Cypress Inn

Cypress Inn, 5 x 7 in, acrylic on illustration board
Sydney Harper

This is a quick little painting of the cross roads at Cypress Inn, Tennessee, just across the Alabama border. It's actually more of a community than a town. In this part of the country, you often see these older buildings right along the road. Often they've been abandoned and overcome with kudzu. This particular building looks like it's being used. I painted this from a photo I took last spring. At the time, it looked in better shape than the previous time I saw it. I've always been curious to know it's history though. It's located close to the Natchez Trace Parkway.

I said it was a quick painting but I tried it several times before I got something I was willing to keep. I started out a few times in watercolor but quickly ditched those efforts and moved to acrylic. I don't often paint buildings so I'm trying to get more practice at it.

Speaking of photos, I came across a good method for organizing your photos in the Adobe Photoshop CS4 Classroom in a Book. I take a lot of photos for reference and other purposes. Finding them again can be a challenge though. Jay Graham proposes making a folder by date and subject and then numbering your photos by date inside the folder. For example photos of Yellowstone on June 20, 2008 would be in a folder called 20080620_Yellowstone. The photos inside would be named something like 2008_06_20_01 with the last number being the number of the photo. I do something similar. I make folders by subject with folders inside that by date. I may try to reverse that one of these days.

Finally thanks to Michael Nobbs' tweet, I found a copy of Harold Speed's The Science and Practice of Drawing on the Project Gutenberg web site. I did a little search and also found Walter Crane's Line and Form. The last book is focused mostly on decorative arts but there's still a lot of good information in it.

Week 6 Sketch Page

This past week has been one of those where I've been painting but I haven't been happy with any of my paintings. I'm working through it but let's just go right to the sketch page. We had to take our cat Katie to the vet this week. The first task is to sneak her into the carrier before she realizes what happens. She does not like to go to the vet. I almost had her in the carrier when the phone rang. Katie grabbed my back and wouldn't let go. I lost a bit of blood that day. It took two of us but we did finally get her into the carrier. I've also been doing a lot of knitting for upcoming baby shower gifts. The sketch is done in ink and watercolor with a little bit of colored pencil in the knitting sketch.

There have been a few links I wanted to pass along. Roz Stendahl has been posting a tutorial on eraser carving and printing. She's been giving some excellent information. I've learning a lot. She's up to Part 4 right now.

If you have a microphone on your computer, try out the voice drawing application at zefrank.com . I haven't had a chance to try it yet. I've got to dig out a microphone first.

Week 5 Sketch Page

2009 Week 5 - ink in sketchbook

Now I'm caught up with my weekly sketches. Last week I was stuck at the computer most of the week. It was a project I had been trying to finish for a while but kept coming up on a sticking point. I finally found a way around it. I also worked some more with my PITT pens. I might have to try out some of the other colors they have.

Week 4 Sketch Page and PITT artist pens

2009 Week 4
Ink and watercolor in sketchbook

I'm a little behind on posting my weekly sketches so I'll start with Week 4 and post Week 5 later in the week. Week 4 was inauguration week and Obama was on everyone's mind, including mine. This also shows what happens when you randomly add start adding stuff. You end up with random arms and heads coming out of Obama's chest and neck. But hey, the idea is to practice. Actually this has some good points. Portraits aren't my strong point since I don't practice them often. From that aspect, this isn't bad. The poor hand ended up short and stubby like a baby hand. Obama has much more graceful hands. I think I was hurrying a bit too much when I added in that arm.

This was also a practice piece for my new set of PITT artist pens. It's a set of 4 pens - superfine tip, fine tip, medium tip, and brush tip. I did this with the brush tip. The superfine tip doesn't seem that fine to me but when I compare it to my old pen, they're about the same width. I think the ink in the PITT pens are just blacker and more pigmented. I'm still getting used to the brush tip but overall I like them. I also did a quick sketch of Katie to try out the pens.

Virtual Sketch Date - January 2009 - Clementine

Virtual Sketch Date - Clementine by Sydney Harper
5 x 7 inches, watercolor and gouache

This month's reference for the Virtual Sketch Date was a peeled clementine. I decided to do this one in watercolor with a touch of white gouache at the end for the stringy bits. I don't like to use masking fluid and gouache seemed like a better choice. I had fun with this.

