Bald Eagle after William Turner / charcoal and chalk

This is my second try on a larger piece of sanded pastel paper. I think it looks better than the first one which I tried to draw on a smaller sketchbook. This time I took my easel and drawing board with the large paper  instead of holding a sketchbook in my hand like I did on the first try. It’s easier for me to work larger. Compare this sketch to my previous post and tell me if he looks better this time. I’m not sure if the proportions are exactly right, but not too far off.

I thought the sculpture was by David Turner but it was done by his dad, William. I can’t tell their work apart. They both make the most beautiful wildlife sculptures out there.

It’s great to draw the Turner guys’ sculptures. I think I see some kind of attitude in my bird’s face, but that could be my imagination because I was only trying to copy the bronze, not put my own personality into the drawing. With all that beauty out there for me to copy it takes the pressure off an artist to be “original” all the time. And copying some other artist’s masterpieces is improving my drawing skill slowly but surely.

Even if an artist tries to copy as closely as possible, they still put information about themselves into the drawing. I can’t avoid it. The savvy art viewer will see it. Know what I mean?

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Bald Eagle charcoal sketch

My model is made of bronze. This is just a start. I couldn’t draw small enough to fit the whole bird on the page so I want to transfer it to a larger paper and go back tomorrow if the nice weather holds out. When I go back I’ll make some corrections. I’ll finish the feathers more and draw white feathers on him. I should look up eagles to be sure because the sculpture doesn’t have the white feathers colored white.

There are so many beautiful bronze animals around here. This one is at Norfolk Botanical. I bet they’re all made by David Turner. I love that guy’s work. At Seashore State Park they have a beautiful red fox in bronze which I also want to draw.

I’m one of those artists who think there’s nothing more beautiful than nature and it should be represented in art as closely as possible to reality.

 

Japanese Maple / charcoal and chalk

I’m anxiously awaiting fall because I bet this little tree gets bright red. It’s my new favorite tree at Norfolk Botanical and I want to do a big painting of it this fall. My sketch book is too small. The tree is much wider and I can’t draw small enough to fit it on this paper.

I’ll go back with a full sized piece of pastel paper and my easel and try to draw it the size I want for my painting. Even though I’ll have to wait a couple months for the colors, I can start planning the painting and do a practice pastel. The tree is pretty and graceful all year round.

I was standing on the shady side so most of the leaves are in shadow, but you can see bright leaves on the other side of the tree showing through. That’s why the branches look so dark, because they’re shaded. When I paint it I’ll check the light at different times of day and decide what time it looks best. The path is small. If I take my easel and drawing board I can get it out of the way if a lot of visitors walk through easier than I’d be able to move my little oil painting set up. Maybe I can do my pastel in plein air and later mix my paint colors there too, but I’ll paint it at home so I can use a large canvas and tape my paintbrushes to a yard stick again. That made me feel as if I can paint loose like an Impressionist.

pastel studies of lotus flowers

The weather was so nice this morning. I stayed in the garden for a couple hours and wasn’t even hot!

I want to do one more sketch in plein air then I can paint at home. I’m getting set up to try again painting with my brush taped to a yardstick like Matisse. First I need to do charcoal sketches of my flowers and leaves larger with my charcoal on a stick. After I get some larger looser sketches I’ll be able to plan a composition of flowers, buds and leaves.

This lotus is wilting. They move a lot in the wind and sun. They’re never the same from one day to the next.

Lotus flower / pastel

This is the tall kind of lotus with the big leaves. I should make this leaf twice this size if I do it in oil paint. I didn’t take the right color pastels. It’s a narrow path and I took some pastels in a baggie instead of my whole pastel collection.

It’s getting too hot for me to enjoy standing around outside to draw. I have to get to the botanical garden when they open at 9 or forget about it because I’m not going out to draw when it’s over 85. At least I can get the zen vibe of drawing in for an hour or so in the morning if I get out early enough. Today the heat didn’t get to me until I was ready to do the leaf. It becomes impossible to concentrate when you get too hot.

I’d like to do more lotus studies and try to paint like Matisse again with the paintbrush on a yardstick. That was fun.

lotus flower and pelican on piling / charcoal sketches

What luck! I just happened to walk through the Japanese garden and saw lotuses are blooming! Sometimes I’m too late to see them. This one was especially nice because there’s a reflection in the water. I’ll go back with my pastels.

