Roz Wound Up

It's Indoor Dog Park Time Again

Above: Not a dog-park sketch. This quick sketch using Stabilo Tone dry is a practice sketch of a friend's Cairn Terrier. I was at dinner at another friend's and the dog owner brought her two pups. (I love that my friends invite each others dogs over!) I thought it would be rude to sketch during dinner so I took some photographs which I put up on the computer screen the other night so I could try to learn the shape of this dog, the better to draw him from life the next time I see him (which I hope will be soon, he's very cute). Click on the image to view an enlargement.

The topic today is DOGS. (OK, most days the topic is dogs in my world, but today it is at the front of the list.) The indoor dog part at the Metrodome in Minneapolis is open again for the winter season (the link will get you to their calendar). The December date passed without me realizing it (it was just too warm in November and early December to think about indoors anything—I've only just put the bike up on the stationary gadget!). January 7, February 4, and March 4 are the remaining indoor dog park dates; 5 to 9 p.m.

Regular readers of the blog will remember that I wrote about this dog park last year. It can be a crazy experience even for someone like me who regularly draws in public. The dogs move quickly and rarely sit still, the noise at times is joyously deafening. But it seems to me if you love dogs, and love drawing dogs, then it's the best place to practice in the colder months of Minnesota winter. (Read that earlier post to get an idea of what to expect.)

Best of all entrance for non-dog handlers is FREE. (And you wouldn't want to have a dog with you if you were sketching; there's a $1 cost for each dog; parking is free when you go in gate B.)

Journaling Superstitions #12: Art Papers Are Only for Painting

Above: Page spread from my current journal (8 x 7.5 inches approx.) made with Windsor & Newton 90 lb. hot press watercolor paper. I was out without my journal, tracking with a friend, and when I did sketch I did so on a sheet from a graph paper notebook I had with me (left). I glued it in to my journal when I got home, wrote my two columns of related text and then decided to paint the rest of the recto page with fluid acrylics because I wanted to “separate” that portion of the page from the other activities. The next day I visited a new puppy (Tucker) and included this happy accident photo where he’s a speed blur, in my journal with some notes about my visit. (Bottom right you'll see the paper's watermark. If you would like to see the cover of this journal see my "New Batch of Books" post; it's the book on the left in the back row.) Click on the image to view an enlargement.

This superstition is so, so wrong people! I would be rich if I had 50 cents for every journaling student who told me, during the course of one of my classes, that he or she couldn’t write on fine watercolor paper. “There’s something wrong about it. I have to save that for painting.” ETC., ETC., ETC.

Well, that’s just WRONG. Journals aren’t about saving paper for some special painting, epiphany, or skill level that you’re going to attain. Journals are for documenting your life and some of that documentation will take the form of text. (Or require that you stick something down on top of the watercolor paper [GASP], such as a photo, receipt, note, or even a sketch from a notebook like I did in the above page spread).

Dogs, Weirdo Journals, and Speed Series: Part 3

Left: Third sketch in my speed series of French Bull Dogs. Pentel Pocket Brush Pen and gouache on old Folio paper (no longer available) in my small and narrow (3.5 x 8 inch) weirdo journal. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

This was the final sketch in my speed series of French Bull Dogs on the evening of November 22. The previous two sketches are the subject of my previous two blog posts (Saturday, December 5 and Sunday, December 6). Today's image is the final spread in this journal, so it was the end of the series. If I had not been at the end of the book I would have liked two more sketches, but I was content to stop and do my "finished journal" dance. (That sort of disrupts the momentum of a speed sketching series!)

This image calls up one more point I want to share with you about working in a drawing series (whether you are working quickly or slowly and methodically)—vary your angles.

Move around your subject so that you see it from a variety of angles—including angles that you might otherwise not attack.

