SAILBOAT 18x24 Graphite

By the time I post this blog my sailboat drawing will have been finished. It took a month to complete.

This drawing was a true hard labor of cruel agonizing love.

So what do you think Miso? Do you like it? It's you.

When I started this drawing it was about the sailboat. But who are we kidding? It's about the cat. I toiled over this drawing until I went slightly deranged from solitude. Now I'll spend two days among others until they drive me mad, and then begin work on another drawing. 

I once knew this guy named Remmy. Remmy could spot a police car from far away he said just by their headlights. "You see that car?" He would ask pointing an index finger waaaay off into the distance. "No, not that car. The one behind those cars, past the car dealership, past the sand lot, and the Arby's four lights past that. Do you see it? That's a cop car." And as certain as at least four people had their wallets stolen in Vegas over Memorial weekend, by god it was indeed a cop car, every time. How did he do it? "Can you tell airplanes apart when they're up there?" I asked Remmy pointing at the sky. "No." He replied looking at me like I was crazy. "What about guns? Could you hit a target from a half mile away?" But again Remmy simply looked at me like I was crazy. I just couldn't understand why or how someone would have such remarkable visual skill but decisively only use it for the one thing. One practically useless thing. Perhaps I was just jealous of his vision. 

When I draw I use a lens to gage my process. When time permits I draw for hours on end. Yesterday I put in ten glorious hours and it can be like driving on a freeway at night not realizing you're going 95 MPH, when you think you're going 60 MPH, but it feels like you're only going 30. Ten hours later things get drawn I didn't mean to draw. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. I hear certain movie directors say they never look at the small screen on their cameras when they direct, they only focus on the scene. I have to look at the small screen from time to time. Back in the day, when I used to paint, before cell phones, I'd shoot my paintings with a Polaroid just to see my work in process through different eyes. Circa 1992 Los Angeles art galleries made artists shoot their works and transfer all the images onto tiny square slides. We'd bring in our slides, and the show coordinators, gallery owners, would look at them on a brightly lit backboard through shot glass magnifiers. Much in the same way fashion shows pick their models, and how photographers build their portfolios, with brightly lit backboards and tiny square slides. They want to see your works on small screen. Perception. Everywhere else around the word just bring in your drawings into the gallery, that's what portfolios are for, but nope, not Los Angeles, SLIDES or they wouldn't even consider looking at your work. Now, you have the Internet. 

The most maddening thing for me personally is photographing my finished drawings for submissions. I don't care how expensive your camera is, there's only one way to see art properly and that's in person. Once show coordinators become familiar with your work you don't have to jump through so many hoops. Thankfully by then you can just email pictures so they get an idea of what you want to display. 

Pricing. I've heard all the jokes, made a few myself, about how some artists arrived at the outrageous pricing of their work. My sailboat drawing will be priced at $600 if I sell it myself. More, much more if I go through a gallery, of course. Why? Sure you're only buying the milk, but the cows have to be fed too. Did I just compare gallery owners to cows? Oops. 

Here's why the original price is $600, I only sell originals, never prints, they're large scale drawings, and it's a fair price considering artistry, parts, and labor. I've yet to meet another living graphite artist who draws like me. I was first a painter. You never forget or undo your original approach to art. My brother would instruct me to add a zero and sell the drawing for $6,000. Correction, and attempt to sell the drawing for $6,000. Outrageous. I'd rather sell ten drawings at $600 apiece to regular patrons than one drawing at $6,000 and risk not selling another drawing for months and months because my prices are too ridiculous. 

I realize you kids today have the Internet, but nothing replaces an actual exhibit. Because, again, art needs to be seen in person. Furthermore YOU need to be seen in person, meet other artists, curators, show coordinators, press, gallery owners, and business operators. You need to meet these people, shake their hands and have a drink. I absolutely hate schmoozing much for the same reasons I hate dating but it needs to be done or nothing gets accomplished. They already know artists are pretty much alcoholic assholes. That's why they need to meet you, and see you're not only talented but can also be a decent human being if only when it counts, then they'll be more willing to work with you.  

