Graphite House Finch - March VSD

This little graphite drawing is my entry for the March Virtual Sketch Date. I drew it in my Moleskine sketch book using a 2B pencil while I waited for my kids.

I supplied the reference this month, so I am quite familiar with this bird. He comes to a bird feeder in my back yard. I tried a few times to take his picture, but he always seemed to fly off as soon as I went to get my camera. I think he is shy.

Finally he showed up with his lady friend one day when I already had my camera out, and I managed a few quick shots of their romantic meal. Now I know what it feels like to be the paparazzi. Minus the big paycheck, of course.

Colored Pencil Landscape - Feb VSD

Lake Louise
6" x 4" colored pencil on matboard
Stacy L. Rowan

I wasn't sure if I was going to get to the Virtual Sketch Date this month. As it is, I am squeezing my entry in under the wire. This month's lovely reference was provided by Debbie Later. Thank you Debbie!

Two things caught my eye in this reference. First was the variety of beautiful blues. From turquoise to peacock to cerulean - it was a bonanza of blue.

The second thing I noticed was the play of vertical and horizontal lines. The trees on the mid-ground mountain provide the verticals and the striations on the background mountains along with the reflections in the water provide the horizontals.

I decided to simplify my drawing to basic shapes in order to focus attention on the colors and direction of the pencil marks. It was a different approach for me and I'm still trying to decide what I think of the end result.

Please remember to check out the VSD results post and the VSD Flickr group to see all the other entries.

Watercolor Clementine - Jan VSD

Caught in a State of Undress
9.5" x 7" watercolor on paper
Stacy L. Rowan

Here is my entry for the January Virtual Sketch Date. Thank you Jeanette for the beautiful and challenging reference.

I thought the reference this month was a little daunting, and I was concerned because I knew I wouldn't really have time to work on it until later in the week. But I have to say that once I settled in with my paints, I really enjoyed it and I am pleased with the outcome. I especially like the cast shadows where I let the paint "do it's thing" then resisted the urge to go back into that area. Another favorite part is the front piece of peel and the feeling of form I managed there.

Be sure the check the blog tomorrow for all the result links. Also this month we added a Flickr group. Participation is voluntary, but it gives people a place to see many of the images together.

I know I haven't been posting much lately, but I am busy working. Some of the things I did this week include...
- Worked on a commissioned painting - All that remains is the finishing touches and approval from my customer, then I can share it here.

- Attended a local portrait drawing group - It was my first time joining the group and I really enjoyed it. The location is great (In a church no less! Well... in the fellowship hall of a church.), the other members of the group are nice and the atmosphere is supportive. Unfortunately, my portrait turned out pretty bad so I won't be sharing it here, but I will be returning to this group for more practice.

- Started collecting references for a new project - I took over 50 photographs and over 4 minutes of video to use as references. To prepare for the photo shoot, I also learned how to use some of my camera features that would allow me to get the effects I wanted.

All of this was in addition to my VSD entry. So I had a pretty productive week, despite my strong desire to hibernate until the cold temperatures have passed.

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The background on this painting is showing up a little more saturated than it is in real life. Adjusting the background properly caused the clementine to be under-saturated, so I balanced the two the best I was able. This painting is available for purchase and will be posted on At The Moment in the next week or two. Prior to that, feel free to email me for purchase information.

Snowy Farm - Dec VSD

Lehigh Valley Farm
7" x 5" watercolor on Aquabord
Stacy L. Rowan

This month I decided to try something different and paint my Virtual Sketch Date entry on Ampersand Aquabord. I've been wanting to work with this watercolor support for some time, because I am interested in framing watercolors without glass.

I wasn't sure if pencil marks would erase off the board, so I did my preliminary sketch with watercolor pencil. I liked how this worked out and might try it for my next painting on regular watercolor paper.

However, with my first brushstroke of paint, I questioned whether experimenting when I had a deadline was a good idea. The Aquabord doesn't absorb water exactly like paper does, so with a fully loaded round I was leaving puddles on the board. Not the effect I was going for.

I switched to flat brushes which hold less water and found they worked better. Most of the rest of the painting was done using my flats. I did go back to the rounds when I painted the trees. I wanted the paint there to be juicy so my little dabs with the brush would run together and produce interesting shapes.

One of the things I really loved about the Aquabord is how simple it is to make changes. The paint lifts off very easy when you re-wet it. I was able to lift out the windows on the second story of the gray barn and get all the way back to white. (I went back in later with some light gray mix to tone down the white.)

