The drawing people trials begin again. You know, I never tried to draw anyone until my sophmore year in high school… in comparison I’ve been drawing plants since I was a little kiddo and animals since I was 8 or so. I have a few years of catch up work on portraits, people, and face type stuff. Bah. Sketch sketch sketch, practice, practice, practice.

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After I finished my daily drawing on the 4 1/2 x 5″ paper, I wanted to draw more. I cracked open my new sketch book and drew molly. She was doing that really cute thing where she curls up and tucks her head upside down under her paw. I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out. After over a week of drawing every day, like doing actual studies and focusing (most days), I feel like my hands and eyes are finally remembering what it’s all about.

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After gushing about how much I love my wacom tablet yesterday, I decided to draw my mouse and pen. Jason bought my tablet way back in the day for my birthday and was disappointed that I didn’t use it that often. Well, 3 years later I use it just about every day! It makes an amazing difference with my computer drawing skills – it handles so similar to drawing with a pen on paper – and with my wrist/hand pain. Using the little mouse pad on my macbook can really aggravate muscles.

I am finally feeling really comfortable using it. In fact I use it almost exclusively for my illustrations and most things related to Craft Leftovers Monthly.

Speaking of Craft Lefovers: I’m happy to report that I’m actually ahead in my posts! Amazing! First time ever! And at only 8:30pm I don’t have anything I “have” to do. So that means, finally, I’m going to get to work on Kro Studio.com. I have a great plan for the main page – a place to direct everyone who asks “so what do you do?” Kind of a portfolio page of sorts. Anyway, so I’m going to work on that tonight. I’ll let you know tomorrow if I make any progress or just get distracted by crochet (very possible as I do need to finish up a few patterns I’m working on).

-K

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Today I grabbed my little bottle of aveeno lotion and “go!” I’m having some issues iwth perspective that will just take focus and practice to get over. The thread from monday was the worst, yesterday a little better, and today even better. I’m finally remembering all those fun things like checking my lines, really Looking at what I’m drawing and not just drawing what I think I’m seeing, and oh yeah, perspective, haha. It’s amazing what that one point will do to line up a drawing properly.

75 Ways to Draw More

This is a great little zine on drawing I came across. I think on The Art of Nonconformity. It’s called 75 Ways to Draw More and was made by Michael Nobbs.

The really great thing about this, besides it’s fun content and illustrations, is that you can either purchase it (there are just 3 copies left that are signed and dated by the artist) or you can go to Michael Nobbs’ flickr set and download each page, print, and put it together yourself for free! How sweet is that? Pretty sweet I would have to say.

Oh and there is also a special offer and a contest and a flickr group! All links and information as well as how to get your hands on the zine are posted on his blog here.

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In other news I picked up a few books from the library on Monday – One on Triathlon training, one on oil painting, and one on artists’ sketch books. All three are pretty good, although the triathlon book is a little on the “light” side. I mean, with a name like Triathlon Training Made Easy, my expectations were pretty low. It does give a nice overview though and it has a nice stretching routine, so that’s good. The Oil Painting in 10 Steps is also, well, on the “light” side. But there is some good information and there are some nice beginner exercises which I’m going to run through. I’ll post a review of that book next week. The book on Sketchbooks, though, wow, that is a good book. I’ll snap some photos of my favorite pages and show those to you later this week. I wasn’t looking for it, but just came across it while looking for something else. I love that about going to the library.

After I finish going through the oil painting exercises, I will start re reading Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. I suggest this book for anyone who wants to learn to draw, thinks they can’t draw but have always wanted to, wants to teach their kids to draw but doesn’t think they have the “skills”, or just wants to get better at drawing in general. Once I get through it I’ll post a review as well as an overview of my drawing exercises done with the book – a few months from now I’m sure so don’t look for it next week.

Yesterday I picked up some linseed oil, palette scraper, and stretcher bars. I have to make due with the prefab ones until I get either an air compressed brad gun (doubtful) or a corner brace (more likely). Once I get one of those two things I’ll post about how to make your own stretchers for painting on. I think that, proper gessoing, and painting mediums were the three best things I took away from my painting classes and I want to share those with you.

And with that, the studio is calling. I’m going to make some lunch and go get my under painting finished up.

-K

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I have not done my 15 minute drawing yet today. I’ve been running around this morning trying to get out the door and failing. I’ll post it once I get it done later today.

See the difference the pencil made? That’s a 6B right there, hells yeah!

-K

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I think I need to find a more suitable pencil for this – 3H is not my cup of tea. I’m more of a 2B/4B girl. Tomorrow I’ll try out some different pencils. Sometimes, what’s in my hand is not alwasys the best tool, haha.

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Do you see that? That’s like 2 dozen story time media sets! And I picked them all up for free! It was just sitting in this box with a sign “free” on it when I just happened to be walking out of the library! Sweeeeeet!

I thought Jason was going to be ticked that I brought home another box of finds – but to my delight, he is just as excited about it as I am!

The hanging bag, the book for the reader, the film reel, and the cassette tape!

Oh the inspirational fodder!

Now how can I make this digital and put it into a slide show with audio and put it on on a website dedicated to my childhood library story time?

…for each cat thought itself the prettiest…

This is the film strip that they put up while the librarian reads or the tape plays. It is changed manually by pushing a button. Kind of like the turn the page chimes, but this way a whole group of kids could see the pages.

I really want to protect this, maybe put it into slide holders or something like that. Any suggestions?

I haven’t read through this one yet, but I’m sure it’s going to be a classic. Oh Library Story Time – it’s all coming back to me!

I’m really serious about wanting to digitally archive these somehow, any suggestions? What would be a good way to preserve the film? Should I mount them like slides? It’s not like they need the motion of film.

And what about the audio cassette tape? Aren’t digital recorders for cassette tapes kind of pricey. I wonder if I could somehow use one at the university or something. Hmm.

I already have about a million ideas of what I could do with these both as far as the preserved set and a copy set for working into art pieces…. ohhh… I can’t wait.

Speaking of art, I’ve been drawing again. Here are two sketches (on is a paint sketch) last night:

I have to admit, I’ve had a strange obsession with donut shops for a long time. Maybe it came from my childhood desire to eat every donut I could and not being allowed (thank goodness). Maybe it came from the quirkiness of each shop as it’s own little social mecca that I had no idea about until recently. I’m not exactly sure, but I can tell you there will be more donut drawings, paintings and maybe a few patterns to come.

I have a much larger plan, but that won’t be revealed until much later. For now you just get to see all the small pieces.

I’m making an effort to really pick up drawing regularly again. I can’t believe I’m so out of practice. Drawing from life is not the same as drawing from the imagination.

To embarrass myself into getting better, I’ll be posting self portraits regularly. I should be a speedy process because that drawing is really creepy. It looks like I’m missing my top set of dentures, but then I have this huge toothy grin – yikes. Maybe I should go back to studying some skeleton structures first, it’s been too long since I’ve drawn people.

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Ever wonder what it looks like when I’m working on a pattern? Well, when it’s sewn, it’s about like this. The thing is, all these little piles of cloth were pitched when it finally clicked. It’s all kind of working things out visually in cloth and then finally having it make sense. Last night at about 2 am I finally figured out how to do what I wanted to do.

You can guess what I’ll be doing for the rest of the day – working on clm! That’s right that little pile of cloth, sketches, and thread will soon be the project for the center fold in the zine. A little CanHam in a Can, haha.

Oh and an update. I added a “Classes” page to the sidebar where I’ll have all my current and upcoming classes that I’m teaching. So if you live in the central iowa area, make sure to have a look.

See you all later!
Kristin

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