always an element of hope or humor. This fish is a small Aniwah made from a wheel-thrown bottle as a demonstration for Art classes at FAMU and Sculpture Workshops at TSC. My larger Aniwah are 25 to 30 inches high.








Sunday, April 17, 2011

31st World Wide Sketchcrawl 4 16 2011


Mark Fletcher


Mark Fletcher

Mark Fletcher

Mark and Jeff


Jennifer, Mary, Mark, Jeff

Mary Sterner Lawson Mary Sterner Lawson DeDe Harter DeDe, Jeff, Mark Jennifer Clinard Jeff Zenick Jeff Zenick Jeff Zenick


Here are some images from the 31st World Wide Sketchcrawl. We had a great day! To see images from friends around the world go to http://www.sketchcrawl.com/ and click on "forum", then "31st world wide sketchcrawl". Have fun looking and you are welcome to join us sketching next time, probably in July; just email or call any of us for info. (Or if you are not in Tallahassee go to the link above to start your own group wherever you are.) There is a special link in sketchcrawl to help with the Japan Disaster if you want, but sketchcrawl is always free.