Just a Dog in San Francisco

On days like this, it's hard to believe that I live amid all this beauty.

This is Sadie.

A Girl Draws

First, my latest homework assignment, to draw this face:

My attempt:

I was at least happy with the lips and some of the shading. Still a lot to learn, but I'm doing it!

Next, a find from a sketchbook circa 1990: A sketch I did of myself as a 3-year-old.

Whimsical Watercolor Cityscape

Tonight's lesson. I can just see Harriet the Spy walking along this street. (The horizontal line is because it's two adjoining pages in my watercolor pad.

A Girl Just Paints

This is the "underpainting" for my current project.

You can only imagine what my cats look like with all that paint flying around.

Thank you my lovely teacher!

The Eyes Have It, But Do I Have the Eyes?

This week I'm learning to draw eyes. I'm thrilled that they look human, even if, perhaps, they don't look too much like their model -- me!  

My assignment: Draw 25 eyes, looking in the mirror, in varying expressions. Following is my work today. When I turned out a pair I liked, I decided to break out the watercolors and start playing ...

Here are two cool tutorials my teacher pointed me to:

http://www.dueysdrawings.com/eye_tutorial.html

http://www.dragoart.com/tuts/4431/1/1/how-to-draw-an-eye-in-pencil.htm

And I would be remiss not to give credit to my mentor and old friend, Leah. (She's giving discounted classes through October. Find out more here.)

 

Continued Art-iness

I'm learning how to draw with grids. I chose to try to reproduce a Mary Cassatt piece. Wow, nothing less than humbling, this drawing stuff. First the original, then my first hour and second hour at it so far. I am most intrigued by the woman's face.

Just a Girl Drawing a Girl, Or, Helen Keller Moments

Two assignments from my art class: Draw a portrait from a photo of my face looking straight ahead; and replicate a handed-out sketch looking at it upside-down. It's amazing how that view scrambles your brain signals and breaks what you see into lines, circles and dots. I'm having Helen Keller "water" moments ...

First, photo and sketch (the fact that you can tell my drawing is of a human face thrills me; that you can see it's a woman sends me over the moon! Baby steps):

Then upside-down exercise, first the printout, second my sketch. Mine's head is ridiculously small, but I think it actually looks kind of cool that way! That's my story and I'm sticking to it -- I meant to do that!