Mohonk Preserve Auction

Although, I did not attend the Mohonk Preserve's Annual Auction, I was sent photos of my work being a hit at the Silent Auction. I am thrilled that there were several bids on my drawing! And the winner was one of my volunteers from the Daniel Smiley Research Center! I am super glad it is going to a home that I know appreciates art and will take care of it!

theChristyBel

The Spring Peeper

On Display with My Biography at the Auction
Photo Credit: Wendy Toman

Preserve Auction Donation

On Saturday, June 10, the Mohonk Preserve will be hosting their Annual Auction at the Mohonk Mountain House. Last year, I noticed that a few staff were able to donate things to the auction that they made including artwork. Me, being a competitive artist, wanted to donate something to the auction and of course, show off my artistic talents! So I wanted to submit something that reflected the Preserve. I have been admiring many of the Preserve's volunteer photographers and wanted to draw one of their drawings (as long as I got permission). Submitting a piece of art that was 1). produced by a Preserve staff member; 2). inspired by a Preserve volunteer photographer; and 3). showcased a local fauna that can be found on the Preserve...definitely reflected the Preserve in many ways.

For the past month, I have worked on this drawing pretty much every night after work. It was a great brain break and it felt good to get my hands dirty with charcoal again. I definitely want to get back into my art on a regular basis and giving myself projects like this can get me back into the groove.

I cannot wait to see if the auction attendees like my drawing and hope they decide to make a bid on it!

TheChristyBel

The Inspirational Photograph of a Spring Peeper
Photo Credit to Renee Zernitsky

Phase One

Phase Two

Phase Three

Phase Four

Finished

Complete in the Frame

Objects Out of Context

For my last drawing assignment of my graduate career, we were asked to create a composition of an object out of context. This is sort of a synthesis of our learning: taking all of the techniques and strategies we have learned and putting them to a themed assignment. Our subject is supposed to be an object or thing that is placed or being used outside of its original or intended context. I decided to draw my Beta Fish in my morning smoothie in a blender. Do not worry, no fish was harmed in the creation of the composition. I'll get more into the creation in a moment.

So this composition was to be drawn from a still life, created by you, and to not draw from a photograph. We have been focusing on the principles and elements of design and so not only were we asked to create the composotion, but be thoughtfully aware and conscientious of the placement of our still life based on the principles and elements. Elements of design are the building blocks of a composotion: lines (types of lines), shapes (the positive and negative spaces and relationships), values (color and textures of our objects), and time (gesturally drawing quick). Principles of design include: balance (opposing forces), contrast (placement of opposing forces), emphasis (focal points and areas), direction (implied or actual directing), repetition (of colors, shapes, textures), scale (relation of one thing to another) and proportion (relation of parts to the whole), space (decorative flat shapes and 3-D plastic depth cues), unity + variety = harmony (visual linking of various elements in the work) and economy (doing a lot with little, gestural and expressive actions).

This composition was triggered from an early morning routine of making a smoothie every morning before I head onto campus, feeding my fish and a lack of sleep from the constant go from school. There was one morning when I caught myself almost placing fish food in my smoothie (I blame that I was not fully awake yet). It then escalated into scaring me that I would one day place my fish in my smoothie if I was not careful. You can tell that my drawing represents making a meal and that something is not right about that meal; maybe that means it’s an early morning and someone is not really paying attention to what is going into the blender. Reflecting back on this drawing, I could indicate a more sense of time: include a clock showing an early hour, a fishbowl with no fish in it, or an empty coffee cup.

Step 1 - Quick Sketch

Step 2 - Adding Dark and Lights

Step 3 - Adding Details

Throughout the process of creating a fish in a blender, I focused on the following elements: line, shape, value, color, and texture. The variety of lines in the composition (actual: from the lines in the tile wall, the bottom of a cabinet, to the reflective lines in the blender; implied: the downward direction of the blender itself and the cascading from the blender to the plate of strawberries) portray direction in leading the viewer to areas of emphasis (ie. the blender and the contents in and around it). The shape and color within the composition was also emphasized. The blender and its surrounding ingredients were portrayed with darker tones, which created more emphasis and visual weight on the blender as the focal point of the drawing and gave an intense contrast in space from the foreground (blender) to the background (countertop). In addition to the contrast between dark (objects) and light (the countertop background), I repeated similar hues of gray and expressive hatching as a texture for the strawberries in the blender to on the plate. This also indicated direction from the blender to the plate or vice versa. The use of space within the composition was also emphasized: lots of overlap of the small ingredients in and around the blender; and there was a little bit of haziness indicated in the background to enhance the blender and its plate of ingredients as the focal point.