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See all of my Virtual Sketch Date posts.

Week 3 Sketch Page

2009 Week3
Ink and watercolor in sketchbook

Last week's sketch page is kind of dull, I'm afraid. The only thing happening was the weather, but at least the sun came out. That's what everyone was talking about. I was going to enter the Different Strokes from Different Folks but I decided to abandon my painting before it was finished. I'm fascinated by buildings but I'm never happy with my paintings of buildings. Obviously I'm searching for a different look for them but I just don't know what it is yet. I'll figure it out one of these days.

Clint Watson has an interesting blog post by Keith Bond on making time for art. I know making time for art is always a struggle for me. Even if you never want to do art full time, there are some good advice and suggestions in there. It's easy to get caught up in things that aren't that important if you don't make a conscious effort.

Katie Cat

Katie Cat , pencil in sketchbook
by Sydney Harper

I've been wanting to paint our cat, Katie, for a while now. So lately I've been working on some compositions. This is probably the one I will use. There's not a lot of detail except in the face. Mostly I just wanted to get the primary lines down. The face is where I have the most trouble, so that's where I focused my attention. I drew the eyes several times before they looked right, where I could look at the drawing and say "That's Katie cat."

Week 2 Sketch Page

2009 - Week2 - Sydney Harper
Ink and watercolor in sketchbook

I had a hard time getting back into any kind of routine this past week after my time off at Christmas. All of the rain we've had lately hasn't helped either. The week started with rain and ended with rain. The sun did come out for a little while. I went to the Army Surplus store and found a bag that should make a good sketching bag. It's 10 w x 10 h x 5 inches deep. It had pockets inside that look to be a good size for brushes, pens, pencils and such. When I went to purchase it, the guy at the counter said a lot of women had been buying them for to use as purses. I'm also very pleased with my little sketchbook. It's an inexpensive Daler-Rowney Cachet sketchbook with cream colored pages. I think it's the field sketchbook. It works well for pencil, pen and watercolor. It's not watercolor paper but it's not bad for a sketchbook.

I'm still going through my Photoshop Classroom in a Book and learning a lot. I don't think I would be learning this much if I was just trying to learn it as I used it. Right now I'm about halfway through the book. The examples used for the lessons cover a wide variety of uses too. I'm enjoying it and I think it will pay off in the long run.

New Year, New Start

First week of 2009, Sydney Harper
pen and colored pencil in sketchbook

Rick and I have been off between Christmas and today. It's been wonderfully relaxing and much needed. We've all been doing a lot of sleeping but I think we needed it. Tomorrow it's back to the routine, though. I'm starting to feel a little restless so I guess it's just as well. I decided that I would do a weekly combo sketch. I may not do it every week, but I like the idea. I'm ready to move on to a new year. Last year was an okay year and ended on a good note, but I'm hoping for a better one this year.

I'm taking Christine Kane's advice and picking a word for the year. My word is Delight. I hope to find delight and give delight to others this year. Then to take it a step further, I decided to keep my goals simple too.

Enjoy
Be Creative
Make Money
Promote
Participate
Be Healthy

Obviously I don't have complete control over all of these, such as money and health, but my plan is to do my best. I have more specific plans for the year but I want to focus where I'm headed rather than specifics. One thing I want to do this year is learn Photoshop and Illustrator. I've already started learning Photoshop with the Adobe Photoshop CS4 Classroom in a Book. The instructions are good and I've having a great time with it. I don't know how it compares to the other books that are available but this one has been easy to follow. I've been moving through the book at a pretty good clip since I've been on vacation. Once I finish this book, I'll move on to Illustrator.

Segments: Armadillo

Armadillo, 9 x 7 in., watercolor
by Sydney Harper

I decided to apply the technique I used for the trilobite paintings to a painting of an armadillo. Armadillos kind of remind me of trilobites in a way. I've decided to call this group of paintings "Segments". I'm having a blast with these. Most of the work comes before the paint is applied. Applying the paint also allows me to experiment with different palettes. I'm sure I'll try more of these, just to see where it leads me.

