morna learning to draw Usagi

[morna-san]

I did this one from a medium detailed pencil in view of inking the above



I don't hate it

[morna-san]

This is a test ink I just did. I printed out a copy of the pencil drawing and tried inking over it... not bad the ink smudges apparently on this paper

[morna-san]

welp I did it



big difference in how the paper takes the ink. The nicer toothier paper absorbs the ink and makes the lines kinda fuzzy - this is not ideal

more or less smooth ......................................... definitely fuzzy


how come I never noticed this before

[morna-san]

greetings all! I am in Whitehorse (Yukon Territories) (with a brutally slow internet connection) at the moment on my way home after an intense ten day art course. I will have a bunch of stuff to show you when I can get to my scanner. Not usagi, but related to the work I've been doing on this thread. A very interesting and wonderful experience. I have started down a new path as an artist and I'm all excited.

Nice to be back in civilization, hot baths are a heavenly heavenly thing!

back home late tomorrow

[morna-san]

good morning. I'm back home and I have done some scanning so I can show you some of the pieces I made in Atlin. I was thinking my focus would be to attempt to first transate my painting on glass to a flat surface 'cause I'm thinking of leaving glass behind and second to possibly think about doing abstract landscapes. I pretty much stuck to these two ideas (which is good because we only had ten days!) and I think I came away with a great new start to something. It could be a temporary diversion or a whole new direction to my life as an artist.
I'm going to have to do a little problem solving to show most of the pieces to you as they are 10x13 or 10x11 and the scanner bed is like 83/4x12. I know it's possible to stitch two scans together in photoshop but I don't know how to do that yet.

Anyway we start out with what Gernot (our fearless leader) calls intuitive mark making. It's a great warm up excersize for artists and I've always found it very inspiring and a useful tool to get ideas flowing. You take a piece of paper or a page of sketchbook and make a bunch of rectangles aproximately 5x7 inches. I guess mine were a little bigger 6x8.5 ish. Then you empty your mind of thoughts and just let stuff flow from your subconscoius, maybe picking up the visual energy from something in the room (or tent) you're in. The best tools to use are graphite sticks or compressed charcoal or conte because the marks they make have some width to them when you use them on their side. You can make marks that have tension points and variation in line character and size without thinking about it. It's kinda fun just to pour out a bunch of marks like that but after about 15 or 20 you stop because it's hard to maintain freshness and looseness - you start thinking and it goes flat. The second stage is to pick one of the 15 or 20 and do a secondary treatment of it. The idea here is to pull out an image or a thought from the marks there. It can be (and usually is) still abstract but you're going for a more cohesive image with attention to composition, tension points, push and pull, interpenetration of forms, good responsiveness to the rectangle, ambiguity/distinction, negative shapes, ... and so on. Here are two of my second stage ones (I didn't keep any of the first stage ones but you can see them in these two. The first one started with compressed charcoal and the second , I think , was graphite)

[morna-san]

this next part is the part that ties into my attempts here on the Rabbit Bodyguards forum. I thought I'd try using my brush pen on the professional doodles (aka intuitive markmaking excersizes). I wasn't sure how they would go but Gernot really liked them - he loved the expressiveness of the marks and the variety in line quality - as do I! I took a few to the next stage:




this was done on sketchbook paper and cloured with chalk pastel. I did several in this scale and eventually got some really good paper to work on. Unfortunately these are all too big for my scanner and beyond my skills (so far) to paste together

[morna-san]

you can see (I hope) the similarity in the line quality and the expressiveness of the mark between the new stuff and my painted on glass work. This was getting very exciting because I could see that there was maybe hope to make my work without glass.



I really didn't know if it was possible to translate this kind of painting to a flat surface, but thanks to the brush pen it seems to be! wow

[morna-san]

Here's the next step, attempting to carry the mark making excersize over to the depiction of a landscape withoput losing the looseness and fluidity.



I learned how to use the chalk pastels, mixing colours and creating tonal transitions and to erase the chalk over the ink lines so they stay relatively crisp. I did three or four of these and realized that I was after something a bit meatier.

[Fanfan]

Wonderful piece !!!

[Stan Sakai]

Here's the next step, attempting to carry the mark making excersize over to the depiction of a landscape withoput losing the looseness and fluidity.