Information cards. These cards have changed over the years. Before social media the information cards were short and sweet. "(ARTIST NAME) SAILBOAT 18x24 graphite." And that would be it. Now they want you to write a small paragraph about the drawing. Three or four sentences. Why? What for? Art sells itself because the image, the style, the subject matter, clicked with the buyer. Gratuitous words aren't necessary on info cards, are they? Do you want to know how and why this drawing came to be? Follow my Instagram: 2_stray_cats 

I finally saw REBEL IN THE RYE. I love this movie. Every artist should watch this movie. 

Two movies every artist should watch are ANONYMOUS and REBEL IN THE RYE. 

Signatures. I'm on my second signature. My first signature had 14 letters in it. Way too long. Nonsense. Now my signature has only 5 letters. Your signature is not why people buy your art. If it is, you're not selling art, you're selling your name. Make sense? John Lennon made drawings any five year old could make and instantly those drawings were worth millions of dollars because of his signature. He wasn't selling art. He was selling his fame through glorified autographs. Brilliant musician. The very definition of a humanitarian, or so I hear. Terrible artist. Please, I'm begging you, watch REBEL IN THE RYE. 

Martin Scorsese, and Francis Ford Coppola have great lingering images in their movies like in GODFATHER II, where Vito Corleone, as a child, is sitting in a chair in his tiny room on Ellis Island, looking out the window. It's just so beautiful, powerful, like a painting I would hang on my wall. I hate movies involving sports but I love RAGING BULL. Scorsese directed that movie like an artist. Every scene in CASINO makes me want to come to Vegas. I love visiting Vegas. Living here however... Ehhh. I'm pretty much here just to die. So I've come to the right place. 

Artists watch movies for the directors. I follow male actors because they're hot. Keanu Reeves. Tom Cruise. Channing Tatum. But I watch movies first and foremost for the directors. I wish I liked female directors but they never seem to direct like artists, or story tellers. They just point and shoot, sloppy, lazy. No care for lighting, angles, dimensions, colors, etc., etc., all part of visual story telling. In my lifetime the only other female visual artist who's work I absolutely loved was Simone's. It's not because they refuse to give women a chance, it's because women refuse to earn it. Bleed for it. Starve for it. Go insane for it. Battle hell for it. Simone took it one step further, she died for it. Give me more than a scene from the corner of my street on any given weekday. Is that asking for too much? 

I could never direct movies. I love Shakespeare too much. Everyone would die in the end. Everyone. 

Only the good die young

I finally met the guy who claims to be Miso's owner. He reminds me of Snoop Dog, in every way. Nice guy. Friendly. Calm. Also a partaker of marijuana. Miso seemed to like him. On my way home I saw Miso in the 7-11 parking lot behind my apartment building. Once Miso saw me he trotted after me and began following me home. My little boy. Maybe he needed some place to sleep? I had just fed him that morning three hours prior. Then some old lady on a Vespa cruising down the street began yelling at Miso as she parked. She called Miso something I couldn't understand. Just then an apartment door opened behind her and out popped pseudo Snoop Dog heading my way. "Is this your cat?" I politely asked. "Yeah" he replied smiling very friendly like. He then slowly reached down to pick Miso up. Miso looked up at Snoop Dog and gave a cute little meow before letting himself be picked up. "You should feed him more." I wanted to say. Outdoor cats need more food and water than indoor cats. But I think after five months of feeding Miso, the three of us have an unspoken understanding. Therefor nothing really needed to be said. "He follows me around a lot." I said anyway. "Yeah, I know." Snoop Dog gently replied and giggled friendly. Then he carried Miso home.

For as long as I live in this building I'll feed and shelter Miso kitty whenever he wants, and I'll continue calling him Miso. I have over 200 images of Miso from the past five months. Someone once commented, "Just get another cat." I'm sorry my dear, it doesn't work that way. One does not simply replace love, or it was never love to begin with.

The next day after meeting pseudo Snoop Dog, I saw him leaving his building as I was leaving mine. He waved. I waved back. Nice guy. I'm happy being Miso's fairy god mommy who lives across the street. I can never move now. And just as before, Sunday, Memorial weekend, for twelve glorious hours Miso spent the entire day with me eating and napping. I love seeing him eat. The next day, Monday, Miso followed me home and ate two more times. This may be the closest thing to being a grandma I'll ever get. On the way home Monday a few girls saw Miso following me and declared he was their kitty and called him Pedro. Pedro?! I didn't have the heart to tell the girls he was nobody's Pedro.