One downside to this is that sometimes I got lifting when I didn't want it. I had to use the flat brush at a shallow angle to avoid lifting paint with it's edge. The same was true for the points of the round brushes. But I thought it was easier to correct the areas where I accidentally lifted paint than it would have been to correct on paper.

My only minor disappointment with the Aquabord I encountered when I painted the back tree line. If I was painting on paper, I would add the trees while the sky was still damp and let the paint flow naturally into that area. This gives a nice diffused and somewhat varied edge. It's one of those cases of letting the paint work for you. With the Aquabord I couldn't get this technique to work, so I had to go in and soften the edge with a damp brush. Like I said, a minor disappointment, and I can't say it wasn't just a result of my inexperience with the surface.

I haven't prepared the painting for framing yet, so I can't comment on that part of the process. I will try to remember to report back and let you know how simple or difficult it is.

Visit the Virtual Sketch Date blog this Sunday and use the posted links to visit all the entries.

Autumn Tree - Nov VSD

I really loved this reference when it was posted. (Thanks Jeanette!) But it turned out that I couldn't get into the flow with it.

First I started it in graphite. I loved the strong shadows in the reference and how they worked against the brightly lit trunk. But once I had my line drawing done, I decided I didn't have the patience to build up the values in graphite.

graphite line drawing
6" x 9"

So I moved onto charcoal. Charcoal spoils me with its quick and easy darks. After drawing out the image again, I started my shading. But I felt I was fighting to get a smooth tone for the sky and good form for the trunk.

crop of charcoal WIP
crop approx. 7.5" x 9"

Being the fickle girl that I am, I set aside the charcoal with a whispered promise to come back later when I wasn't under a time crunch. And then I turned to my old stand-by... watercolor. I decided to try a limited palette of aureolin, quinacridone red and french ultramarine blue. Rather than draw the image a THIRD time, I transferred my graphite line drawing from my sketchbook to my watercolor paper.

watercolor on paper
crop approx 5" x 8"

I painted the sky first and it went down with no problem. I foolishly thought I was home-free. Next I moved onto the tree. I loved the neutral I mixed from my three primaries and how it separated some as it dried, but I ran into the same struggle over form that I had with the charcoal.

At this point I finally took some time to figure out why I was struggling. It was that strong light that was creating the fabulous leaf shadows. Since it comes from almost directly in front of the tree, the form of the trunk looked flattened. Now that I had identified my problem, I had ideas about how to resolve it, but -BUZZ - time was up. Oh well, win some and lose some.

And all was not lost, because I did learn some valuable lessons.

First, don't try to tackle any painting or drawing when distracted by other things. I never slowed down to focus on this reference and form a plan. I just kind of jumped in. Had I given the charcoal my full attention I wouldn't have jumped to watercolor so quickly.

Second, although I like dramatic lighting, this type of lighting brings with it it's own set of issues which must be skillfully dealt with. The knowledge I gained here will help me the next time I work with the combination of strong shadows against bright light.

And third, as much as I love dramatic lighting, I can't sacrifice the feeling of good 3D form for it. Turns out good form is pretty much at the top of my list of priorities. Who knew.

I really love how these challenges push me. They push me to try new subjects, to complete paintings under time constraints and to work around obstacles and learn new things. I can't wait for next month!

November Sketch Date

approx. 4" x 7"

4B graphite in Canson Filed Sketchbook

The reference is now posted over on the Virtual Sketch Date blog. If you are interested in joining the challenge, be sure to read the guidelines posted here. Completed entries are due on Saturday November 22nd. Happy sketching everyone!

My sketch above is of a little battery operated lantern that I take with me while the children are in their various activities. It is not always worth running home during the activity, so the lantern allows me to read in the car on dull, dreary days.

As you can see from my construction lines, I had a heck of a time with the perspective on that curved top. It didn't help that it was getting darker by the second. And of course the lantern wasn't on when I started the drawing, so I didn't want to turn it on and change the lighting in the middle. Although in the end I ran out of light and time to complete the shading. Anyway, I thought I'd share this sketch, despite my problems, so that people new to sketching would see that not all sketches are beautiful.

Watercolor Pears - Oct VSD

Colorful Crowd

6" x 4" watercolor on paper

Stacy L. Rowan

Here is my entry for this month's Virtual Sketch Date.

Viweing the reference, I was excited by all the colors I saw in the shadows on the white tray and in the cloth under the tray. I knew right away that watercolor was my choice for the month.

Unfortunately I chose to work on a strange paper. The paper forced me to change the brushes I normally use and to come up with a new plan for getting those beautiful colors down. So the final painting doesn't look exactly how I expected, but overall I am pleased with this colorful crowd of pears.

