Pygmy Rabbit sketch

Quick bunny sketch in black pencil

Sketching in graphite

A week with no assignments means free sketching time. Here are two quick sketches from this week.

Tom Sawyer

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (illustrated by Susan Pope)

I illustrated the graveyard scene from the Adventures of Tom Sawyer for a competition (Tomie dePaola).  I've never entered a competition before, so it was a fun exercise.  I thought I'd make them animal characters, since I'd rather draw animals than people.

Bugs!

Mountain Stag Beetle rendered in ink on drafting film

Squid

Watercolor on cold press paper

Blue Heron

A not so common sight in my backyard, this Blue Heron decided to stop by for some preening time. He peered at us from the top of our neighbors Chimney stack. We hope he visits again.

FALL

One last chance to catch the color of Fall before it goes away.  The Maple trees are nearly bare already. [Prismacolor pencils on Bristol board]

Silly Galah

Galah babies are just as silly as their parents. Hanging upside down, looking like they are about to fall, Galah's are the trapeze artists of the parrot world.

Final illustration of a Florida Apple Snail at 100%. Bristol board (Vellum), 4B, 2B, HB.

Florida Apple Snail, alternate view

Florida Apple Snail sketch

First assignment for Natural Science Illustration - Florida Apple Snail. Measured sketch in 2B.

Wombat drawing

Snow Leopard at Woodland Park Zoo

Helen calling her cubs to eat chicken.

The cubs are both girls, and both blind in one eye.  Their brother was euthanized because he had several heart defects and would not have survived much longer.

Hidden

Do you see what I see? Looks like nice moss, but do you see anything else? Post a comment on what you see.

Where did last year go?

Wow, 2009 zoomed past and already it is March 2010. How did that happen? The Wallingford Art Walk was huge - thanks to Alliance Healing Arts and everyone who stopped by, chilled and enjoyed my work. The art walk was so much fun! I'm so excited because Starbucks in Wallingford will be exhibiting my photography in July 2010. Can't wait for that one! Bring on summer!

WALLINGFORD ART WALK

Photo Exhibition at Alliance Chiropractic on 45th

(west of Dicks Burgers)

Wednesday August 5th

6-8 PM

Stop by and enjoy some refreshments and a chair massage too. Bring your friends, spouse, partner, kids...

Click the link for more information: www.wallingfordartwalk.org

Close Up!

There's the old adage of "get close to your subject".  Some say if you think you are close, go ahead and take another step forward.  In many instances the subject is in the photo with loads of dead space surrounding him/her/it. 

Look first at your subject and decide what is most important.  Is it the person, or the beach?  If it is the person, then step in.  Merely a suggestion of the background is all that is required when taking portraits.  However, if you want to photograph the beach itself as the subject and you want to include the person somewhere in the photo, then get down to the beach level and let the person be secondary to the subject of the beach.  Maybe the person has his feet in the water, and that's all you choose to photograph because the water is more important in this photo.  In my beach photo, I chose the beach as my subject - the children running ahead are suggesting the story but they are not the subject.

Enjoy Summer and happy snapping!

What About Contrast?

A good balance between the light and dark of contrast.  Compare this to the other two photos.

WHAT ABOUT CONTRAST?

Left: contrast flat Right: too contrasty

I've seen a lot of photos recently where the contrast has made what could have been a great photo, a bad photo.  

Contrast is the variation between the light and dark areas of your photo.  Every photo has a level of contrast, which can be changed in various photo shop type applications.  When a photo has too much contrast there is a greater disparity between the dark and light areas of your photo, hence "too contrasty."  The result might be that the details of the white areas of your photo fade away.  The details in the dark areas might be so dark that you can't see anything, just black.  Going in the other direction might be that there isn't enough contrast so that the photo feels dull, the details are not crisp and everything has a monotone or flat feel.

If you only have a little point and shoot digital camera then make sure you have as much light as possible before you take the photo.  No matter what the lighting source, turn it all on.  Even if part of the lighting is from birthday cake candles, you still need more light.  Fat candles work better than thin candles and don't turn the lights off before you blow out the candles (which is what my family always did when I was a kid).  Always use the built in flash when indoors.  Sometimes even during a sunny day outdoors, you might still need the flash.  I use a flash when my subject is in the shade of a tree and it is a sunny day.  Maybe the subject has his back to the sun, then use the flash.  

So, turn on the lights, use the flash and look for good subjects that have a balance of contrast.

Happy snapping!

It's All In The Framing

It's all in the framing.  A good photo is made by many things - lighting, composition, emotion and framing for example.  Some photographers are all about the framing and it's a good thing.  Don't know what I'm on about?  Then grab a piece of cardboard and cut a 1 inch by 2 inch hole in it, then find an interesting subject and frame it up with your holey cardboard.  You can play with what the photo would potentially look like by moving your cardboard around until you find the most pleasing frame for it.   Practice for a week and then go back to taking photos - I bet your photos will look so much the better for all your hard eye workouts.