Foreshortened Hand in Pen

Project #2 in the "Keys to Drawing" book: With one eye closed, make a rendering of your hand with the fingers curled up, thereby tricking your brain into only drawing what you see, rather than how you think a hand should look like. In this drawing I drew my hand, and then I did a drawing of my drawing. This exercise was fun for me, because the challenge of keeping one eye closed while drawing was pretty freeing. It's as if I know the drawing won't turn out perfectly, so I don't worry about it and just draw what I see.

A new drawing!

I started a new drawing book that I got from the library called "Keys to Drawing" by Bert Dodson. It's got some really great projects to try, and I decided that I'm going to do all of them.

The very first project is to do a picture of your own feet. I went one step further: I did a picture of my feet within a picture of my feet! I spent more time drawing the feet than I did drawing the hands, because the feet were the main focus, but I think I did a really good piece. Especially considering I did it all in pen. No erasing allowed!

In other news, my older cousin from Israel who's been traveling all over America has come to visit our family's house for the weekend, and I got to show her my whole notebook of drawings plus my work with Adam and our doodles together.

It was so much fun, not only to show off my mad skills, but also to go down memory lane. I've pretty much kept the same drawing notebook for almost 3 years, and I still have plenty of empty pages left! Hopefully I can rectify that by going through "Keys to Drawing" so I can finally have a finished work.

It's strange going through my notebook, drawing after drawing, doodle after doodle, phase after phase, and then come to a big old section of blank pages and say, "Eh, that's all I have so far." Instead I want to have a full notebook and at the end say, "And that was the beginning of my drawing career from Sept 2007 to (fill in the blank) 2010."

New Art Collection

First off, here is a bunch of doodles I did with my brother Adam. His are on the left, mine are on the right.

Added background info: Notice the heads of the cartoon mice Pinky & The Brain? We borrowed a DVD from the library and copied them from the cover.

Notice the tiny Phineas & Ferb heads? Those were from memory. I like to keep in practice drawing those 2.

Notice the lightening bug looking up at the stars and the cute little frog? On the 16th we went to the theater and saw the movie "The Princess and the Frog". If you've watched it, you'll know how special that lightening bug is. I just drew the frog from my imagination.

Now, here are a couple of drawing exercises I did myself yesterday. The whole homeschooling group first had to draw lines with different tools and name every tool they used. There were the conventional tools like crayons, pencils, pens, brushes, and pastels, but we also had access to napkins, toothbrushes, sticks, knifes, and our own fingers. This is the result of my experimentation.

Next, everybody had to draw self-portraits of themselves using mirrors and with the one rule not to erase anything. There weren't quite enough mirrors to go around, so Bettina and I had an idea: being twins, we were perfectly suited to draw each other, seeing as we look almost exactly alike. I drew this portrait of Bettina using crayons, so I would be sure not to erase anything.

Please leave a comment after reading this post. Any feedback is much appreciated. Thanks!

Beach Landscapes

Today my family went to the beach for President's Day. It was the first perfect day in weeks! Above 70 degrees Fahrenheit. My family hasn't gone to the beach together in over a month, and it was so nice to get back to the sun, the sand, and the surf. Not that we actually swam in the ocean; it was too windy. It was also too windy to play a good game of Frisbee, but we played for a good 15 minutes anyway and had lots of fun.

Sometime during the day, I just took a look at the wide open sea, how the sky turns from dark blue to light blue when it touches the horizon, and how the water looks greener the further away it is. I decided right there, "When I get home, I'm going to paint that!" And I did!

Believe it or not, I only used 4 colors to achieve these 2 paintings: Cobalt Blue for the sky, Green Deep for the ocean and shrubbery in the foreground, Burnt Sienna for the sand, and Burnt Umber for the palm trees.

Luckily I had the foresight to snap photos of my painting before and after I added in the palm trees, because both pictures are masterpieces in their own right. The first one is basic, creates a sort of isolated atmosphere, and is easy for anyone to copy. Before I could call it finished, I knew it needed something to make it stand out, so I would know that I put some creativity into my work.

The second one is the final product, and I'm very proud of how it turned out. When I showed my family, everyone loved it and said it was my best painting yet. Bettina said that the figure in the foreground looks less like a person and more like a trash can. I don't take it personally though. If I intend for the figure to be a person, than that's a person, but anybody can interpret it differently.