A Real Photo (with Beta Photoshopped In)
Photo Credit to Marc Sweet

Finished Composition

Gaining Perspective

Out of this drawing course, I can tell I definitely prefer to draw certain things and not draw other things. One area that I have been struggling with and feeling not so positive about is one, two, and three-point perspective drawings. Having focal points and making sure all angles are meeting up and having proportions is really challenging. I think another thing that defines my personal artistic and creative style is that I prefer not to draw man-made things, such as buildings and architecture. I personally do not find that visually appealing to me. But, I am really glad I tried it. If I work really hard and take my time, I can produce decent work, but I feel that my passion and drive is not really there. However, besides one, two, and three point perspective drawings, we will be going into my main out of comfort zone: Portraits! Those are definitely not my strongest, but we will see. Having an open-mind. So stay tuned!

TheChristyBel

Drawing a Pretty Face

The past week and a half, our drawing class, has transitioned from still-life objects to our peers and selves in portraits. I am not going to lie, drawing people is my absolute weakest drawing style. I am totally out of my comfort zone when you ask me to draw a person. However, through this course, I have definitely enhanced my observational skills of looking at things when I draw and have acquired new techniques and skills to approach problems when I draw. So, to be asked to draw portraits now, 3/4 left in the semester is a pretty good time to try. And after drawing friends and peers from class and around campus, I have felt more comfortable drawing people than I have ever before. Below are the examples that we were asked to draw: side-profile, frontal, and 3/4 portraits. Oh, and for our final, we were asked to draw ourselves. I know these are still raw, streak-like, and dark, but what do you expect for a beginner in portraits. I think based on what I have done so far, this is a great foundation and these will get better in proportion, scale, mid-tone, hues, and likeness. I need more practice; and from this course, I do enjoy drawing people now (I'd rather draw a person than a 1 or 2-pt perspective hallway or building! haha). But yes, I do see more people to be drawn in my future! So who wants to be my model?!!? 

TheChristyBel

Side Profile Portrait

Frontal Portrait

3/4 Portrait

Self Portrait

Creating Depth in Drawings

The first assignment back from spring break introduced us to creating, emphasizing, and exaggerating depth cues to enhance the illusion of deeper spaces in a drawing. We talked about overlapping of objects in a composition, vertical positioning creating layers, diminishing size of objects for indicating things farther away than others, brightening or blurring objects to create atmospheric perspective and focal areas/points, and converging lines indicating linear perspective. Shelby, our professor, created this huge shrine of stuff for us to draw from for this drawing assignment. It was actually overwhelming at first, since there was so much to look at and I was not sure what or where to draw. But using the picture plane cut out, I was able to narrow down the selection and focus on the bike right in front of me. If you see the composition up close, you can clearly tell the bike is incredibly crisp and detailed, and everything else has been blurred out with a huge soft paintbrush. By focusing and keeping detail in one object, this indicates and demonstrates depth by stating the bike is the closest thing in the picture and everything else is in the background.

Super interesting how to make my drawings more visually interesting and adding more depth or 3-D qualities into my 2-D drawings!

TheChristyBel

My Finished Piece!

Use Your Tones and Values

Still Life

This assignment was to be done outside of class - one of the two homework assignments, this was our midterm. Our midterm was to produce a 'Narrative Tonal Drawing.'

Working outside of class time, we were to set up our own still life using objects that interact to create an implied narrative or story. The set up of the objects should be placed in a way to show interaction, depth, and communication of an idea or concept to the viewer. We should use a variety of objects that have different local values resting on a surface, while one object should resemble some form of personal significance to you. I decided to go with some of my favorite things: art, skulls, and fossils, while of course emphasizing natural history. Also, we should use a single light source for the still life to create a strong cast shadow or shadows.

Once your still life was complete, we were asked to make a tonal drawing emphasizing the full range of tonal values (from white, grays, and black), an understanding of local values (the lightness or darkness based on the actual color), and a comprehension of the components of direct light and shadow (the lightness or darkness based on a light source). Not only are we supposed to focus on tonal values and local values, but use all of the other techniques that we have been building upon since the first day of class, such as: gestural, fast drawing techniques, starting from a middle tone and adding or subtracting tones, and using expressing and descriptive marks, like hatching.

