Aug 8 -- Day at the Dog Park and Revisiting the Self-Portrait Time Machine

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The big event of the day — of the week, really — was a visit to the Pugs in the Park gathering. It was Nacho’s first pug jamboree. When we arrived we found a dozen pugs socializing in a symphony of wheezing and grunting. Nacho was at first overwhelmed and tried to make himself as small and insignificant as possible. When he realized he was among kin, he relaxed and started smelling butts and frapping. I’m proud to say that he was the only pug bold enough (or foolhardy enough) to roll around in the mud by the water trough.

We called it a day when a loose boxer chased him down and backed him into the fence. That was scary.

As for the picture above, it’s another sketch that invokes the “When in doubt, draw a self-portrait” rule. This time I used my Photoshop Self-portrait Time Machine brush, which magically deducts many decades from the image. Out of respect for the principle of realism, I fastidiously drew myself bald.

Chore Day, July 10, 2021 -- Laundry, Vacuuming, and Sketching

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Another self-portrait, this time a profile without my glasses. Yes, I have huge nostrils…the better to smell you with, my dear!

Another self-portrait, this time a profile without my glasses. Yes, I have huge nostrils…the better to smell you with, my dear!

I’m pretty much healed up from my rib and back injuries. I’m able to do laundry and vigorously vacuum the house.

My puppy is now 5-months old and accidents happen. He still hasn’t realized that he’s supposed to do all of his business outside. He’s been teething ferociously and I’ve been finding little baby teeth scattered about the house. He’s a big time chewer — all of the bushes in the yard are missing a few leaves. He’s a sweetheart and I love him intensely.

I also love graphite. When I make a mistake, I use my tortillon to smear it away. Graphite makes drawing fun, the way it was when I was in the fourth grade — it’s messy, too.

Al Fresco Art Club, Jan 3, 2021 -- Pen and Marker Day

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Self-portrait with Marvy Mrkers

Self-portrait with Marvy Mrkers

The Al Fresco Art Club director was back in form today and our days of slacking off and doing whatever were a thing of the past. Today we all had to follow the instructions and use ink and markers to create our one-hour masterpieces. Since I was feeling uninspired, I drew a self-portrait, which, to my surprise, actually resembles me. My selection of Le Plume markers had a few useful muted colors, but skin tones were lacking so I left my face paper color. The black shirt was painted with a Copic marker.

Supplies :

  • Marvy Uchida Le Plume permanent markers (set of 24), alcohol-based markers (24)

  • Copic Marker, black

  • Rotring Tikky 0.1mm liner. The Tikky’s are my favorite liners. The price for these is absurdly marked up Amazon by whacked out resellers, so get them from Jetpens.com for about $3.60 each.

  • HB pencil

  • Marker paper

Al Fresco Art Club Day, July 5, 2020: Ink and Watercolor

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Today was the fifty-eighth consecutive Sunday meeting of our Al Fresco Art Club. We’ve been meeting every week, through thick and then, through good times and hard times. Each week one of us will pose a challenge that will give a nudge to our comfort zone. I chose the challenge this week: make some ink drawings and color them. I sketched and inked four small self-portraits and used some simple pastel washes.

I started by dividing a sheet of mix media paper into four boxes. I used a reference photo and tried to draw a recognizable likeness in each box. Next I inked the sketch, erased the graphite, and laid in the colors. For the skin tone I used a mix of yellow ochre and alizarin crimson. Alizarin crimson is a fugitive color, but it will live on as a permanent color until the end of digital time.

Alfresco Art Club Challenge -- Free For All

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self_portrait_sketch06142020_al_fresco.png, self-portrait, pen and ink

Today’s art challenge was to do whatever we want. I wanted to work on drawing faces from different angles. I have trouble with the low-to-high perspective. I started this picture with a rough pencil sketch, then used a fountain pen to ink the lines, and applied some gray with Tombow watercolor markers. Getting the eyes to look right is the hardest part. My usual error is to draw them too close together. The ear may look too big, but my ears are big!

Chore Day, April 18, 2020: Baking Bean Burgers, Weed Whacking, and More!

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The “more!” would be doing laundry. After the chores, I installed Photoshop on my iPad. I was curious to check it out. It’s free with Adobe CC. I fiddled with it for a minute and decided to uninstall it. I don’t need another distraction.

I drew my self-portrait using the Shahn brush from the Kyle T. Webster’s Summer 2019 brush pack. It’s got awesome unpredictable texture. Sweet!

Al Fresco Art Club Day - Self-portrait using Artrage

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This week the al fresco art club decided to have an Artrage challenge: paint a self-portrait on one layer without using undo. The idea is to learn to paint in a painterly way so that the final result will have the human-made charm of a traditional media painting instead of boring digital perfection.

I use my iPad’s version of Artrage. It has a all of the features I need to learn how to do “oil painting”. One thing I do like about the one-layer technique is that it helps develop confidence — my precious painting isn’t really precious. If you make a hideous error, you just paint over it without thinking twice and, hopefully, the second effort is better than the first. More likely, the 10th effort is better than the 9th.