Summer is about to arrive in Las Vegas. By week's end the temperature will jump up twenty degrees into the mid 90's. Next week we'll be in triple digits until October. My thoughts are constantly on the cat and keeping him cool and healthy.

Anyway...

2am. A woman parked her car across the street from my apartment building. She got out of her car and proceeded to the stack of apartments next to mine. She rang my neighbor's doorbell at 2:00 in the morning. Our loud ridiculous ghetto church bell chiming doorbells. She rang the doorbell at least four times while pounding on my neighbor's security gate screaming, "Roger! Open this door Roger! It's late! I got no place else to go! It's been a long night! C'mon, I'm tired! Roger! Open this door!" She then rang his doorbell a few more times feverishly pounding on his security gate and waking up the entire building. Her psychotic breakdown felt like it was going to last forever when finally it seemed she accepted the fact Roger was not going to acknowledge her and so went back to her car and started the engine. She let the motor run for about the thirty seconds, then shut the engine off and simply sat in her car, her cell phone glowing in the dark. About twenty minutes later she started the engine again and slowly drove away. Twenty-two minutes later she came back, parked her car in the exact same spot across the street from my building, got out of her car and proceeded once more to Roger's security gate. With a rage and a fury she rang Roger's doorbell plagued with madness and pounded on his security gate until I'm sure her knuckles were both broken and bloody. One of our neighbors yelled at her to leave and get off the premises, to which she screeched, "My husband threw me out! I got nowhere to go!" The woman then returned to her car and just sat inside it. We can all guess the events that lead up to this woman's insane hysteria, right? 3:16am. A very sketchy figure slowly walked past this woman in her parked car. She got spooked, rightfully so, this is Las Vegas, and at last started her car and drove away.

Thank god for security gates. I'm with you Roger. I'm single. On occasion I try dating. I make real effort. And the men always (ALWAYS!) end up crazy, stalking me also. Single or divorced men over the age of 55 are mostly batshit crazy. They're either looking for a caregiver, a mommy, they're all terrified of being old and alone, and/or they're just scary AF possessive and jealous after only one date. And that's excluding men who don't work out at all, have zero clue how to pleasure a woman in and out of bed, and let's not forget the garden variety morons who shoot guns in the air on New Years Eve, and light illegal fireworks on Memorial Day in the desert amidst houses and dry brush otherwise known as kindle.

These are now my pre first date questions:

Do you own any pets?
How long have you had said pet?
What was the last book you read?
What was the last movie you saw?
Have you ever been to an art opening?
Do you know what an art opening is?
Do you own any plants?
Are those plants still alive?
Have you been diagnosed with Alzheimer's or any degenerative diseases?

Because seriously, men over the age of 55, especially in Las Vegas, think they're the catch of the century simply for having a withered dick and a pickup truck. And I just LOVE the guys you hang out with once, one time, months ago, who then randomly text me one day out of the blue and I'm supposed to act all excited to hear from them. Sure, I can act excited, we can hang out sometime. PAY ME.

"Age is just a number" they love to say. WRONG. Beware of people who say age is just a number. They merely want something from you. What if I was twelve years old? Is age still just a number?

Age indicates the withering of your body. The years left until you die. I can't walk up a flight of stairs in the morning without severe arthritis. I have it in my legs and both hands. Occasionally in my back and left shoulder. I know what it is to be a 50 year old woman. You can't fool me. Arthritis. Menopause. Vision and Memory loss. Sleepless nights pondering how death will come. Sure, I still look amazing. Pay me.

Of course I have no problems caring for my actual partner, my mate, so long as we have many, many good years together first. Many good years include camping, hiking, sushi, museums, art galleries, concerts, etc. At my age that excludes a rather large percentage of men right out the gate.

And how hard is it to meet a man who eats Asian food? Why would you date an Asian woman and assume she wouldn't eat the food of her mother land? I wish I could be one of those pervy women who are comfortable being a social pariah dating a younger man but you would need to rewire 50 years of conditioning and quite frankly who has that kind of time. Certainly not I.

