Piece of the Week...

So for the piece of the week, this is more of a pre piece of the week. I don't know what a lot of other artist's sketch books look like, but this is what one of my sketchbooks looks like.

 There's a lot of writing in my sketchbook, also there's generally a lot going on, I'll just use the space where I find it.  The writing at the top of the picture is from months and months ago The colored picture is from yesterday...

 I started doing this about a year ago where I do a little thumbnail of a piece to keep track of a series (this is the Genesis series), that way I can easily know how many pieces I have, if they've been finished, started, etc. if there's a title I write that down and maybe a note or two about what was behind the piece.

 I sometimes use colored pencil to either better capture the idea or experiment with possible colors.

Also like I said above, I go all over in my sketchbook and there's not really an up or down, I start from the front, the back, and use any page direction that's convenient.
Somehow I would guess that many people's sketchbooks look like, and not all of my sketchbooks look quite like this but there are a lot of similarities.

patterns unlocked

I have been wanting to use this pattern for a long time but I haven't been able to figure out how the pattern works. On Wednesday I came across a picture on the website for The Prince's School of Traditional Arts. Which gave me a starting point for figuring the pattern out. This was my first attempt after looking at the picture.

It was not a great attempt, but after looking at it more closely I was able to replicate the first piece of the tessellation (is there a term for that?).

After making the beginning of the pattern I had a hard time figuring out how to make it tessellate, short of cutting it out and using a pattern. There's a lot of extra lines and circles in the picture above from failed attempts.

After more trial and error I seemed to be on the right track, except that my page was too small.

On the bigger sheet I was able to make the pattern work! In this post it doesn't seem so exciting but it's been very exciting for me to finally have figured this out.

Tip: patterns like this have a lot riding on accuracy and so I use the attachment on my compass that lets me use a mechanical pencil so that the lines are small and accurate.

Let me know if you'd like more info on how to draw this pattern.

Piece of the Week

I was really excited about this piece when I was making it and then didn't love it so much when it was done. I was really excited by the possibilities to the pattern and really I suppose it's more of a pattern study than a finished piece. After giving it some time I've decided I do like it and I'm still really excited about the pattern and how it sort of changes depending on what you focus on.

 Watercolor and Sumi ink
9x9in
2011
Series: Hex

I was going through older posts and found this picture from the National Museum in Rome and I think I'll be making my own version of the design in this mosaic.

Piece of the Week

It's time again for Piece of the Week. I've been working on a new series and maybe one of these days I'll share that news series but for now here's a piece from a different new-ish series which has sort of been put on hold for the moment.Untitled
watercolor and sumi ink
9x9 in
2011
Series: Hex

I wasn't really sure what to call this series, but I've been calling it Hex in lieu of a better title. The idea behind the series was to really focus on geometric and Islamic designs, I decided that one way to do that would be to pick a number/shape and explore all the possibilities with it and then possibly do the same with other numbers/shapes. What I mean by 'number/shape' is that the patterns and designs would all be based off, in this case, the number six which is a hexagon or hexagonal shapes in the geometric form.
I didn't get very far with this series idea before my attention was turned elsewhere, but I hope to continue with it.

Yesterday when I was working I decided just to take a piece of paper and my compass and ruler and to see what I could do, I didn't have any plan for it, I just drew and saw what I could make. It was a really fun and liberating feeling just to be experimenting in a sense, not working towards a finite goal. I found some things that worked and which I'll use again and other things which I didn't like.


After I finished my line drawing I added some color, I didn't color or shade carefully I just put down the color. This isn't a finished piece, just an exercise.

Here is the almost finished product of the circle pattern study, quite a change from it's beginnings.

So a while ago I started drawing and with one thing and another I just now finished it. As I was drawing I was reminded that one, it's really better to draw with one source of northern light rather than one or two sources of southern light, northern light is more consistent; and two, that it's better to do these sort of drawings from life in one go if at all possible because then you don't have to try to replicate the set up that you formerly had.

detail

The study continues. I decided to take another shot at what I started out to do when I ended up with this. When I got the final product, I didn't really care for it as much as I had thought I would and so I decided to add some color. I don't have pictures yet of the colored final product but is interesting to really pay attention to how various elements will effect a piece.

I really like the pattern of four circles overlapping one, but it is very different visually when the sections are filled in. With sections filled in the pattern is bold and graphic it's different and it's not really what I'm looking for but that's what what a study's all about I suppose. It was interesting to see the difference in it when I made the background green, also, note to self: pay attention to how the pattern lays out, and whether there's half the design hanging off. On the plus side of this study, I've been wanting to use color for a while but not to paint, which led to the use of prismacolor pencils and I do like the jewel tone colors. I apologize for the blurry photo below, I would love to be a great photographer but I am not there yet.



I went through most of my time studying art not having any one clear definition of art, this may seem strange, I'm sure that in almost any other branch of study the course of study would and could be clearly defined but to ask the definition of art, even or perhaps especially in an academic environment is likely to produce a heated debate because just about everyone in the room has their own opinion and most of them do not match up. I have adopted a definition offered me by my mentor, who was reluctant to offer it, I think it was one of my last years of school that he named it: art is craftsmanship plus inspiration. I feel good about getting behind such a definition, I don't really care for the phrase "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" taste may be in the eye of the beholder but whether one loves something or not does not change it's beauty. An example, both farm land and red rocks can be beautiful sights to behold, after driving through either for long periods of time I'm not crazy about either but that doesn't change the beauty that's there. I'm not crazy about tapestries or needle point but there is, or at least can be, real craftsman(woman)ship involved in making them. Right now my work, by the above definition is not art, it could be craftsmanship or in some cases, as the piece photographed, not even craftsmanship. Not every piece I make has to be art, but I hope that as I progress I will make fewer pieces that are craftsmanship or less. I'm starting out and even prodigies (not that I am or was one) must progress or they go backwards. Some things to think about for me and anyone who reads.