Graphite Peony Drawing - September VSD

Peony in vase

3" x 3.5" graphite in Moleskine

Stacy L. Rowan

Here is my submission for the September Virtual Sketch Date.

I knew I didn't have much time this week to work on my drawing so I decided to use my Moleskine sketchbook. That was a good decision. Since I was using the sketchbook, I decided to use graphite. That was not so good a decision.

Since the tones in the petals were subtle, I felt I had to lay in the dark background first to give me something to judge the lighter tones against. By the time I had layered on the darks in the background and the vase, my time and patience were running out. So I rushed the petals. As a result, this is not my favorite VSD entry - not bad, just not my favorite.

Of course, I wasn't loving last month's entry at this time either, and my cabbage definitely grew on me. I like it a lot better now. Maybe the lesson here is that I should refrain from passing judgement on my work until some time has passed.

Please visit the Virtual Sketch Date blog tomorrow and use the links to look at the other entries.

Note: I drew the whole entry and cropped the image after for posting here.

September Sketch Date Reference

The reference photo for the September Virtual Sketch date has been posted here. All entries are due Saturday, September 27th. If you want to participate this month, go to the Virtual Sketch Date blog and post a comment on the September reference post. Hope to see you there!

Watercolor Cabbage - August VSD

Cabbage

6" x 4" watercolor on paper

Stacy L. Rowan

Here is my submission for the August Virtual Sketch Date. I loved the purple and green combination found in this cabbage. Since I reacted first to the colors in the reference, I decided to use watercolors for my entry.

If you've been following my blog, you know that I have been out of the art habit recently. The virtual sketch date challenge was the perfect opportunity for me to get back to it. That being said, we all know that rusty feeling you get when you've been away from your paints. So I decided this month that my main goal was to finish my entry and submit it on time. As a reminder I wrote this on my printed reference page...

Success is in the doing, not the end result.

And I have to say, when I hit that "ugly phase", reading the above statement really helped!

Overall I am pleased with this little painting. I am happy with the colors I achieved and, by means of this post, was successful in my main goal of getting this done. However, I do feel I lost some of my initial freshness. I used masking fluid for the leaf veins. I have a love/hate relationship with masking fluid. I love that it lets me paint without being concerned about saving the light areas that are masked off. But I hate what happens when I remove the masking. The areas of masking are almost always bigger than I want them to be, and I hate dealing with softening the hard edges of paint that built up around the masked areas. I'm not sure if the painting actually looks less fresh, but the time I spent blending in the masked areas sure made it feel less fresh to me!

Please visit the Virtual Sketch Date blog tomorrow and use the links to look at the other entries.

August Sketch Date Reference

The reference photo for the August Virtual Sketch date has been posted here. All entries are due Saturday August 30th. If you would like to take part this month, go to the VSD blog and post a comment on the August reference post. Hope to see you there!

Virtual Sketch Date - July

Sunquats

11" x 14" charcoal on Stonehenge paper
Stacy L. Rowan

Here is my entry for the July Virtual Sketch Date. It is a charcoal drawing of sunquats. The reference was supplied by Leslie Hawes and can be found here. A list of entries will be posted on the Virtual Sketch Date blog tomorrow.

A Sunquat is a citrus fruit and is a cross between a kumquat and a lemon.

As soon as I saw the gray scaled version of this reference I knew I wanted to attempt it in charcoal. I admit that I may have been a little ambitious when I whipped out the 11" x 14" paper, especially given our current circumstances, but that didn't stop me from trying. Overall I am pleased with how much I got done and how the drawing turned out. Although, if you look closely you will notice it is not signed yet. I am reserving the right to tweak it later.

This is the first charcoal I have attempted on Stonehenge paper. I am pleased with how the paper performed. My only complaint is that I had a hard time getting my brightest highlights back. For that reason I still prefer working on Rives BFK paper.

In case anyone is interested, I thought I'd share a little bit about my process.

Normally if I am working on a charcoal from life, I'll start the process by doing some small, quick value sketches. In this case, I was working from a gray-scaled reference so I skipped that step. However, I did take the reference into Photoshop and posterize it. Posterizing reduces the number of different values and simplifies the reference.

Using my two references, I decided where I wanted to change values and where my three lightest and three darkest values would be. I made this decisions based on composition and focal point instead of following the reference exactly as it was presented.

After the computer work was done, it was time to start drawing.

When I start a charcoal, the first thing I do is apply an even mid-tone of charcoal to the whole sheet of paper. As a watercolor artist who is used to saving my whites like they are gold, the first time I had to tone a paper I was petrified. I've gotten over that fear, but still find this step the most boring part of the whole drawing. I use a compressed charcoal stick to apply the charcoal and a combination of cotton balls and paper towels to even out the tone. I am not particularly gentle during this toning process and yet, both Stonehenge and Rives BFK hold up well.