A girl friend of ours married a much younger man because she wanted a baby and was then pushing forty. In her mind she thought the younger the man, the healthier the sperm. You and I know it doesn't work that way. A man only needs a 50% healthy sperm count regardless of age, and the rest is 100% relied on the woman. Pick your battles. As long as she's happy, we said. Which is code for "You're an idiot but that's not our problem." And now that their child is grown she wants to divorce him. She still makes three times his income. Guess who's paying a lifetime of alimony, bitch! I'm sure there's a nicer way of saying that. I just don't know what it is.

I love cats.

Correction, I love a cat. We had breakfast together this morning. I had my giant red cup of black tea, an apple and two hard boiled eggs. He had his usual big can of meat.

See you for dinner, kitty. Seafood?

WIP (cat)

My favorite living artist, or at least I think he's still alive, is a painter named Alexander Volkov. His art book The Neverending Way Home, are the glorious backdrops to all my precious childhood memories and friends I hold dear. I will never understand how people today would rather live in the world we live in now rather than the beautiful simplicity of this one. These are an example of his paintings. How magnificent.

Click on image to enlarge.

Because I also have a job this drawing is taking longer to finish.

The main reason I prefer cats over dogs is because much like myself, cats won't tolerate your bullshit. Dogs will. I just witnessed yet another dog bowing down to his master while being dragged by the collar and yelled at. That is the real reason men who do, hate cats, and me. I won't tolerate it. Here in the Las Vegas sweltering 113 degree summer heat, I see so many dogs being dragged on boiling hot concrete and metal escalators by their uncaring humans, burning the fur and flesh off their dog's paws without a grain of concern for the dog, but the dog always takes it. No fight in the subservient animal whatsoever. Men like that. Women are just stupid. But men like to see the hurt in a dog's eyes. They like things that bow and don't fight back. The bigger the subservient dog, the more he feels like a man. I see animal abuse repeatedly in Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. Pathetic.

Miso kitty cat, reminds me of Simone, of E. Gordon, my dad, Rick, Dod, Byron, my beloved childhood friends. He is an abandoned stray who belongs nowhere and everywhere. Loved by none and by only those who matter. I would take Miso away from here, away to where the fish and firewood are plenty, the weather always comfortable, and to where nothing and no one would ever disturb our peace.

Miso is a smart cat. He'll eat until his tummy is full in my apartment, then he goes next door and naps over there, then goes across the street and climbs his favorite tree. So spoiled is this beautiful kitty even the little neighbor girl wedged a nice cushy barstool against the tree, about two months ago, so Miso has less of a jump up and down from the first tree branch. All little girls should have a cat to love. Smart kitty. He knows how to get what he wants. Meanwhile, in the empty yard across the street, this man is dragging his bulldog by the leash. He dragged his dog across the entire parking lot size yard, and then continued to drag the poor dog by it's neck across the hard gravel street, the dog's paws dragging behind him. And as he dragged his dog he screaming at the poor creature at the top of his lungs. The man screamed so loud he was incoherent. And should this dog ever fight back one day, society will put this dog to sleep. You know this is true. No thanks. I rather be a stray cat.

I've never drawn a cat before. I pained and labored over him for an hour and forty-one minutes. After which time I surrendered and moved on. The morning I drew the cat, Miso stopped by for his breakfast, a big can of chicken cat food meant for two, after this his usual handful of hard food, then some kitty treats, then we played for a half hour until he got tired and decided to relax underneath the sofa cover for twenty minutes. His little hind legs poking out. I love this cat. Humans are vile disgusting things. We don't deserve cats. Perhaps that's why I don't like drawing portraits. I'd have to enjoy looking at them for the length of the drawing and I simply cannot. Not anymore. My faith in humanity is too rarely restored. 

The driftwood has taken so far three days to draw. I've seen some amazing driftwood over the years cross country. Dead trees that became earthly statues severely twisted into a devil horse, burnt flesh, and ghostly weeping women. 

I was originally going to add a silhouette of a woman in the drawing but the more I studied the sailboat in the movie (Pride and Prejudice) the more I began to believe the sailboat was a toy for a child, therefor I chose to draw footprints instead of the silhouette. The spotty markings in the sand now are for reference only. The footprints might move in the final drawing. Be that, adult or child, you'll see in the drawing what you want to see. That's the beauty of it. 

No matter who he paints, the painter always paints himself. 

