Currently Browsing: Popular Culture 75 articles
Working Opaquely with Watercolor
Today’s sketch isn’t an example of leaving something out (details on the shirt and jacket) to balance something else. I simply wanted to only paint the face, beard, and background. I thought about painting the shirt and jacket but I liked the lines that were showing through. (Sometimes you simply fall in love with your […]
In Context: Last Year I Watched a Lot of Cooking Shows
This is Paul—a contestant on the Great British Baking Show Holiday Edition, season not noted down. Yep, the woman who takes notes on everything relaxed her standards last year. Didn’t seem to be any point, I was watching so many cooking shows. I couldn’t get out because I couldn’t drive (post-cataract vision effects). I […]
Minnesota State Fair Plans
I don’t know if the Minnesota State Fair 2020 has been cancelled. (It takes place the 12 days before Labor Day each year.) As I write this in advance of my posting date the clock on their site reads 101 days, 11 hours, and 11 minutes to Fair. But my personal Fair adventure this year […]
Seeing Color In Faces When Painting
In this sketch from August 2019 I played with large flat brush to lay in mostly transparent washes of watercolor. I was watching TV late in the evening and the actor Anna Chancellor came on. I paused the TV because I wanted to work on the angles of the planes of her face and particularly […]
In Context: Downsizing My Book Collection
If you click on today’s image you’ll be able to read the text, but depending on your screen size it may be difficult so I’ve transcribed it here, a little “in context leisure reading” for today. (Brush pen warm ups in a Hahnemühle Travel Journal.) My musing ended as you see it, with no conclusions. […]
Draw the Same Person Over and Over, Especially if He Makes You Laugh
I’ve been thinking a lot about humor lately, and the need for it in daily life. I try to get as much humor in my life as possible. Sometimes the only way it is possible is to find it on TV. Everyone knows I love improv. I watch and rewatch episodes of “Whose Line Is […]
In Context—Philosophical Questions Arising from Watching Perry Mason
I think this page spread text pretty much says it all. (From my cataract recuperation journals.) What are television shows telling us about their historical time periods? This one is pretty obvious.
Accepting Changes in Your Process
I’ve written quite a bit about accepting changes in your process throughout the 11 years of this blog. It is a common theme in my teaching. One of the things that seems to hang students up the most is the notion that there must be one “right” way to do something. I’m constantly telling crop […]
Things to Do in the Current Pandemic: Learn from Pluto
Learn from Pluto? Yep, the dog, not the planet or the cartoon dog. Pluto Living is a YouTube channel that has PSAs (Pluto Service Announcements) from Pluto the dog. This dog is an older miniature Schnauzer (if I’m remembering correctly). Her name is Pluto and she is concerned about the issues stressing two-leggeds in the […]
Contour Drawings—Always Useful
Students in my current session of Drawing Practice have been posting contour drawings. Every group takes to it differently, some, like otters, rush along the side of the stream, darting in and out and sliding effortlessly with the current. Others stand back curious, but not committed. Like anything it takes practice. It’s why I call […]