Sketches: Shiba Puppies

(We have a shiba inu and are partial to the breed.)
Out of drawing and painting mediums, I'm the least familiar with coloured pencil. Actually, pastel. But coloured pencil is a very close second-to-last.

Coloured pencil. Moleskine 3.5x5.5 sketchbook.

Drawing: Baby

My daughter at 7 months old.

Graphite, 9x12 watercolour paper

Painting: Ronin

This was a wedding gift for one of my best friends, who had been asking me to draw or paint her something for the past 13 years.

Acrylic on canvas, 18x24

Sketches

Here are some sketches from my moleskine sketchbook (3.5x5.5) this past month. I wish I had more free time to draw. (Who doesn't!)

Drawing: Tea Breakfast

Gouache and ink on watercolour paper, 12x9. 2006.

Another old one. Between paintings, I build up some momentum by doodling. I liked the way this one came out.

Process 1

I thought I might document the process of one of my paintings in progress. Lately, my work is not planned out beforehand. I work quickly and paint the elements in as they feel necessary.

For this painting, I quickly filled a 16x16 canvas with an underpainting of wet blends and spattering. At this stage I paid attention to colour balance and how I felt in the moment.

1 hour into the painting.

Once the canvas was filled, I continued to layer spatters and washes, and added several texture elements. Most of this stage was done with a round #2 brush. I stood back from the painting several times and paid attention to the balance of everything. The dark patch in the left-hand side of the canvas started to look like trees, so I brought that out.

3.5 hours into the painting.

At this point, I glazed the entire surface with gloss gel medium. I've never done that before but wanted to accentuate the 'layered' effect of this painting.

To be continued...

Painting: Untitled

Acrylic on canvas, 8x10. April, 2008.

Painting: LOL

Acrylic on 10x12 canvas, 2006.

This work is another painting I did in early 2006 as I was getting out of my year-long creative block.

Painting: Lost in Lucidity

Acrylic, 12x12. Painted in the fall of 2007.

Painting: The Signal to Start

This one was painted in the fall of '07. Acrylic on 10x10 canvas.

I think I started painting this in late '05, with just the figure, and I left it on the shelf for a very long time because I didn't know how to resolve the painting.

Painting: Untitled

Acrylic, 14x12.

After I graduated from my B.F.A. program, I stopped painting for almost a year, doubting my abilities and being very sad about my creativity in general. I think it was the effects of my schooling - the last year pushed me very hard and I graduated feeling like my paintings were stupid, trivial, and had no place in the world.

That may still be true, but after a while, I just felt like putting some paintstrokes down on something. This untitled painting was one of the first things I painted after my year-long hiatus.

Up and Running

Welcome to my shiny new sketch blog.  I hope to post creative work here once in a while.  The first several posts will likely be old artwork.  Please bear with me as I get things going!  Thank you!