I learned how to use the chalk pastels, mixing colours and creating tonal transitions and to erase the chalk over the ink lines so they stay relatively crisp. I did three or four of these and realized that I was after something a bit meatier.

This is beautiful. It has a nice airy-ness to it, without losing the landscape. I love your expressive lines.

[kaizokuninja]

I like the style of that.

[morna-san]

thank you!

The next thing that happened was one of the other artists there had had her luggage go astray and wanted to try my oil bars. I had purchased them ten years ago the last time I was in Atlin and never got around to cracking them open. I was glad to have someone else break into them 'cause I seem to have a bit of a "thing" about new art supplies, especially paper. She did some neat things with them and as soon as she gave them back I dug into them with awe and delight - they were like candy to me. I did two pieces with the oil bars and I was HOOKED! Oil bars are oil paint in a stick form - the size of a standard Ikea candle or a fat felt pen or a glue stick - but a bit longer. They're great for working outside cause you don't have to fiddle around with brushes or solvents you just goo them on there and mix the colours with the white or a blender stick which has no pigment (but we didn't have any of them so I went through a lot of white). They are not the best for detail work or working small and they're a bit messy but they sure are fun and expressive.

The unifying thing for me has been the brush pen which I learned about right here while I was doing my Usagi fan art. It's kinda nice to know that all this work I've done learning to draw Usagi has fed into my art in the larger sense ie: not just fun and not at all a waste of time.




this was the second one I did and unfortunately it's still the best I think. They are done the same way as the previous piece - a simple brush pen drawing of an abstracted landscape but instead of colouring with chalk pastel I go at it with the oil bars. All the same concerns apply as with the intuitive mark making excersize with the additional challenge of not overworking the surfaces, keeping the colours fresh and the marks expressive... among other stuff.

the paint surface is about ten inches square

[morna-san]

I did a few oil sketches of the weather over Theresa Island because it was quite incredible - changing by the minute. These were done on the front porch of our tent where we were treated to a visceral reminder that we were basically in the wilderness.

Bear graffiti:



Obviously a young bear and just curious, we never felt threatened. Probably a good thing that we had zipped up the tent though.



the view from the tent where we slept - the bear tag would be on the right side near the bottom of the zipper in this view.

here are three of the sky sketches:






these are small - about 5 x 7" and quick, maybe ten minutes. As Gernot pointed out the sky is very rarely an inactive plane - visually speaking. I felt it a good lesson in keeping your "background" active and interesting.

[Thomas Froehling]

I think the art work you presented lately is the best I've seen yet (not to dismiss your Usagis, though): it's highly original !!

About the bear: he seemed to be curious, yes, and very likely looking for food; Someone told me it's a very good idea to keep any food outside of the place where you sleep (especially with tents), since bears could be attracted by it; it might be sad to have your lunchpack raided in the morning, but having your groins raided by a startled bear is worse still...

And, always keep in mind: if there is a small, cute-looking bear clumsily staggering around, a huge, protective momma-bear is very close, too!!

[morna-san]

Wow thanks Thomas! I am just about to post some of the pieces I've done since I got back and I hope for some feedback on those, as it looks like I'm going to give it a go as a painter.. you know, with a part time job and all!

re: bears
don't worry I am well versed in bear lore. We had no food at all in the tent. This was my 4th time at Atlin and last time was a "BEAR" year. there were three bears hanging around the school, one was a cinnamon bear - I'd never seen that before. Sadly one of them (or a fourth bear) was shot and we all felt a huge remorse for mankind encroaching on their land. It actually inspired a LOT of very strong artwork. This was the same session where the people in the creek tent had to throw an iron frying pan at one 'cause he was getting into the cooler with their food. (which was sitting keeping cool in the creek) I had all my food ransacked as well - he even stole my hot sauce! Even so no one ever felt threatened and we were living with them fine - but the people down the street had a kid and they called the ranger - sigh. It was very unusual for so many close encounters to occur but there had been very poor conditions for berries up on the mountain and they had no food. I walked a few feet away from a youngish bear. He was eating berries and I had to use the outhouse - we paid no attention to each other. I was amazed to see how cat-like bears are not the clumsy oafs they're made out to be


ps: I finally saw where your avatar comes from! I've always admired it and I've been keeping my eye out for it but none of the slimy informer images were right. Now I see it's not the slimy informer dude at all but toady from Space Usagi! Kool!