Attempt One: Starting From a Middle Tone
Adding and Subtracting Values

I worked on this assignment, maybe for two-weeks (about an hour every night or every other night). It was pretty challenging as far as making sure the tones were accurate and were blending in with the background (which may have been the hardest part). Trying to capture fabric is really tough for me.

Attempt Two: Defining More Values

But I think it came out great. During our midterm critique, we will be able to get feedback from our instructor and peers to fix it up and resolve it even more before turning it in to be assessed before spring break. What do you think?

TheChristyBel

Final Product

Last Drawing Before Midterm

Thursday's class was sort of an 'in-class exam'...but not really. There were new still lives set up with an assortment of objects and knick-knacks to choose to draw. I swear, my drawing teacher knows I love animal skulls. There were a bunch to choose to draw from! Of course, I chose one!

Anyways, for the two and a half hour drawing session, it was our time to put EVERYTHING that we had learned within the first half of this semester into a drawing. So using gestural, fast-moving lines, to contour and line measurement with a viewfinder and sighting stick, to determining hues of light to shadows, and enhancing all aspects of tones through a gray scale. It was great!

I have been really pushing myself to see what my hands can do with charcoal. And at first, this drawing course was really challenging: I had not remembered what to do with charcoal, but throughout the past month and a half, my hands and self have gotten really comfortable with the variety of charcoal supplies and materials. 

The above left image is a picture of the still-life I decided to draw - hence the huge skull in the middle of the picture! And the bottom right image is a picture of the drawing I did within the 2.5-hr drawing class session and maybe about another 2-hours on resolving the piece and detailing it with highlights and small additions.

And I swear, my hands are pretty much permanently engraved with charcoal dust in the fine lines of my fingertips! But I am completely okay with it! This drawing class was exactly what I needed for this semester. It is great to stand or sit there in a quiet studio, place some head phones on, and just draw what I observe. It's beyond what I NEED. This class is also enhancing my scientific observational skills. And I thought my skills were pretty efficient. My instructor has pointed out many things I am missing in the still lives he has us draw. It's been a great eye-opener to perfecting my already acquired skills. I feel my art is going to be much better, beautiful, and more detailed! I cannot wait to put this to the test this summer!

But yes, here is the mid-semester update and my last assignment before Spring Break...next week's classes before break are critique and portfolio submission. So there will be no more drawing until after the break...at least for class. Can't guarantee I won't be drawing during break...in fact, I plan to!

Enjoy.

TheChristyBel

Finished Product

Casting Shadows in Drawing

Today's class was about identifying light and shadow within our drawing. Our still life for this lesson and assignment was on a bunch of objects that were already 'white.' This was cool, because the objects were not pure white, they were smudged with charcoal, off-white, and made of different white materials. Then, when our instructor turned off the fluorescent lights, well that's when we saw all the different shades within the gray scale. 

This lesson portrayed the importance of how a light source can affect an object. Learning about how to identify highlights, light tones, half tones, base tones, reflected light areas, and cast shadows was really fascinating. I did not know there were so many forms of light components on an object. 

The instructor also taught us a really cool tip in making sure you are covering all these components and values in your drawing - start with the half tone. That means, cover your entire paper with vine charcoal - this gives you that half tone you need for most of your drawing. Then by using an eraser or conte white pastels you can make areas lighter to completely white and using compressed charcoal and conte black pastels, you can make areas darker or completely black. What a great tip!!!!???!!

I think my time-frame was pretty efficient. I completed the entire drawing within the 2.5-hr drawing in class session and then took it home to add the highlights and details (maybe another 1-hr of work). Not too bad! The above right photo is the actual still-life in a photo I took (clearly, I take a photo of the still-lives I do, to compare and contrast my observational skills of the actual still life to my drawing). Below is a transitional drawing (left - still in the progress) and my final (right - completed).

TheChristyBel

Permanent Dirt Under My Fingernails

In my Drawing I class, our first homework assignment is a 'Measured Contour Line' drawing. In class, we've been practicing still-lifes with what our instructors have set up full of odds and ends where we would draw the outline shapes in various thicknesses and pressures to capture the still-life. The process of this drawing is that you start with a rectangle representing your picture plane that encompasses the composition of the drawing. You use a view finder or a mental picture frame to create the range of what you will draw. Then you work with light gestures (something I am struggling with) that uses diagrammatic lines to sketch out the general placement of parts and scale relationships. Diagrammatic lines are the skeletal, gestural, lines that provide a transparent construction of what you are drawing. So, lines overlap even if they do not belong to the same object. You draw lines through objects and surfaces and think about constructing the objects and surfaces of the still life transparently. You can use the vine charcoal for this.

