Exercises in Artistry--part 3 of 5

Sketching Our Intuition results and my supplies

Sketchbook Revival sessions have continued to be an integral part of "stretching my skills" each day. The sessions ended yesterday; but, will be available until May 18.

On Day 4, we were "Sketching Our Intuition" with Angela Fehr. We used three colors from  the watercolor paint set. We used a wide brush. I got enough water on the paper to practice letting the color run a bit. I also practiced moving the color around on the paper with the brush.

I learned that the dryer the paper, the harder the edges that can be created. For this exercise, we did no drawing. We put paint on the paper and let the paint guide us as to where to go next.

Vintage girl drawing

The second session on Day 4 was "Mixed Media Vintage Girl" with Toni Burt. I hadn't prepared my watercolor paper with a mat gel nor did I have the watercolor pencil she recommended. Instead, I used the side of a pencil to draw the face. Toni drew the eyes, nose, mouth first. She added the pupil, line under the mouth, nose and eyebrows. Next, she added the head and neck outlines. Last, she added the hair.  I LOVED her drawing technique. I've spent hours drawing a face and this approach worked so much better for me.

I liked what her collage looked like. I could see creating a crazy quilt background around a similar figure. I could couch ribbons, lace and threads to embellish it.

Quick observation exercise

Day 5, Susan Yeats lead us through "Object Observation: Quick Drawing Exercises." Using a variety of pencils, using a variety of markers and drawing the object from different view points was actually fun. I can't believe how quickly the time passed. A few times, she allowed us one or two minutes to draw. . .otherwise, it was 30 seconds. We also drew the object with a light hand, a heavy hand, in silhouette, tiny and big. . .We drew our object in every way possible!!! I had trouble drawing my

Drawing a bird in five easy steps

object to start with; but, by the time I got to the last drawing, I had improved! I was surprised at how many drawings I could fit on my page. Practicing does make a difference!

The second exercise on Day 5 was "How to Draw a Bird in 5 Easy Steps" with Julia Basenhardt. I looked at the bird she provided and thought to myself. . .sure, I can do that. . .well, honestly. . .I didn't think I could get close! I was SHOCKED that not only did I draw it; I also watercolored it!!!

The take aways from the bird exercise was to draw the head as an oval and then lightly sketch the body shape. We added the legs and added a bit of a "claw" for the foot. I liked that Julia encouraged us to draw a bit and let the viewer's eye fill in the rest.

To achieve the darker colors, I learned to paint in layers. . .I was surprised at the results!

Listening to my intuition

Up first on Day 6, Amber Kuileimailani Bonnici lead us through "Listen to your Intuition through Creative Practice." Her message to use was that your creation have messages. Write them down! She started us with some meditation cleansing breaths and as I was clearing my mind, I picked up on love as a message. Amber did too because she asked us to use LOVE as inspiration. I immediately thought of a book quilt I wanted to create using a heart so I started with a large sketch and then made a couple smaller ones.

Maybe I will make half squares triangles. Maybe I will use an ombre fabric. Maybe I want to figure out a way to merge two hearts into one. Maybe I will sketch some more and think some more. The point is, I hadn't thought about this project for several months!

The result of a mindful art experiment 

The second session on Day 6 was with Cynthia Hauk who lead us through "5 minute Mindful Art Experiments." She also started us with a few cleansing breaths. Her thoughts were to draw a circle and then fill it with whatever sort of doodle felt "right." From there we drew a larger circle and filled that one paying attention to any messages that we might have received. We could add color if we wanted. She had us draw a quadrant and use the following labels: Physical, Emotional, Senses and Mental. Next she had us write a few words that pertained to the label in the quadrant. Then we picked one word in each section and in the fourth section, we wrote a statement using the selected words.

In the mental/overall section I wrote, "I am learning to have fun as I practice becoming more free in my art." I can do it.