The little Imp is begun...

This is with the gesso added

New Year's Eve day, drawing on wood

I first sketched her in summer, 2011

DAISY'S DRAWING TIPS for artistic self-sanity

Drawing for myself again for several days after months of a hectic teaching schedule feels amazing!! But I seem to forget some very simple things every time I take a big break. With this list maybe I'll remember better:

1. Find the sharpener and the good erasers** BEFORE sitting down to draw.  Put the sharpener and erasers in a place that you can reach without getting up.

2. If you are getting too involved in your drawing and don't want to bother to sharpen your pencil, SHARPEN THE GODDAMN PENCIL. You will regret it if you don't. No, really, you will. Sharpen the pencil. Now.

3. If you are a lefty, start on the right side of the page. If you wind up wanting to add something to the right later, protect the rest of the drawing with a sheet of vellum.

4. If you are going to work on a drawing for hours, don't use the Staedtlers. They smear. Use the Tombows. They don't.

5. Do not draw the legs before determining the tilt of the pelvic cradle.

6. If you are drawing someone with male parts, do not wait to draw in the genital details later the way you do with female parts. This is because the penis blocks some of the view of where the legs come out of the pelvis. If you draw the legs first and then sketch the penis in later you are likely to discover later that you have misjudged where the legs begin and that you have to draw them all over again. Being that legs and feet take a hell of a lot longer to draw than a penis, this is very sad.

7. If the top half looks great and it doesn't need a bottom half, remember that a drawing doesn't always require a bottom half.

8. If you have not moved for hours, get up and shake it out.  Also, do not get so absorbed that you ignore nature calling until it is shouting. Your body and (believe me) your line quality are suffering.

9. If it's getting on towards three in the morning and your drawing looks great except one part, just stop. You can fix it tomorrow or more likely not even remember what the part was the next time you see it.

**Throw out your shitty erasers. At best, they sit around fooling you into thinking you have erasers when you don't, at worst, you'll get desperate and use them and we all know that ends in tears (here both meanings of the word apply).

Now let's see if I remember to look at this next time I have to take a big break...

Final Show 'n' Tell at Oxbow

The Pinnacles of Summer Studios ;)

Looking

 Clint's Prints

 Suzanne

Craig

 Kathleen

 Leslie

Me with large works in progress

Great spaces to work in

Our Lady of the Root

Daisy Eneix, untitled (in progress), 3x4' painting on panel

Detail of painting in progress at Oxbow. I brought out the wood grain using colored inks, then added the figure. The initial drawing was created by scanning an existing life drawing sketch I had and combining it with images of tree roots on photoshop; tracing it onto vellum and then tracing it again and adding and altering details. When I finally had a design I like I enlarged it onto the wood panel, first painting the shape in gesso (transparently) and then working over it in inks. This was the first time I used photoshop to create an initial composite - actually several - to see what worked best. The amount of sketching and erasing time it saved me in the initial planning stages was phenomenal.

Daisy Eneix, untitled, 3x4' painting on panel

Here the luna moths have been added. These were made by mixing gesso and ink initially, not layering as much, so they appear more opaque. Mica was added for iridescence. The bird and nest also received some more color. I still haven't chosen a title.

Luna Moth - ink on panel

There's more to tell about this small detail of a 3x4 foot painting I made, 

but this is a good beginning.

Painted Stages of Spiderweb/Trap

First I made some sketches from reference.

Using the drawing as inspiration, I layered ink and white gesso on a long, narrow panel.  This is a detail of it.

This is a detail of the final work - with added ink, pencil, colored glazes, and acrylic 'ooze'

This is a detail of the top of the work. I wanted the web to look strong, thick and a little bit worn. Parts of it are incised into the wood. I had a close look at a number of webs and was surprised to find double-strands. While trying to collect reference, I learned that spider webs can be right there in front of you but not appear in photographs at all.  You have to be in the light just right for your camera to see them.  I thought that was pretty eerie.

Oxbow Painting Retreat

This summer I had the opportunity to work alongside some incredible artists at Oxbow school. The Oxbow summer adult program allows artists to work on independent projects with experienced and encouraging facilitators. For three years I participated in printmaking, but this year I tried painting for the first time.

I had painted before in oil on canvas and watercolor, but I wanted to do something different.  Normally I do a lot of preparatory drawings for my prints, and the drawings themselves are interesting.  I was hoping to somehow combine qualities of drawing, painting and printmaking all together. I wound up using ink, pencil and paint on wood with gesso and also, sometimes, carving directly into the wood. I found that creating white gesso shapes based on my drawings did have a printmakerly feel. I also learned that I could work with ink directly on wood, over a clear-gesso, or over white gesso and get very different effects. Pencil also worked on the wood, but it dulled very quickly so I had to sharpen it a lot.

Both the subject matter and the media of my work appears to be shifting from what it was before. Changes like this are at once challenging, because I can't rely on what I knew from before, and exciting, because I can approach things with more of a beginner's mind. Having such a supportive group and helpful teachers was the perfect environment in which to explore this new material.