Please leave a comment and tell me what you think about my art, how it makes you feel and what it makes you think. Thanks!

Happy Valentine's Day!

In honor of Valentines Day, I started painting again! This painting is mostly an experimentation of blending reds and blues, and I also tested out my jar of masking fluid for the first time.

To make the picture much bigger, just click it!

I hope everyone had a good day today celebrating with the people they cared about and loved most, I know I sure did.

"All you need is Love"

~John Lennon

Phineas and Ferb Craze!

Okay, remember when I had that whole Animaniacs craze 1/2 a year ago? Well now I've gotten hooked on something else: Phineas and Ferb! Arguably the best Disney Channel cartoon show in the history of Disney Channel cartoon shows! I haven't been able to stop watching episodes of the show on YouTube, and it's so hilarious, with it's reliable running gags and precision comedic timing, and well-written characters and plots! Plus a new song every episode! The appeal is in everything! Oh, and the pop-culture references! Gotta love those! Well, at least I do. I know, I should really get a life.

But in the meantime, I've been doing a lot of drawing to, in a way, extract the cartoon characters from my brain and onto paper in an attempt to clear my head a little. It's actually pretty therapeutic. What do you think? Do I do these guys justice?

Cartoons. Even though they're not real and just made up of thousands of drawings shown in quick succession on a television screen, it sure feels like they think and act like actual people. Thank you to Dan Povenmire and Jeff Marsh for creating this whole new world of children's programming. The best part (or the worst part depending on where you stand on spending time watching cartoons), is that much like "The Simpsons", this show is still coming up with new episodes every week, unlike "Animaniacs". Gee, I hope "Phineas and Ferb" don't suffer the same fate that Yakko, Wakko and Dot had to go through back in the nineties. Cancelled just because it wasn't attracting enough of it's target age-group. Please let it be as successful as the Simpsons. Thank You.

Doodles With Adam

Hi! I'm back, and I brought my brother Adam with me! My doodles are on the left side, and his are on the right. Click the picture to make it bigger.

Last year, I noticed how Adam didn't have much opportunity to show off his artistic skills, or practice them even. So now, on most weekdays, he and I take a page out of my trusty sketchbook and we doodle together side-by-side. It's a beautiful bonding activity, and the both of us are getting much better at drawing!

Paper Weaving Art

Here is a piece of Paper Weaving I created in an hour or two this morning. It was really fun to do. I used an exact-o-knife to cut the slits and the stripes.

I just did it because I saw an example in a paper-crafts book and got inspired by the pictures of other weavings. Weaving is really a great activity that requires focus, but at the same time it's relaxing. And it stays creative while also being a repetitive task. How convenient! I might use this technique for a birthday card someday.

Recently I slapped together a couple birthday cards on short notice; one of them I witnessed being read by the birthday person, the other one was sent the old-fashioned way, so I'll have to wait until they come over to visit to get their reaction. Unfortunately I didn't take pictures of either of them, so as time will pass I will forget what my creations looked like, unless somehow they get saved instead of getting thrown out. I don't throw out my birthday cards.

I'm very proud of my creative abilities, yet I still get pleasantly surprised whenever I create something pleasing to my eye. I hope to continue to get better and better at creating art and learning new things and performing experiments just like I did today. Thanks for checking out my blog. Comment if you have something to share.

Mountains in Burnt Umber

Since my Uncle Danny left I've kept learning about watercolor painting. I've taken out instructional DVDs hosted by one Frank Clarke (check out his website, simplypainting.com), and I've adopted his method, "H", "S", "M", "F". These letters stand for the 4 elements in a painting, the Horizon, Sky, Middle-ground, and Foreground, but they can also stand for the words in the sentence "Have Some More Fun", which is what painting as a hobby is all about. I really like the usage of an easy-to-remember mnemonic device. Anyway, I copied this from one of his lessons, but I still think it's great, and all my family loves it. Instead of keeping it in my notebook like my other paintings, I ripped it out and fashioned a homemade frame out of a regular black office folder. It stands upright!

My grandparents are coming over this Friday, I can't wait for them to see my painting!

Watercolor painting with Danny

Here is the picture I painted with my uncle Danny. Not that he painted it with me, he did his own painting and I did mine. Here's mine. He-he.