Work from those angles now, in a series because you are absorbing all the information you can about your subject and you want to view it from any angle. When you work in this mode in a speed series you will often find your mind, hand, and eye, quickly supply a visual understanding of something you've been struggling with. And if they don't, well they are one step closer to having an epiphany because you have put them on notice that they need to be aware of these things!

Dogs, Weirdo Journals, and Speed Series: Part 2

Left: Second quick brush pen sketch of a French Bull Dog in my small and narrow weirdo journal—the series was started to finish up the book. Click on the image to view an enlargement. (Note: you'll see some gray dots on the page spread which are actually areas of paint that have seeped through the paper. It happens rarely with the old Folio paper I love so much, but it is good to see it happen once in a while to remind me that even the "perfect" papers I can no longer get weren't perfect.)

In this second part of my Speed Series instructions I want to point out one of the main reasons I want to encourage you to work in your journal when doing a speed series. Your journal (if you've been reading my blog and experimenting with some of the techniques I present and discuss) will have some pages with pre-painted backgrounds or collage material already stuck down. Those are great pages to work on in a speed series because you have to adjust what is already there, just as I had to adjust to the blue painted background that shows up in the first image of this series, posted yesterday!

Then there are sure to be blank page spreads as well, like the one shown here. In the course of the speed series if you switch from one type of background to the next you will be increasing your brain's ability to think on it's "feet."

In the second brush pen sketch in this series when I turned the page and found the blank background I decided immediately to not use any paint, to simply sketch with the brush pen. It makes you think about your line quality in a slightly different way when you know you aren't coming back to shade or color with paint.

Focus instead on things like negative space (around the ears and chest, or chin, or in the ears for that matter). Here, one spread from the end of the book I'm finally getting my "sizing" right and while the nose falls in the gutter and that's not the most fortunate of outcomes, I love the proportion of animal on each page and what is leading off the spread in all directions.

So now go do another speed series in which some of the backgrounds are painted, some aren't; in which some are pen and watercolor or gouache, and some are just ink. Make your brain jump through hoops.

And if the series you did yesterday after reading my post already had those elements, great. Do another series focusing on a different subject. That's how it works.

Dogs, Weirdo Journals, and Speed Series: Part 1

Left: A sketch of a French Bull Dog in my small, narrow (3.5 x 8 inch) Weirdo Journal, using a Pentel Pocket Brush Pen and gouache over acrylic ink (cobalt blue) that was already painted on the page. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

I have a stack of art books I want to review on my blog but I have had little time to make my way through them, much less organize my thoughts. Some sort of list or series of posts about those books will come to you in the next several weeks, sadly, not in time for you to purchase them as gifts if you celebrate any of the upcoming holidays, but perhaps some new reading for the new year?

In the meantime I wanted to show you a few more spreads from the SMALL and NARROW weirdo journal I finished on November 22. (I'm now well into the new 8 x 8 inches or so journal and will have much to say about it soon.)

I think it is important to think in terms of series. I've said this before on the blog, but I can't say it enough. Series teach us something about our subject, our materials, and ourselves (our tastes, our determination, our frustration level, our current skill level, our goals…).

They can also be useful in rounding out a book in lickety-split speed so that you can go on to a format that is more welcoming.

On the other hand, working in a fast series within a journal will also help you acclimatize to that journal if you are having trouble with the journal—feeling it is too precious, feeling your work isn't going well, whatever!

Oversized Thumbnails and Studies: How I Start Thinking about Making a Dog Portrait

Above: My favorite German Shepherd Dog: Dozer. Pentel Pocket Brush Pen and Schmincke Pan Watercolors on Quattro gridded paper (8.5 x 12 inches). Click on the image to view an enlargement.

Visitors to my blog know I visited Dozer's home on Sunday to check out the new addition: Tucker, an 8-week old puppy! Well even though there is a lot of cuteness floating around in the air at Roseanne's household that doesn't mean I'm immune to the handsome features of Dozer.

