Category: Challenges

EDM #31: Draw something you collect

dannygregory21 Comments

I got my first piece of taxidermy when I was a teenager, a moldering old fox head. Over the decades my collection grew; Patti and I gave each other stuffed dead animals for birthdays and anniversaries until we had a full-blown Adams Family effect. I have culled our collection a bit but there are still snouts and beaks peaking around most corners.

These guys fill the wall of my study — five calm sentries watching over me while I type this. I have drawn them many times as they are interesting from every angle. This time I tackled them with a Faber Castell PITT pen with an XS point. It was a frustrating reminder of why I love my fountain pens. While the PITT doesn’t stain my fingers and has a decent black line, like the specimens on my walls, it dies all too quickly. Sure enough, midway, the pen began to cough and splutter and finally gave up the ghost as I drew the last antler. I finished things up with my Lamy, a dip pen, and a brush with a  bit of sumi.

Let me be honest about something—while I have drawn every day for the past month and some, I can’t say I have done more than one or two pieces I actually like. This one again is not one of them. I need to do some soul searching now that I am back from vacation and figure out what is up. Is it the pace? Is it the hour? Is it the subject matter? The materials? My brain? There’s no question that its a good thing to sustain the habit of drawing each day but I would like to be more pleased with the results.

 

EDM# 30: Draw a chair. See a new place.

dannygregory14 Comments

Jack and I are back from our visit to the Crooked Trail of western Virginia. We drove 1,400 miles in six days, visited six states, heard a lot of music, ate one salad, did a small amount of drawing, and had  a great time.

We saw beautiful places like Mabry Mill in Meadows of Dan, Virginia.
We ate lots of interesting Southern vittles.
We were sorely tempted.
We visited the phenomenal O. Wilson Link Museum, the coolest thing in Roanoke.
We visited Roadside America in Shartlesville, PA, the world’s coolest miniature village.
Seriously, the coolest. This is not one of those tilt-lens pictures that make reality look like a miniature. It’s a miniature that looks an awful lot like the real thing.
We got bossed around by signs a fair amount.
This was our trip credo.
We saw some fantastic old time music shows, like this one in Floyd VA’s Country Store.
And this one at the Carter Family Fold, the Mecca and Ground Zero of country music.
We visited a mess of log cabins.
And hung out at Appomattox, where the Civil War ended in 1865.
The mountains were smoky. We had rain, fog, but mainly lovely sunshine.
A spooky moment one night in Floyd.

And I drew a chair. Or two. And some hungry musicians.

I prepainted the page in watercolor before I left, then knocked out this Safari sketch and tinted it with sumi ink and a white pencil.

You can see more of my photos on my tumblr.

EDM #29: draw something architectural

dannygregory6 Comments

20120803-092052.jpg

I looked through some of my old travel journals and realized that what I have been missing in my recent drawings is the interaction between different drawings, the flow of events as I capture them, different drawings done in different places butted up against each other. I’ve been doing these morning edm drawings in a specially designated book, one per page and I have lost a lot of that antic energy I like. So on our trip to Appalachia, Jack and I are both drawing in smaller moleskines and I’m using a smaller pen (usually a PITT XS). I have my super tiny paint set and a water brush. It’s a whole new set of challenges using a finite set of art supplies and tiny ones at that and it is making things new again. All that is of course multiplied by being in a new place and seeing things through fresh eyes.
Some of it is very annoying, particularly trying to use my phone, my iPad and any available wifi to post these drawings to my blog but it’s all party of the adventure.

20120803-092109.jpg

EDM # 28: Draw an appliance

dannygregory5 Comments

I laid down this base color in tribute to avocado green, harvest gold and almond, the kitchen colors of my youth. Now everything seems to be black, white and stainless steel. Drawn with a bamboo pen and india ink.

—-

Jack and I are heading out on a road trip along the Crooked Trail today.  I will be drawing on the trip and hope to continue tackling the challenges each day but I doubt I’ll be able to scan and upload for the next week or so. If I get decent wi-fi, I’ll try, so stay tuned.

EDM #27: Draw a book

dannygregory9 Comments

Sorry, for the self-congratulation but I’ve never drawn this before. It was nice to be sitting in my air-conditioned studio with all my gear around me. I drew it with both Lamy safari nibs, then painted it with Dr. Martin’s and did the background in gouache and the writing with a dip pen and white ink.

I love seeing people’s versions of my work. Below is a lovely rendition by Matthew Midgeley.If you’ve ever drawn one of my books, I would so love to see it.

By Matthew Midgeley

Love this one by Jinho Jung:

EDM #26: Draw anything you like.

dannygregory14 Comments

I drew this under a misting fan in an outdoor restaurant in Dallas where the temperature was heading to 106 degrees.  Overwhelmed and distracted by this intense heat,  I scratched feeble white charcoal pencil lines. Others, more hardy, jogged and cycled up and down the Katy trail in the background. I had prepared the page with gouache back in New York on Friday, anticipating a certain browness to the proceedings, but naive as to the desultory effects of the actual weather.

While I was unable to do much drawing in Dallas, I did manage to take some photos of Dealey Plaza and the Texas Bok Depository, a grim and effecting place that I have read so much about since I was a teenager. It was smaller than I had imagined and I felt a terrible sadness that I had only ever experienced at Gettysburg and Ground Zero. an ordinary street corner that my imagination and memory populate with powerful tragedy.

A misting fan in the tree overhead.
A rare sighting in Dallas.
Marks the spot on the road where JFK was shot.
On the back of the fence overlooking the grassy knoll where conspiracy theorists share their versions of history for five dollar tips.
Too hot to draw much.

Nutrition advice from Rusty Taco.