After tomorrow I'll be off work until January 5. I am so looking forward to this time off. I'm really tired so it's been a struggle to get through these past two days. I plan to spend the time relaxing, getting my life in order, and doing some painting and sketching. I never get as much done as I plan, but it will be a nice change of pace.

Virtual Sketch Date - 13 Dec 08

Watercolor on tan paper, 8 x 5 inches
Farm in Lehigh Valley, PA

I seem to have fallen into a trend of using the Virtual Sketch Date for experimentation. For the December Virtual Sketch Date I experimented with limited palettes. Actually I prefer to use a limited palette of three to five colors. It just works out better for me. I did this watercolor sketch using a two color palette with a warm red, a bit of complementary color and some white for the snow. I have plenty of watercolor paper but I was in a hurry, so I just grabbed some tan paper rather than make my own toned paper. It's not meant for watercolor so it buckled badly at the bottom where I used a lot of water. In spite of that, I really like the way this turned out. I also did one on the same paper with a cool palette using a blue and a bit of red as a complement. I kept the water under control on that one so the buckling isn't as bad. I like it too, but I like the warmth in this one better so I put this one up anyway. The other one is up at my Flickr account. This was a lovely reference to use. I enjoyed working with it.

I'm not sure what it is but I'm having a hard time finding free time lately. Something always seems to come up to keep me from spending time on the things I would like to do. I guess part of it is the holiday season and the rest just falls into the "stuff happens" category. We'll be taking two weeks off at Christmas so I should have more free time then. I am so looking forward to it.

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See all of my Virtual Sketch Date posts.

Virtual Sketch Date - November 2008

pen and ink in sketchbook

I've been reading Stephen Quiller's book Color Choices
so I decided to use this month's Virtual Sketch Date to do a limited palette study. I'm enjoying this book, especially the way he does several studies of the same scene using the same palette and creates different effects. The book also includes a nice color wheel. He starts off with monochrome palettes and gradually adds in more colors.

This month's reference photo was provided by Jeanette Jobson. To keep myself from following the photo too closely and getting caught up detail, I made a quick sketch of the photo (above). Then I did the painting mostly from the sketch. While these aren't colors I would normally pick, I got a lot out the experience. Here's the final study. I'll have to live with it a few days to see what I think. I'll experiment with other color combinations though.

acrylic on illustration board, 8 x 10 inches

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See all of my Virtual Sketch Date posts.

Last Three Peppers

Last Three Peppers, 6 x 5.5 inches, acrylic on gessoed watercolor paper
Copyright - Sydney Harper

When I grabbed that last eggplant a while back before our first frost, I also grabbed the last three cayenne peppers. At the time, they were still green with just a hint of red. I wasn't sure how they would ripen and dry out, but now you can hardly tell them from the others. The background looks a little brighter on my monitor than in real life. This is another acrylic painting that I did on gessoed watercolor paper samples. I liked working with this one much better than the previous sample. I don't know if my technique was better or the paper made the difference. The paper is 126 lb. Archette CP. I'm not even sure they still make Archette. It was a fun and quick little painting. Basically I tossed the peppers several times until I got an arrangement I liked and went from there.

Twyla Tharp on Creativity and Success

Just a short post so I can sqeeze in some painting tonight. I found this video today and just had to pass it along. There's a lot of good advice packed into a little over three minutes. I have Twyla Tharp's book The Creative Habit and I love it. I keep going back and rereading sections. I like her ideas for inspiring creativity and her practical advice. In this video she discusses creativity, success and failure, and money. I particularly like the part where she talks about the goal of creativity to make money versus creativity because you want to create something. Well she says it better. Here's the video.

The Last Eggplant

The Last Eggplant

6 x 5 inches, acrylic on gessoed watercolor paper

Copyright - Sydney Harper

I like gardening but it really isn't a big priority for me. I had a small vegetable garden this summer but I started to forget about it as the weather got cooler. I went out the other day to clean it up a little bit and discovered it was doing quite well. Since we had our first serious frost last night, I went out and gathered up the last of the vegetables. This almost perfect little eggplant was one of them and I just couldn't resist painting it.