To keep myself sane in this barren desert wasteland with zero bookstores and even less sophistication, I listen to movie commentaries by my favorite film directors. And while I may not agree with everything they have to say, it's still two hours of listening to someone I actually find interesting. Men far superior than anyone I've dated in the last two years. I could listen to ANG LEE talk about film making for hours and hours and never get bored.

When people learn I'm a conservative, I'm always then asked how it is I'm also an artist. And the answer is simple. I'm both a conservative and an artist as my act of rebellion against what is acceptable behavior in today's society. My generation is the last generation of children that wore Sunday clothes. Even if you didn't attend church, you still wore Sunday clothes. You dressed well, behaved well, and respected yourself even if only one day a week. Art is a reminder to feel something more, be something more than everyday fumbling stupidity society has now deemed acceptable. 

DRAWING LESSON 4

You there, young artist, whatever creative path you venture down, to thyself be true. That's Shakespeare, by the way. There's no such thing as being original. 

Keep your life simple. Let only those worthy into your life. Practice and dedication to your craft will often times alienate you. This is very common. If you hate being alone more often than not, art may not be the society for you. Be friends with other artists, love them, rival with them, it is the best way to keep art in your life every day. 

Drawing only what you love will eventually make you boring. You might get ten years out of it but they absolutely will lose interest in you after that, and then you'll have to do something else. Something else entirely. A new style. New methods. Every lifelong artist goes through phases. For about seven years I drew nothing but nudes until they stopped selling. Then I had to find something else to draw. That was more difficult than I imagined. Don't just do the one thing. Draw what you love. But on occasion draw what you don't love. Draw something else. If for no other reason than just to see how it feels.

Storing your art doesn't require much money. Not in the beginning. Not ever, really. You can use the drawing tablet you're tearing pages from as a portfolio, or you can make a cheap portfolio to store drawings at home until you can afford a real one. Go to the dollar store and pick up two of the biggest sheets of poster board or poster paper equal in size. 99 Cent Store sells them. Get two sheets of poster paper equal in size, the bigger the better, a paper puncher, and some cheap ribbon at your local craft store. With one sheet of poster paper on top of the other, lined up perfectly, punch three or four holes down one side, two inches from the edge, like a book binder, then tie strips of ribbon through the holes holding the two sheets of poster paper together like a book. It's a cheap homemade portfolio but when you break it down, that's pretty much what an actual portfolio looks like, two hard surfaced boards held together like a book bound with black ribbons. Anyway, slide your home made portfolio under your bed, or in your closet, and now you have someplace flat to store your drawings. Never put anything on top if it. 

For my sailboat drawing I'm using seven different drawing pencils. Sometimes I use up to ten different pencils. Because I draw rather large drawings my pencils last for two drawings and then I need new pencils. And as much as I'd love to support all art stores, I always find a small local art store and buy my pencils there. Why? Because the pencils are at least .30 cheaper at a local art store than a big name chain art store. It adds up. And that's just (graphite) pencils.

When someone asks what your medium of art is, say graphite. Not drawing. There are different mediums if drawing. Graphite. Pastel. Colored pencils. Charcoal. 

If you decide to go into painting and someone asks what your medium is, say oil painting, or acrylics, or water paints. Don't just say painting. Be specific. Art society has its own language. The more accustom you are to using it, the more others in the art society will acknowledge you. 

Regular graphite pencils aren't made with lead anymore once lead was discovered to be toxic. If you decide you want to try other mediums of drawing, just buy individual colored pencils, individual charcoal sticks, individual pastel sticks. Never buy the complete sets. Stores sell art sets to novices who don't know any better - and when no one is around to teach the young aspiring artist otherwise. You might not like a particular medium after trying it. Why waste money on a complete set? 

Pastel sticks are unique in that when used as a stick it resembles chalk, but break and crumble the stick into small pieces and add water it turns to paint. The more water you use the thinner the paint. Personally I don't like pastel sticks. I don't like the color of pastels. That's me. But you might? 

Ok that's it for now. Go draw!

Practice practice practice. 

💔

It’s funny to me what Democrats want and then don’t want the government getting involved in. Democrats are perfectly fine with high taxes, raising taxes, paying millions of dollars in taxes without so much as batting an eyelash, further still, Democrats are perfectly fine paying to keep each convicted murderer in jail until the day they die rather than executing them within 30 days per for less than what you paid for your 30 inch tv. But then throw in the word abortion and suddenly Democrats have a problem with the government they so love just one political issue ago.

