Another photo attempt

This one is from a friend's wedding this past summer. I was a bridesmaid but I took my camera along too. I wanted some pictures that could show how beautiful her flowers and her dress were.

Photographic attempts

Here are two attempts I recently made with my digicam. I think the angles are interesting. As to the value of one of my two cats as an art object, I think I had better let that one alone!

Of the two pics, I think the second is more successful. My composition is better, the contrast of the darkness behind the light fur draws the viewers' eyes into the image.

The result of gestures...

Gesture drawings are great practice for more serious drawings. Here are a couple of sketches that are direct results of plenty of gesture drawing and lots of drawing in general.























For drawing with pencil or graphite, I always have a wide range of art pencils available. The leads vary in hardness and the things you can do with art pencils as opposed to a regular HB pencil are pretty amazing. My favorites are the very soft graphite leads like EB or EE pencils. Graphite sticks also give a wider range of use than an HB pencil.

Another contour and some gestures...

I edited my pics and put one that was with contours into my gesture post. I like to draw random people around busy places, like the university I attended. The fact that they are oblivious to me and going about their business forces me to get them down on paper quickly. I find this helps my gestures portray movement or feeling more than if my models know I am drawing them and are posing for me.

Contour Drawings

The formal definition of a contour drawing is: The outline and other visible edges of a mass, figure or object. (from ARTLEX)

Contours for me are the essential shape of things. If you can draw the contour of an object and transform it to 2 dimensional form you can begin to see the shapes within the object. Contours are about line and not shading, and it is the thickness of line that gives the illusion of depth.

Here are some examples I have done.







The last two are from the same pile of orange peel. The very last is not a contour but I thought I would include it for interest sake. Many artists draw multiple variations of the same subject matter.