The painting is on a small piece of gessoed watercolor paper. Years ago I bought a sampler pack of watercolor paper and a pack of oriental paper from Daniel Smith. At that time, you got a huge variety of papers but they were small pieces. Now you get a smaller variety but large sheets. I've been using some of the oriental papers but I had forgotten about the watercolor papers until I found them a while back. So I took a couple of the sheets that I knew I wouldn't use for watercolor and applied some gesso. This particular sheet is a little thinner than I'd like but it worked well. It's a quick little painting but I'm pleased with it.

Cicada Sketch

Cicada, colored pencil
by Sydney Harper

I was doing an end of summer porch cleaning the other day and came across a dead cicada, in almost perfect condition. I couldn't help myself. I had to bring him to sketch. What, you mean everyone doesn't save dead bugs they find on the porch? I finally got around to drawing it yesterday. It was a little bit of an awkward angle but it still worked out okay.

While I was drawing this, I remembered a web site I found a while back. It was one of those times when I found link on a blog and then found another link and, well, you get the picture. Often I see people wanting to know the best way to prepare images for the web and was to protect their images. Science-art.com has a tutorial on preparing images for the web and another on protecting images. The instructions are geared towards images placed on their own site but I think the instructions could be easily adapted to your own situation.

Other than that, I've been very busy the past couple of weeks. Things are just now easing up a bit so hopefully I work in more art time.

Trilobite II Watercolor

Trilobite II , 7 x 10 inches, watercolor

I had so much fun doing the trilobite watercolor the other day, that I just had to do another one. This is a different trilobite, stylized again. I decided to give this one a more watery color scheme. I've got an idea for a similar one, but with a different animal. The planning has been as fun as the painting.

Radio TV Hospital

Radio TV Hospital
9 x 12 inches, acrylic on panel

I started this painting a while back when I wanted to try out some gessoed panels. The subject is a tiny oddly shaped building near Pope's Tavern in Florence, Alabama. It used to be a Radio TV Hospital. There was something about the odd shape and the broken sign that appealed to me. In reality there were a lot of houses around the area but I decided to simplify the painting so I could focus on the building. I might do a little more tweaking but basically it's finished.

I learned a lot while painting this. I'm still not used to this gessoed panel. Even after all these layers of paint, it feels slick compared to canvas. Maybe I'll try another brand after I finish these or even make my own. I spent a lot of time trying to get the perspective right since this isn't a normal box-shaped building and since I don't paint that many buildings. I'm glad I did. I used yellow to highlight the sunny side of the building instead of white. I'm not sure if it's obvious from the photo but this worked really well. (Thanks to James Gurney for all of your posts on color and light.) The painting started out as an experiment that I almost abandoned a couple of times, but I'm glad I stuck with it.

Trilobite Watercolor

Trilobite - watercolor, 6 x 5 inches
copyright - Sydney Harper

I've always been fascinated by trilobites, the prehistoric extinct arthropods, ever since my zoology professor brought a trilobite fossil into class. So this weekend I got my own trilobite fossil out to sketch. I wanted something colorful, not your typical scientific publication drawing. So I muddled around with some colored pencils for a while until it came to me. I like using colored pencils to work out ideas, especially when color is an important part of the idea. Since trilobites were segmented, why not make a stylized version with the segments separated. So after much drawing, this is my watercolor version. I like how it turned out. It has a lot of potential.

Looking for my muse

Rick waiting

I've been traveling to conventions and vacationing and just being busy. Now I've just got to get my muse back on track. Sometimes my art focus feels disjointed, often brought on by people asking what I paint. (Answer: Whatever I'm in the mood to paint.) There are things I don't often paint or draw, people for example. I've been trying to work on that more lately. Otherwise, it's mostly what stirs me. Robert Genn's recent letter on Working Your Muses and Jeannette's post about What Warms Your Soul got me to thinking about focus again. So I made a list of all of the things that have interested me and stirred me. There's art and museums of course but there's also nature, water, geology, science in general, cityscapes, moonlit nights, and plants. I keep adding to the list but it's all starting to come together into something (what I don't know). It's getting my muse anxious to start. In the meantime, since I've been working on sketching people, this is a sketch from a photo of Rick while he's waiting to do a magic show. It's not a perfect likeness but it's not bad. We were at the mall and it was one of those moments when the light was perfect. So I snapped a photo before he caught on so I could sketch it later.