A few months ago I started a painting of the beach. My underpainting wasn’t working so I painted over it with gray. I want to try again with a beach painting. In this sketch you can see the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel in the background. Left is heading South through the first tunnel.. This might be part of my beach painting if I can get a good plan worked out but the waves there are small and the beach is narrower than the ocean front so I might not paint sand or breakers. I could use my sketch of the wind surfer in the painting.

A lot of birds were on the pilings but I only drew the pelican. I need more sketches before I can make up my mind how to go about the painting.

Ruby Spider Lilies / pastel study

Today I went back to the garden thinking I’d do more sketches of Chicks Dig It, but when I saw these spider lilies I was no longer in love with Chicks Dig It. I’m fickle like that.

That means I’ll have to sketch these a couple more times for my painting because each variety of lily has different shaped petals. Good thing I didn’t start transferring my sketch of Chicks Dig It to the canvas. I like to take my sweet time doing a painting, actually. Sometimes I wish I could just go there and go home with a painting but I never learned exactly how to go about painting in the fast way. Then sometimes I’m glad I’m slow to decide simple things like which variety of lilies to paint because I’d rather have a dozen sketches that I can throw into a flat file and one finished painting, even if it takes me weeks to do it. There’s not enough room in my small apartment for hundreds of canvases but I could find a place for hundreds of sketches. And every time I move, which has been frequently in the past fifteen years or so, I throw away a lot of paintings and give them away.

It seems like in the art world oil paintings are looked at with more respect than other media, but to me the sketching and drawing that leads up to an oil painting is necessary and just as important. And drawings or dry media of any type should be valued equally to an oil painting. But that will never happen.

Chicks Dig It / pastel study

The name of this variety of lilies is Chicks Dig It. Isn’t that a fun name?! I scouted the garden for lilies budding a couple weeks ago and saw the plaque with this name on it and thought it would be real pretty. Every day or so I’d check on it to see if it was blooming and today it is! My sketch has a few smears, it doesn’t matter. These flowers are only my reference for a painting.

I had to stand in the sun to sketch but that’s ok, I got there earlier and took breaks to sit in the shade. This is the lily I want to do in my painting. Now I have to sketch leaves and buds and a few more flowers but I’m almost ready to plan my flower layout. Finally making a decision on the type of lily is a big step in the project. I can fit maybe 7 or 9 flowers on the canvas that I have tinted and I want to put in a lot of buds too.

I like the wilted flowers they call “deadheads”. Gardeners are so quick to pull off deadheads. They probably don’t like me to paint them but I like the shapes they make so if there’s any for me to sketch I’ll try to get them in my painting too. I feel like if I’m going to paint flowers, leaves and buds why not paint the deadheads too?

orange lilies / pastel

I love my kneeded erasers. I have one in my hand all the time when I’m sketching with charcoal or pastel. It makes blending less tiring on my hand than a blending stump. To start with, I blob in a color in the general place and size I want my flower to be. Then I use my eraser to push that first layer of color into the paper. As I’m working on the general shape of the flower I’m erasing the extra pastel to define the edges of the petals and adding more color where the petals need to be larger, continuing to blend it down with my eraser. Then I go over the flower with a darker color to put in some shading. Then go back with a lighter color to add the light sides of the petals.

Yesterday it wasn’t supposed to rain until afternoon and I went over to the garden to draw. The sun came out for a little while and I thought I had enough time to finish a sketch before it rained. I didn’t get this sketch finished because it started raining before 11.

That’s ok. This is only flower drawing practice, like a color rough. When I do a finished piece I’ll have to do my background first and put the flowers on top of leaves. Since these flowers don’t look the same two days in a row I might have to work on the painting at home. If I do a painting at home the more sketches of flowers I have the better.

I still haven’t decided which variety of lilies I want to use for my painting so I need to do more sketches first. The more the better so I can get a plan worked out and arrange them for a good composition.

pink lilies / pastel

I don’t know the name of these lilies, I didn’t see a plaque. It was nice standing in the shade of the magnolia tree to sketch them. It’s getting hot and muggy out there this afternoon but I got started at 9:30 and it wasn’t bad standing still to draw.

I worked on this for 2. I/2 hours and took a few breaks to sit down on a shaded bench. I’m more comfortable standing up to draw because I can concentrate better on my feet and sitting down to draw makes my back tired. It’s harder to hold my sketchbook comfortably sitting down, since I don’t take my easel when I’m using my small sketchbooks.

I spotted two more places in the shade where I can draw yellow day lilies and some reddish ruffly oriental lilies. After I get those two varieties sketched I’ll pick the one that looks best and do a painting.