“All lives matter” including puppies, kittens, and human babies. And being as how most mama dogs don’t have jobs, should we just start aborting her puppies the moment we hear a heartbeat in an ultrasound? No. Of course not. We find those puppies good homes. Of course it’s waaaayyy easier finding homes for cute adorable puppies than say for a screaming 18 year financial burden. And besides we would never murder unborn puppies. Would we? No. We’d just fix the momma dog so she could never get pregnant again. Right? 

I don’t have a problem with women murdering their unborn children. One less kid running through the grocery store unsupervised. But make no mistake abortion is murder. Execution is murder. (God willing) PURGE! is murder. I’m pro all three. 

Murderer - To kill by an act constituting murder. To kill or slaughter inhumanly or barbarously. 

There is in fact a birth control method when used correctly works every time, and it’s free. Just say no, Nancy!

Eventually all women learn being a whore isn’t the dream gig Democrats make it out to be.

Heartbeat ❤️

If there’s a heartbeat, there’s life. To intentionally end that heartbeat makes you a murderer. That said, I rather you be a murderer than me paying one dime for your kid. 

That said I’m also pro death penalty. This life in prison bullshit needs to end. 

WIP (driftwood)

Click on the photo for a larger view.

But of course I named my boat Miso.

George, the elderly maintenance man for my building, forgot he already tested my fire alarm 12 days ago. He showed up again today to test it. When he saw my sailboat drawing he asked, “Do you draw portraits?” I told him I didn’t, though I do. Between us, I don’t enjoy drawing portraits nor fruit. To that response George said, “Do you know who Hitler is? Of course you do. He was an artist. A painter. He didn’t do portraits either. Mostly landscapes. One of his paintings recently sold for a half million dollars. Who would pay a half million dollars for one of his paintings?” 

What?

Did he just compare me to Hitler?

Sigh.

DRAWING LESSON 3

In previous drawing lessons I wrote, “Detail always comes later.” Reason being, there are many different styles in which to draw. How you detail your drawing is entirely up to you. The lines will come to you. Example: Some pencil artists draw in the style of realism, thousands of detailed lines. Some draw abstract, heavy use of blending and/or grid and geometry. Some draw Impressionism, using less lines and more space. Some draw pop art, using mixed media. There are many different styles of art. You will learn your style as you go. My goal here is just getting you started. I want you to draw, paint, and sculpt, as all artists do.

I started drawing in 7th grade, 1981. Before computers. Before Adobe. Before cell phones. Most of you weren’t even born yet. My first art teacher, incredibly handsome as he was, never taught us methods on how to draw. He was just following a god-awful outdated “draw this picture” textbook curriculum, but he was very handsome and I was going through puberty, so I took his class both years of junior high school. Even so, I wasn’t taught anything about drawing until high school.

Side note: I’m moving on rather quickly now because I’m almost done with my drawing. Google references when needed.

In 38 years of drawing I’ve never used a ruler or any measuring instrument other than my thumb and pencil. Unless you’re a drafter, or an architect, or an inventor, numbers don’t mean anything here. Your eyes are a better judgement of creating height, width, and distance. Juxtaposition. Trust your eyes.

I can never stress enough the importance of practicing your craft every day. One drawing a day no matter how small. 

Art teachers will tell you to buy all these needless store bought tools for drawing. Don’t. Do not. God bless teachers, but most art teachers are forced to follow an outdated school county curriculum written by people who were never artists. 

Need to draw a circle? Use a clean glass. Use your imagination. Items in your home make excellent tools for drawing.

Aside from pencils, paper, eraser, and pencil sharpener, you already have most artists tools for drawing in your home. If not you can buy them at the 99 Cent store, Dollar Tree, or whatever dollar store is nearby. 

Examples: 

Blending sticks for contouring - Most artists use Qtips. Trim the tips of your Qtips with scissors to your liking. Myself, I just roll the tip of the Qtip between my thumb and index finger until I get the firmness I want. If you do buy blending sticks, just buy the sticks, not the entire tool kit, and sharpen the blending sticks to a point with a cardboard nail file. You can buy both Qtips and nail files at the dollar store. You might get lucky and find blending sticks there too. 

