Drawing From Memories

I’ve thought a lot about what I want to focus the Artist Life Experiment blog for 2020. I think we are due for some fear facing and experiment doing.

It’s time to confess my creative insecurity of not being that great at free-hand drawing. Frankly, it’s embarrassing. I’m great if I have my photo references and my drawing grid all plotted out. There is nothing wrong with using those tools. They make me feel secure and more confident that I will be successful in creating something beautiful. In the past, these tools have often been key for me to have the courage to even start a painting. The downside is that I think my drawings can be a bit stiff at times and I also wonder if my favorite tools have hampered me from developing a unique drawing style of my own.

I know the remedy for stiff drawings is sketching practice. Honestly, sketching practice has never been my favorite thing. It reminds me of practicing the scales for the piano, necessary work but not exactly inspiring.

If I’m going to do the work of sketching, I will be more likely to practice if I have an end goal in mind rather than just drawing “random things around the house.” I never liked that exercise suggestion! I’m thinking about making drawings for a book.

That book would be focused on the fifteen years we lived in the mountains of New Mexico and built our off-grid home from the ground up. Of course we have photos of many of the things we did, but I’m curious to see if I could do some drawings too.

It’s a huge goal and way too much to do in just one year, but “shoot for the stars and hit the moon” or some such inspirational meme. Seriously though, I won't know if this is a good idea or not unless I try it out.
 
To prove that I am not kidding about my free-hand drawing skills, I’m posting my first attempts at sketching with pen. Yes, pen, ballpoint pen and a little marker to be exact. I know, no forgiving pencil and eraser to cover past sins! 


I follow the blog of a pen and ink artist, Chris Wilson, who likes to share his knowledge. Chris claims sketching with pen is the best way to learn to loosen up. He suggests to start by holding the pen farther back and let the lines be less controlled. Also, imagine following the outside contour of the subject to get the overall gesture. This advice sort of works for me, but I already found out I do better if I look for shapes and aim to connect the shapes together, if that makes any sense.

Okay, here is my first try. Yikes! This looks weird even to me.

Cleaning Crew

and another…wow, a toy truck and giant deer! 

That elk in the back looks kinda good though.

Attempt #3. Messed up the placement of the back tire and what is going on with the chin of that little female elk up front…?

Funny Face

Oh, they actually have white chins! I looked for more image reference online to figure out what was going on. A big thank you to photographers Robert Harding and"@bingtravelbunny."

Finally, a drawing I’m less embarrassed about! Full disclosure, I covered up that mistake over the back tire with white paint and re-did the pen work.

Salt Lick

Here’s the story behind the event I am attempting to draw from January 3, 2011.

One Sunday, very early in the morning before the sunrise, Jeff called me very softly out of our nice warm bed. “Hey, you have to see this, elk are cleaning my truck…”
 
Puzzled, I got out of bed and made my way as quietly as I could over to the large east facing window to look, and sure enough, a small herd of elk had surrounded Jeff’s green Toyota Tacoma truck. The metal was coated with salt from the winter roads and these animals were solemnly licking it all over. In our fifteen years living there, we had never seen the elk do that before!

They must have felt they were in luck to find a tasty treat like that just waiting for them. We don’t know if road salt was safe for them to eat, but they were certainly enjoying themselves, even pushing each other a little, greedy to get to the un-licked spots.

Eventually they were done cleaning off the truck and started to notice us staring at them, that was their cue to disperse. They casually continued up the mountain side, nosing around for munch-able plants under the snow as they went. We watched as one by one the whole herd quietly vanished in between the trees. Another memorable moment that made our difficulties of living off-grid in the woods worth all the effort.

Just in case you were wondering, the door handles of the truck were not appealing to the touch when we went out to get in it later. Ick!

What do you think?

Here’s some of my original photos, they aren’t great because there was low light and my camera had a hard time focusing through the window. Do you prefer the drawing or the photos?

Cleaning Crew

The Elk Notice Us

Anyone else have a creative insecurity they are hiding? What are you doing to address it?

Happy Creating!

>^-^<
Tina
 
Here's a link to a list of Chris Wilson’s favorite books about drawing and sketching: https://chriswilsonstudio.com/sketching-books/