Warblers exercises in pencil, crayon drawing, watercolor, C.K., 5/19 & 5/20, 2014

Warblers - exercises in pencil, crayon drawing, watercolor, C.K., 5/19 & 5/20, 2014
Pics are out of order...

Sheet of 4-up exercises in graphite pencil:
a) wiro sketch to feel and express the volume of the bird figure - you can use a reference photo.
b) continuous line drawing of the same photo.
c) color in the background areas without outlining. You create a white bird figure in the process. This a kind of negative shapes drawing.
d) color in the bird figure without using outlines. Define the marking areas by creating white lines as differentiation.

Sheet of parts practice: eyes and beak, head

Create a crayon drawing using some aspects of the graphite exercises.

Monochrome watercolor in 'stencil' style, as in drawing exercise 'd'.

Wetlands lilypond frogs egrets perspective demos, adult art class 5/12/14

We used simple one point perspective to show distance and to guesstimate figure sizes in relation to each other.

The Aye's have it! One egg omelet over open faced cheddar cheese and tomato English muffin.

The Aye's have it! One egg omelet over open faced cheddar cheese and tomato English muffin. Discovered how to make one egg omelet this fluffy. Bring the egg, (still whole), to room temp by letting it warm in a cup of hot water. Break the egg into a container or bowl. Add some cold water. Aah - but how much is the question. I can't answer that yet. I have just experimented w dashes under the faucet, daring a longer dash every time I try this. Use a fork to whip up the egg & water til it is frothy and getting bigger in volume. The water allows the egg to incorporate air into itself easier. .. Hold the container tipped and the fork tines almost perpendicular. The fork should be at a slight tilt as well. Anything to get air into the mixture. Remember how in swimming or rowing, you should not be splashing? In this case you should be splashing but keep it tight. That is why the bowl is tilted - to keep the mixture in a small place. It will grow. Grow it as much as you can.

Meanwhile the muffin etc has been cooking in the cast iron frying pan, or not. The pan should be preheated by now, whether you did the muffin too or not. 1/2 - 1 teaspoon of butter spread across the pan with the spatula. Butter needs to grease up the edges of the pan a bit too. Pan should be hot but not smoking. Butter will brown immediately. Careful - not so hot you smoke it. Pour the beaten egg. Move the pan about to make sure the egg gets everywhere, in case your stove is tipped. Put the cover on. Egg should be setting up immediately. Peek to see if the edges are curling off the pan sides and the egg seems cooked. If so, then lift it gently and flip it. It should be so big and floppy that it will wrinkle some when you turn it. Keep that cover on. it just takes a moment's cooking on the other side. I think it puffs a bit more with the turn. Cut it in half with the spatula and lay a half on each muffin half.

Or, just transfer the omelette whole onto a plate. Do what you want with it. I was amazed how big I got it and that it did not deflate. Sorry I don't have water measurements. This is by feel and by eye first, (like mixing paint and water in a watercolor painting). Besides, every variation will be delicious. The more you experiment and do it, the more feel you get for what the ingredients will do together. My previous try did not have enough butter in the pan, so the mixture was unable to stay whole and had a few other problems. That just fell apart. But that taught me that I had to have enough butter. (Egg sticks to pan, cannot be turned properly, etc.) No amount of reading this stuff in cookbooks will teach you this. You have to experience the wrong ways almost as much as the successes. That experimentation and learning is what makes it such fun. .. Yes, season as you wish before you eat!

May flower baskets – demonstration drawings, adult art class 5/05/14

May baskets – demonstration drawings, adult art class 5/05/14. Exercises with three randomly chosen, (but discarding very light colors), colored pencils taped together. Make a variety of strokes with these - it's a bit like calligraphy.

Basket arrangements – peeled broken crayon in a dark color. Five or seven circular marks arranged in the upper region. Basket marks in the bottom area. Stems, leaf marks, dots. Maybe a ribbon. Do several drawings like this with the dark broken crayon.

Try a drawing with the three colored pencils taped together.
Try a drawing with a small variety of colors in broken crayon.