Matte finishing spray - Once you start drawing for your portfolio and/or display, you’ll use paper specifically made for graphite. This particular brand of paper is made so graphite clings to it. It will read on the drawing tablets “Made for graphite” or “Made for Pencil”. You don’t really need graphite matte finishing spray to keep your drawing on the paper anymore. I never use it. I’m just careful not to smudge my drawings until they get into frames. Back in the day we all used Aqua Net hairspray rather than professional matte finishing spray. It was pretty much the same thing except your drawings smelled like 1986 for a few hours. If you do get professional matte finishing spray follow the directions on the can to the letter. Can’t stress that enough. 

Your homework: MULTI SUBJECTS 

Anytime you draw multi subjects in your drawing you need a starting point of reference. Where do you want their eyes to go first when they look at your drawing?  

If you’ve ever watched an ANG LEE movie, he is a master at points of reference. He has all these gorgeous glorious backgrounds in his movies but they never outshine the narration of the movie’s storyline. You look at what ANG LEE wants you to first look at. He directs your eyes and from there your gaze widens. In my sailboat drawing there’s birds, water, driftwood, a cat, footprints, and water plants, but you’re going to see the sailboat first. From there your gaze widens. 

Points of reference are created by using a simple dot. Start with two subjects. Three if you’re feeling it. Trees. Buildings. Orbs. They don’t have to be two of the same thing. Tell a story. Birds in flight. Various aged trees. Household items sitting on your counter. Flowers in your yard. Etc.

What are you drawing? What’s the narration of your image? Will your story go left to right? Up to down? Will it start in the center of the page and move outward? Place a small erasable dot where you want your first image to be drawn and from there decide where you want the other images to go. It’s not uncommon for artists to stare at a blank canvas, mentally drawing and painting the picture before creating it. 

Because I draw large scale drawings, I use a 32x38 portable drawing board. In my former years, when I was your age, I was stationary at a desk. At home I used the kitchen table. Amazon usually has great deals on portable drawing boards for under $30 and drafting tables at reasonable prices.

Once you start drawing pictures for display or commissions, you’ll want to use the same clean flat surface to draw on. Get used to it. Be comfortable. Do not draw in the tablet. It’s ok to practice drawing in the tablets, but for serious drawings draw on individual sheets of paper. Tear the sheet of paper from the tablet. You don’t want imprints of your previous drawing on the current one.

If you use a portable drawing board it will come already equipped with clips and a rubber binder to hold your paper in place. If you’re using a desk or table I suggest securing your paper down on the desk with small pieces of clear tape just on the four corners of the paper. And then very carefully remove the tape when you’re finished drawing. 

This was a long lesson. Sorry. I wrote a lot of things Google can explain further if you have questions. 

Last thing, Marvel starting video tutorials on drawing comics. How cool if someone created a new Superhero in 2019. A new Villain? 

Now go draw!

Practice practice practice. 

WIP (beach)

Mostly finished with my little boat. I’ll tweak it out at the end. 

DRAWING LESSON 2

DRAWING LESSON 1

When working with graphite, any black and white image, all colors become shades of white, grey, and black. 

In black and white photography, professional photographers and makeup artists use these four colors: black, white, brown, and red. With these four colors they can manipulate an image to be darker, lighter, taller, shorter, thinner, thicker, enhance, dilute, set a mood, etc., graphite artists use the same methods. - Technically photographers use OUR methods. 

We draw images on paper underneath a pretend sun, a make believe moon, imaginary stars, the illuminations of a world we individually create. If you can see it in your mind, you can draw it. If you can see it directly in front of you, you can put it on paper in your own way. The reason why people think they can’t draw is because they don’t know how to focus, followed by unfortunate lack of dedication.

All images start with basic shapes. Lines. Circles. Squares. Rectangles. Diamond. Hourglass. When I outline a drawing like the one I’m working on now it was just shapes on paper. Only I know what those shapes will later become. 

The human eye is an amazing lens. It’s both panoramic and peripheral at the same time. Without focus it’s easy to get overwhelmed and quit drawing before you begin. That’s why it’s important to focus on your subject, in the beginning one subject at a time, truly observe it. A tree. A bird. Whiskers on a cat. A book. A glass. One item at a time. Only then will you understand the relationship from one subject to the next. A string of pearls. A window. A table. A piece of fruit. 