Once you have a light, general gesture, you refer back to your viewfinder and a sighting stick to begin correcting and refining the placement of parts and spatial relationships within the drawing. The sighting stick uses the clock tool to measure angles, as well as the Mondrian tool or the 'grid method' to better locate the placement and relationships between the parts and objects. Continue to use the vine charcoal because it's forgiving and can erase easily. After you are satisfied with placement, scale, and proportion of the drawing you can start increasing pressure and using compressed and harder charcoals, making darker and bolder marks and lines. 

When you are close to making a clearer layout of your drawing, you can start refining lines and line quality. This mean being specific to the edges of the objects and modifying line treatment in the inner and outer edges of forms. I have never used so much eraser before until I got to this class. (I actually need to buy more pencil eraser refills!) Erasing through refining lines create clear contours.

Within this exercise, not only did it help us work on scale, proportion, and placement, but it encourages us not to work 'part-to-part' or working on one object to the next. By working fast and light pressure gestures you can capture a foundation then refine (another skill I'm working on). Below are photos of my homework assignment - working on the same techniques and processes, but using a still life I created at my apartment. Enjoy.

TheChristyBel

Looking Through the View Finder

This Was My First Attempt

This Was My Second Attempt (With More Cross-Hatching)

The Finished Product

Learning Values...in Drawing

 Today we learned about values and shading! My favorite part of drawing! This was a super cool exercise we did. You cover your entire paper in a middle tone gray (mostly vine charcoal and maybe a layer of compressed charcoal). Then we examined a photo placed on the projector. Originally, the photo we were going to be drawing from appeared incredibly blurry. But the objective of the class was to not draw exactly what we saw, but to focus on the various intensities of dark and lightness. So, we use compressed charcoal to emphasize really dark areas (additive areas) and then use our erasers to emphasize really light areas (reductive areas). After each session, our instructor would focus our photo more and more until he showed us the focused picture. It was really cool. Our instructor stated that if he just shown us the picture, we would go straight to one object (can you guess it would be the cow on the bottom right) and not focus on anything else. He wanted us to capture the dark, light, and middle tones of the image first. This drawing is not done, but it was pretty interesting to make. I kind of like it unfinished!

TheChristyBel

Cruisin' With Charcoal

Let me just say, I have not touched charcoal (maybe in a formal class) since senior or junior year of high school. Mrs. Yarnall would be incredibly proud I am taking advantage of these art classes here at UW. Although, I really wish I stepped this up when I was at Delaware. Oh well, I'm doing it now, and that's all that matters.

Day Two: Basis Drawing

I believe we have had 6-classes already. From the time I got into the class until now, Shelby, our professor has had us drawing for majority of each of our class sessions. It's great! He plays really awesome music and I just get into the zone.

Day 2 - when he asked us to bring in all the required materials (which I left a lot home...or the supplies I did have were not the right materials...so that meant a pretty penny at the store. Bah), he asked us to draw what we saw on the tables. The tables were covered in colored balls, bottles, sheets, knick-knacks, pots, and fruit. We took the entire, or well majority of the class just drawing what we saw. To your right, is what I had done in that one session. This drawing is our basis of our transition and progression in this course. Shelby will assess how we have progressed in our drawing based on this one drawing. I thought I did decently well for the amount of time we were given, but in reality...he said they were ALL terrible! bahhhhh! what?!?! That was something I had not heard in a while! But I mean, I'm coming into this class with open mind and to perfect the technique I already have. So.... we will see!

Day 4: Getting Acquainted with Materials

I believe this was Day 4: The next drawing is when we were learning how to use our materials and quick sketch our observations. By using different pressurized lines, you can gain shape of the subject you are drawing. Once you have that, you can go deeper and detailed into your drawing.

I'm really liking this drawing class. Charcoal is not a strong medium for me: clearly, if you look at past work I am a Pen & Ink artist. But...this will make me that much a damn good one later on! These are the only drawings I have so far in this class' portfolio. More to come, this semester has JUST started.

Charcoal On!
TheChristyBel