Cat and Pig with Paul Bunyan, digital phone drawings, 6/28/19

Paper mâché binderless pulp head and neck for hand puppet experiment.

Paper mâché pulp without tearing, binder, or glue - experiment.

I had made this critter below years ago using this described method - at least I think I had. I used white paper and added tempera powder for coloring. That has also faded some when it sits in sunlight. I wish I'd written this down years ago. I was always so proud of having a method I'd never seen written about by anyone. It was much easier than having to tear or cut up paper or use a blender - all methods I have used. Something about the sheets of paper being whole when they go into a hot water bath lets them break down fast.

So I did try a test a day or so after this seeing a post on a paper mâché artist technique for basic pulp. My test is still drying. What I'd discovered, way back when, is that you don't need to tear the paper down at all. If you get a vessel with hot water you can put large pieces of newspaper crumpling them a bit as you get them into the bath. From there you break it down with your hands or a stick. It takes only 5-10 minutes to break it down to a slurry. Then you pour off the water as much as you can. And scoop out the pulp. It will be almost completely broken down.

I did not knead mine. No binder or sizing. I squeezed and shaped into a ball like shape with a cork around which I put pulp as well. This formed a head and neck of sorts. I squeezed out as much water as possible.

My test is really to see how hard and well it binds just by this paper felting process. The next day, I think it was, that I cut away a bit from the neck so I could pull out the cork. I did not want the paper getting too tight around the cork. I pulled the cork out then. Squeezed the neck thinner and wider to get a bigger hollow neck. The assumption being that this could be the head for a hand puppet - (or who knows what). It has been slowly slowly drying. Still damp on the inside. It is not smooth, but that can be done in further steps still, or maybe in the beginning.

No pics from the very start... Sore thumb pic is from today.

c. 1995?

6/27/19

6/23/19

Fireworks, eagle, food for the 4th of July - kids and adults art class display - 6/25/19,

Red, White, and Blues - bluebirds, jays and strawberries. Adult art class, 6/24/19

We used a set of photos for reference. First practice was a blind contour drawing - keep your drawing tool on the page, and your eyes on the subject as you slowly follow the subject's contours. Be silent as you work.
Practice 2: continuous line drawing of the subject. Keep your pencil moving on the page without lifting it. You may look from subject to drawing.
#3: draw just the dark marks on an invisible blue jay on your page. Keep these marks where they should be in relation to each other.
#4: the dark spots again with addition of colored areas - on the invisible bird.

Final drawing as you wish. Incorporate some of these exercises if you want. The challenge, if you wanted, is to do it with only red and blue colors, (and white of the paper). Try it in one color!

Cedar waxwings with berries, drawings and exercises, adult art class, 6/17/19

The first exercise was to practice a row of the black mask, eye and beak facing to the right across the page. The next row was to face to the left across the page
And then we did a series of the mask, beak, dark feet, and tip of the tail as whole birds going across the page. That meant you had to keep them lined up in order to be a whole bird. That was the challenge of it.

We made a series of boxes creating neutralized complementary color mixes using crayons so we were getting somewhat grayed or neutralized colors. First one was orange and blue. Next was purple and yellow. And then red and green. Each box of crayons has several Hughes of each color. So every combination is going to be a little different than the others. Students were to also put a little patch at the top of their window of the two colors they had used and write the names down. There will be variations even just with which color is laid down first. The last rectangle was to be a gray crayon. I should've said to try a gray crayon and a black used softly. One student did try that.

On top of these neutralized color rectangles we drew the birds using just the dark parts as in our practices. But then we used one of the colors of that rectangle to color in background without actually outlining, and thereby bringing out the whole bird better.

Finally the students could draw their own versions of Cedar waxwings with berries as they wished.

Cardinals in the lilacs, adult drawing class art display and exercises, 6/10/19

Cardinals in the lilacs, adult drawing class art display and exercises, 6/10/19

We started with a series of conceptual schematic structural drawings of lilac forms. This meant working with cone shapes in a few views. After we had done simple straight up cones we did some curving cones. These appeared almost as leaf shapes. And they would be good as a way to re-interpret leaves. After doing doing the cones, we tried them using scribbly  strokes to resemble something like the florets moving around the cone shape.

The cardinal practices was a series of four: first the main shapes like eggs or ovals in various positions. We did a scribbly or Wiro/slinky bird form. We did a continuous line drawing, and then just the black line outline drawing like a coloring page.

And finally students worked on making a picture as they wished. They had reference images of cardinals and lilacs to use.

Cat and Pig like best friends and upsey-daisy day. Digital drawing screencast

A round about way to show what goes on in doing a touch drawing in iMessage.

This screencast hopefully shows how to do it. It shows the steps I’m doing. I’m concentrating enough to keep things smooth that I did not do any narration. The video is silent. But it would have recorded my voice too had I made any noise!

Hummingbirds and rhododendrons, adult art class student display, 6/3/19

We did a practice sheet of black marks: beak marks, beaks followed by eyes. The direction of the beak stroke with eye.  With eye first facing one way and then the other way. We observed whether it was easier do if you have a face a certain way depending on   Which hand we use most.
Then we practiced the head shape which is a little bit like a baseball cap except it's flatter on top.
We practiced the overall Bird/figure contour.   We did those in both directions. We considered what the wing shape looks like besides just as the wing.  For instance, like a Chinese fan, a butterfly wing, and more. I see the shape as similar to the smaller blade of a jackknife.