One drawing a day of one item. One item and nothing else. That one item in its raw basic image. It’s shape. It’s shadow. It’s light. It’s dimensions. It’s textures. Truly look at the foundation of the subject you’re drawing. Just look at it for a while. Observe it’s lines. Don’t worry about detail. Detail always comes later. In doing this lesson, you’ll learn what subjects you enjoy drawing. Place that subject in front of a window and draw it at different times of the day.

At least one drawing a day. One subject at a time.

When you discover those things you really enjoy drawing, draw it a hundred times over, in a hundred different ways. Example, I love drawing plants and trees. Wood in general. Bridges. Ladders. Cabins. Sailboats. It reminds me of home. It reminds me of my childhood. Not necessarily the subject itself but rather the mood, the feeling.

Not everyone will get what you’re drawing. Not everyone will see what you saw. It can be bothersome. But the sooner you learn to not let it bother you too much, the better. After all, maybe your vision of that half full glass of water on a table reminds them of something else, of someone else, something personal. They don’t have to love your drawing for the same reasons you do. 

Now go draw. Practice practice practice!

WIP (the sail)

Currently working on the sail of my little boat. 

I’ve decided during the course of this drawing to give tutorials on basic graphite drawing. If you have children or if you’re an aunt, uncle, sibling, or grandparent, you have the power to change the course of a child’s world for the better, and quite possibly your own. After all, the first 3D surgical grid assisting invasive surgery was invented by an artist, not an engineer, not a doctor, but an artist.

BASICS:

One outline pencil

One shading pencil

One eraser 

One pencil sharpener 

One white drawing tablet 

These five items, along with dedication, are all you need in the beginning.

Anything else you may need you probably already own as common household items, like cotton balls, Qtips, nail file, etc. We’ll get into that later.

I draw large scale drawings, 18x24 and bigger, so my outline pencil is very light. It’s easier to draw lines darker rather than erase. I use a 6H pencil. It’s very light. Most graphite artists begin drawing using an HB or B pencil. 

Right now all we’re doing is building a relationship with you and your pencil. This may sound strange but once you start drawing you’ll understand. For a shading pencil start with a 2B graphite pencil. The higher the number on the pencil the darker the graphite. The darkest graphite pencil (I’ve seen and use regularly) is an 8B pencil designed by a German company. You don’t need that now, or maybe ever.

For now just get an HB or B for outline, and a 2B pencil to practice shading. These are professional drawing pencils. 

Use a metal pencil sharpener. They last forever.

I use kneaded rubber erasers. 

Art teachers will tell you to start with Art Gum erasers, but I don’t like using those. They smear your drawing when you try to erase something, crumble and easily fall apart. I use Kneaded Rubber erasers.

Kneaded rubber erasers are not only self cleaning when you stretch and roll them out like bread dough, but they’re soft and can be reshaped, pulled apart into smaller separate erasers, and can be rolled back together again into one eraser, similar to Silly Putty. You’ll see. 

As for a drawing tablet, get any cheap white paper tablet. Eventually you’ll want to use a professional drawing tablet specifically designed for graphite, but right now any cheap white or beige drawing tablet will do. 

LESSON 1

Everything you draw will use basic geometry. Everything begins with a square, a circle, oval, round, a rectangle, etc. Practice drawing shapes. Just shapes. Look around the room. Draw the shape, just the shape of the items in the room. Is your TV square or rectangle? Do you have vertical blinds? Horizontal blinds? Do you see candles? Are they tall, short, round, square? Just draw the shape. Never mind detail for now. And always keep your pencil sharp.

Then

With your shading 2B pencil practice shading in each shape with various pressures on pencil using straight lines only. L

Lift your pencil after each line. This is called hatching. If you want to give your shape some depth and texture then make another series of lines cross-crossing the first. This is called cross-hatching. Lift your pencil after each line. Be as accurate as you can staying in the lines. Practice different pressures on the pencil without breaking your graphite tip. 

And there’s your homework. Practice practice practice! 

WIP (work in progress)

Like my sailboat so far?

At last I feel like my old self again, an Oxfordian snob ;)