Once the paper is toned, the real fun begins. I lightly sketch out the composition with my charcoal stick and then add and subtract charcoal as needed to get the values I desire. For my darker values I use a range of charcoal pencils from 2B to 6B. For lighter values I use long handled cotton swabs, tissues and my trusty kneaded eraser to remove charcoal.

One of the things I love about charcoal is how easy it is to make changes. I can darken and lighten repeatedly without damaging my paper. Using the flat side of my kneaded eraser I can remove large areas of charcoal. If I want to erase lines or small areas I can use the edge or shape the eraser into a point. Tissues and clean cotton balls are great for smoothing out an area of tone while lightening it. A cotton ball or swab that has already been used is good for smoothing out tone without much lightening. They can also be used to darken a light value. For my brightest brights, I use a pink pearl eraser. It pulls more charcoal off the page than any other tool.

Charcoal allows me to work freely and quickly while still achieving realistic results. And in the warmer months, when I am surrounded by so much natural color, I find a real attraction to its black and white tones.

When I was preparing this image for posting, I played around with cropping it. I'd love to hear if you like the full sized image or cropped image better.

Sunquats - cropped
Stacy L. Rowan

And please remember to visit the other Virtual Sketch Date participants...

Leslie Hawes, Laura's Watercolors, Miki Willa, Sharon, Doug Hoppes, Melissa Muirhead, Kay Susan, Michael, Jeanne Grant, Kylie, Paulette, Maryann Cleary, Maggie Steifvater, Jeanette Jobson who served as admin this month, and the woman who started it all Rose Welty. (More entries may be posted before the end of the day. The final list of participants will be posted tomorrow on the Virtual Sketch Date blog.)

July Sketch Date Reference

The July Virtual Sketch Date reference has been posted. Go here to see it and leave a comment (there)on the reference post if you want to participate. Entries are due Saturday July 26th.

It is a wonderful reference and makes me want to break out the charcoals.

Virtual Sketch Date - June

Lily

approx. 5" x 8"

2B graphite pencil in Canson Field sketchbook

Here is my entry for June's virtual sketch date. The reference this month was supplied by Jennifer of Fuzzy Dragons. Thanks Jennifer!

If you check out the reference you will see that I played with the arrangement a little. I liked the shadow and shape of the flower in the lower right better than the large flower in the center. I also loved the bud above it. In fact, if I had more time, I would have used my watercolors or colored pencils to do a color study of that bud. However, since my time this week was limited, I skipped the color study and kept the values in the flower fairly light.

Rose will be creating a post with links to all the sketch date participants once everyone has posted. Make sure you check it out. I think there will be even more entries than last month.

Once again, the commitment to this sketch date had me drawing during a week that I typically wouldn't have managed to squeeze any art time in. I really enjoyed the time I spent on this drawing. It was relaxing compared to the rush of the rest of the week. And now I get to enjoy the anticipation of waiting to see all the other drawings. Hooray!

Virtual Sketch Date - Tripod

This week I participated in a Virtual Sketch Date with several fellow bloggers. A virtual sketch date is when a group of artists all draw from the same reference, in this case a photograph of Jeanette's cat Tripod.

Tripod has quite a band of admirers thanks to frequent appearances on Jeanette's blog. So the pressure was on to create a flattering reproduction or risk the scorn of his fans. Below is my version of Tripod. So am I safe or do I need to fear flying hairballs?

Tripod
approx. 5" x 6"
2B graphite in Canson Field Sketchbook

The other participants on this sketch date are Jeanette Jobson and Rose Welty (who started this group challenge), Katherine Tyrrell, Belinda Lindhart, Jennifer Rose Phillips, Gayle Mason, Jeanne Grant, Paulette and Teresa (Teresa's image is posted on Rose's blog). Please go see everyone's drawings, because the best thing about having a bunch of artists work from a single image is seeing how they all handled the image in their own style.

This was a fun exercise and challenged me to draw a subject I wouldn't have chosen on my own. It also had me drawing during a week when I might otherwise have been "too busy". Having a deadline and commitment to someone else is always a great motivator. It has been awhile since I've done a full blown drawing in graphite. I had forgotten how slow that first layer of graphite can go down and the associate "Holy Cow! At this rate I'll never get done!" panic. However, I was lucky to start this in my spiral bound sketchbook because the paper texture really helped with the fur.

I'm up for a June sketch date if anyone else is.