When I returned home and finished my work I took a look at the photos I'd taken at Roseanne's. I had several nice photos of Dozer's features so I threw the images up on the computer screen and sat back with my 8.5 x 12 inch Quattro gridded pad and a Pentel Pocket Brush Pen and did a bunch of quick sketches. I consider them giant thumbnail sketches. They make me think about composition and organization of those features.

I threw watercolor washes on this sketch. The problem with painting a portrait of Dozer is that lovely sable coat of his. (It's no accident that I love black and white Malamutes.) This color study is all about finding a visual vocabulary to map, model, and represent that coat. It will be followed by many more color studies before I ever get to a final painting. I'm leaning towards using acrylics.

And I'll have to go back and visit Dozer to do some sketches from life—oh and isn't it convenient that I'll get to see the little guy! (A cunning plan if ever there was one.)

Puppy Breath: There is Nothing Like It

Above: Tucker, an 8-week-old male German Shepherd Dog, all set for adventure. Photo ©2009 Roseanne Carbone. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

"Be sure to breathe some puppy breath for me," called out Nan as she got into her car Saturday. We had finished tracking (I laid tracks for her 2-year-old Australian Shepherd Zeke, who tracks with joy, enthusiasm, and accuracy!) and chatted for a couple hours about matters dog and human. She knew I hoped on Sunday to visit our friend Roseanne who had just picked up her new German Shepherd Dog puppy, Tucker.

What is it about puppy breath that is so wonderful? The warmth, the sweetness, the rhythm of it. 

My First Day of Not Posting!

That's right, I'm not posting today. It had to happen one day, after all that daily posting.

It just wasn't happening on its own (as Jon pointed out the other day in a comment— "By the way you're still posting every day. Not that I'm complaining or anything."). I had to take matters in hand and actively not-post.

That's what this is. Get it? Why are you still here? Go work in your journal. I mean it. That's all I have to not-say to you today.

Oh, and this worried dog at the left is a Stabilo Tone sketch I made while watching Cesar Milan the other night. (Made in an 8-1/4 x 11.5 inch soft-covered Kunst and Papier drawing paper journal I keep in the TV room for such happy ocassions.)

Why aren't you sketching in your journal yet?

A Weirdo Journal

Above: A page spread from my new "weirdo" journal that I just started on October 7. I used Annigoni Designo from Magnani for the paper, and it's a Pentel Pocket Brush Pen sketch with whatever Holbein gouache I had sitting out on the china palette that late at night. I added the line of text after the painting. I had a bunch of cut lines and this one just fit. I also added the pink textured foil after painting because—well isn't that the coolest foil ever? There is also metallic stamp ink spread along the top and bottom of this journal page, but that is mostly hidden now. (I did restate some of my ink lines after painting.) Click on the image to view an enlargment.

I was watching "The Dog Whisperer," which is one of my favorite shows. I couldn't resist grabbing my journal when I saw this adorable Frenchie. (What is it with me and little dogs lately!?)

I have much more to say about this "weirdo" journal, including an explanation of why it's "weirdo." But in the meantime I wanted to share this little dog, and remind students from Saturday's class of this paper's name. I'll have more to say about this tan paper in a couple days. (See in the belly, or under "October, or at the right fore edge of the page for the tan paper color.)

In the meantime you can read about the paper here. If you can't wait to try the paper and are in the Twin Cities you can get SHEETS of this lovely paper at Wet Paint. (Don't buy pads.) But you also might want to wait and hear about the "weido" journal.

One of Those Days: Letting Things Go

Left: Journal page with dog sketch (dip pen and Ziller glossy black acrylic ink). Fortune attached before I got to the page. Gouache background painted after ink sketch. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

Today is the 10th month of more than daily posting on the blog. A tick mark on towards other goals. I had hoped to list a bunch of links from readers who responded to last month's "quiz" (about which blogs they read) but preparation for an art show (yesterday's opening was very well attended and great fun as well) and other matters intruded. It just hasn't been possible to pull that material together yet. It will come shortly.