Everyday Matters Challenge #69: Draw a Beverage

This is a drawing based on a photo that I took as we were waiting at this famous place in Venice, in a well worn leather upholstered booth, for this bartender to mix and the waiter to serve our anticipated famous beverage. It is one of those places whose history and legend far out-class its current state of overpriced drinks and tourist overrun-(all of whom are apparently seeking the same brush with the ghosts of bygone greatness as we are).
The whole bar area is paneled in a beautiful, deep orange-toned wood, including the art-deco clock. The single room is not very large and the low white-washed beamed ceiling adds to the period ambiance. Hemingway and others passed the time here in expatriate glory back in its heyday.
If you have had the good fortune of visiting the incredibly beautiful city in which this place resides, you might have stumbled across it like we did. The name of this bar is in the drawing itself.

Everyday Matters Challenge #187: Draw a Fan

This is a drawing of a fan we have in our attic loft, the proportions of which are so "off" that if someone had the ability to turn it on...they would mostly likely be maimed for life.

Everyday Matters Challenge #85: The Inside of a Store in Your Area

This is a favorite haunt. I managed to find one of the few remaining chairs. As the figures started to go down on the page, I felt like I recognized the guy on the left.
Sure enough, if you go back into my blog to EDM #133: Draw a Peach...I swear it's the same kid standing in line on the left.

EDM Challenge #9: Organized Chaos

This is my tool bag that I use to renovate houses, some of the contents of which change weekly. Its main function is to be a 'catch-all' for the tools, etc. that invariably 'float' around the shop and the job-site(s). I don't generally carry this around...and most of the time, it stays in my truck.

I decided to include the scan of the drawing before I colored it because, well, I liked it in its black and white state, too (and once it gets color, there is no going back!). In the finished, colored version, I used Tombow markers, Pitt pen (S, #175), graphite pencil-for the preliminary sketch, and some watercolor pencils (because I like the red better, for instance.)

EDM #167: Draw Something That Needs Fixing

...the building and zoning permit office, yes! And I know I'm not alone in this one: ask these two people depicted. I'm sure they have been here a lot longer than I have. Perfect subjects for a quick sketch in that-like me-they ain't movin'! Why do I know they aren't going to move? Because if their name is called and they aren't around, the plan reviewer will immediately skip to the next person. When they come back and realize that they missed their turn, they have to sign the call list again.
The potential for this happening is multiplied by the 5 different departments they are required to clear: plan intake, zoning, site development, arborist, and structural. But it doesn't end there, the permit typist and the cashier lines await. God forbid if you have to change something...or it's lunchtime.

EDM #165: The Front of My House

This is the front of my house from the one-lane street I live on. As you might be able to tell, it sits slightly down from the street. My wife and I designed and built it back in 2000, a life experience and result for which I am grateful on a daily basis.

I used Tombow markers, graphite pencils, and some watercolor pencils. I tried to use my trusty Pitt pens, but they wouldn't work because of the nature of the paper (architectural tissue paper) and the color pencil build-up. I think the disconcerting lack of dimension in the foliage is due to this. In hindsight, I would have done all the ink work and shadowing first, but I was experimenting with laying down colors first (after a pencil sketch). Two interesting things I learned tho' were 1) the Tombow 'blender' pen also blends the watercolor pencil marks, and 2) by using drawing tissue paper I was able to color some things (like the roof) on the backside of the paper. By doing this, the lines on the front side remained unclouded.

So...anyway, I am thinking that I might back off on the more concentrated pieces and try to just 'draw' a few of the EDM challenges without alot of complexity...and possibly more frequently. There are plenty of people whose work I admire doing exactly that...with great personal success.

EDM Challenge #141: Something with Bristles

It has been awhile since last I posted...continuing with the color exploration.
In Georgia, pine trees are ubiquitous; so, to draw pine bristles with a couple of pine cones amidst them is to capture the everyday of this part of the world.

EDM Challenge #153: Something in a Plastic Bag

Mark this day...something new is afoot: color...my first blog drawing in color. (...entering Oz.)

EDM #197: Draw a Remote

There has been some discussion about growing artistically through participation in the Everyday Matters Group. I can wholeheartedly attest to this phenomenon.
One of the latest challenge is to draw a remote. Just to illustrate the artistic progress that I personally see that I have made since joining in on the EDM challenges, I am posting this drawing of a TV remote that I did back in May 2007-the month and year I started this blog. (I didn't post it earlier because-in my naivete-I didn't think it was much of anything.)
It is one of the first drawings I did after reading Danny Gregory book: Creative License. Even though I had always thought of myself as a creative person, I hadn't really deliberately drawn much of anything prior to this. So, I guess I'm saying that-to me-there has been a rewarding progression in my own work-looking at this drawing and what I have drawn since, spurred on by my participation in EDM...so, thanks to all.

Now a year and a half later, however, I am in the equivalent of "writer's block". I look at the recent drawings I have completed (which I am very happy with) and I think to myself: "who did these?..."I don't have any recollection of doing any of these strokes or choosing those colors". It is an odd paradox to be experiencing, to be looking at my own drawings and feeling like they are the vestiges of some kind of 'creative wave' I caught at particular times but that-now-the 'wind' has subsided and the shoreline has receded...and how can one conjure or pursue something that seems to originate outside of oneself to begin with?
Don't get me wrong. I realize the potency of conundrums like this...and so be it if my drawing production level is on a slow burn. I know the key is to put oneself on the path through practice and to be willing to relearn everything with a beginner's mind...and to just outright claim one's talent; but...damn.
...just waxing about the artistic process, fellow artist.

(Originally posted Nov. 08, 2008)

Nonetheless, it hasn't been a total desert. I did do this 2 minute blind contour drawing of EDM #14: Draw the First Thing You See When You Wake Up in the Morning!
...yeah, right.

EDM #151: Free Choice

This is a still-life of a corner place in our living room.
I was experimenting with a water-soluble graphite pencil. It is obviously difficult to control the clarity of things with this particular art supply; but, I can definitely see the potential for some interesting effects.

EDM #110: Something with flames

I remember very vividly when this exhibition hall burned-in 1976. Back before I really knew anything about Buckminster Fuller, I was genuinely impressed by this geodesic structure when I walked through it during Expo '67 in Montreal. So later, when I saw the footage of this archetypal form on fire, I was mesmerized. (What a visual!)
Just the other day, I happened to be looking through an old publication from the seventies when I came across this news photo from that time. Through the act of freehand drawing it from that historical photograph, I was mesmerized again...such is the power of art.
(Apologies to fellow EDM'rs: this is not really an 'everyday' fire!)

EDM #148: Soothing

There is something very soothing about anticipating and then walking out to the end of a very long wooden pier, into the heart of a vast marsh with absolutely no one around...the sound of sea-birds and waves crashing onto a wild, sandy beach way off to the east. This is one such pier I traversed while visiting the beautiful coastal islands of South Carolina-during the cold Christmas holiday.

This drawing is very similar to another one I did several months ago. An unintentional series seems to be developing.