Coming Soon!

Now that I have agreed to another 6 month contract in Saudi, starting as soon as I get my visa (I'm booked to fly out of Calgary on Dec 22), I will not be able to use lack of time as reason to not be drawing.
We had our christmas gifts and family dinner yesterday; it was great that everyone could shuffle their schedules to be here. I received some wonderful journals from Mike; he added to my supply of moleskin-like journals (made in India, NOT China) called "hand-book journal co" , a Pentalic pad of very smooth, heavy weight paper for ink work, plus a marvelous hand made, leather bound water colour paper journal ( called "vincent Rossini")  and some neat Windsor & Newton inks. The leather journal is so nicely done, that I am nervous about making my first marks in it!  I only hope I can do it justice. It feels great to hold, so I expect it will spur me on to do great ( or at least better) things. Seeing it in the flesh has also inspired me to take up making my own journals using recycled leather for cover,etc.... this will be yet another project on my list when I get back to Calgary.

Currently I plan on using the leather  journal for sketches I will make on weekends in Saudi when I try to get out for some fresh air... let's see what evolves in the coming weeks.

The "hand-book journal" has buff, heavy paper (weight is not given on the label)  that can take light washes, along with elastic closure and pouch in the back; they are great for taking on trips/hikes or wherever.

The ramblings will continue and so will the drawing. I will also re-activate my travel blog (bruce-travel@blogspot.com). Stay tuned.

ArtRage

I am still promising to get more drawing done and I will. I"ve got some almost ready to post that are going to be part of my series of inspirations from the grandkids. In the meantime, I've been trying to get more comfortable with digital drawing using ArtRage; this program mimics drawing/painting with water colour, oil, pastel, pencil, ink,etc...with an infinite set of variations. I drew some polar bear sketches in pencil in my sketch book. I  then decided to try same drawing in ArtRage; this is one of the least bad ones!... I have a way to go before I feel competent with that software.

Grandchildren

I'm not doing well on my promise to draw and post more!.... but I will.

I'm trying to do some drawings based on inspiration from Adrian or Anna. I have a couple in the works; here is a quick one I did of some Aspen leaves that Anna picked for me when we were walking outside earlier this week.

[ drawn with Noodler's rollerpen and watercolour]

More sketch book pages

I decided to add some pages from my sketchbook that I did when I was out working on Tatoosh; the reference to E-dock is the dock where Tatoosh is moored in Sidney B. C. As you can see, I've discovered that some of the ink I have is NOT waterproof and does not dry quickly, hence the smudges/smears on some of the pages.

Drawing Block continues

Although I know intellectually that to overcome this drawing block  I just need to draw, I've still not tackled a stand-alone drawing/painting for some time. However, I am still trying to do something everyday in my sketchbooks. I've posted some pages from my sketch book to prove that I'm not completely out of the picture ( no pun intended). Most of these are from a moleskin-like sketch book made in India. I don't buy the moleskins since they are now manufactured in China. I'm not happy with the paper, it is a bit fuzzy which is not so good for fine nibbed fountain pens,etc. However, it does take a light wash so I can use light watercolour washes for colouring.
The book is called "hand-book", from Global Art Materials, Inc Kansas City. I got mine at Mona Lisa art supply in Calgary.

 Above is the sort of aimless doodling i'm proned to do in the evening or with a coffee/tea break.

 Above is the new building at SAIT in Calgary.

 This is a fishing shack at Placentia Bay, NFLD.

 The dying tree that is growing out of our deck.

 A tree doodle from my imagination.

An exercise in drawing the same subject but with different media.

Older sketches

I've been testing/trying/playing with Art Rage ( drawing program) and a few sketches in my sketch book but nothing I'm happy with sharing. So I've resorted to adding these two sketches from earlier this year that have been pinned up on my wall for no particular reason.

I've not done an ink drawing for a while and the drawing of storm clouds over downtown Calgary reminded me that I should try one soon.

The second is a small watercolour I did to tryout using a resist to leave white paper behind after doing some washes. Colours didn't come out from scanner ( I may have to adjust colour balance on my scanner) but for what it is worth, here it is.

I'm off to coast to work on the boat this week so maybe the change of scene will inspire some more drawing ( and limited access to internet to distract me also!)

another penguin

Yes, I know, it has been almost 2 weeks. I've been doing some drawing but not nearly what I had set out for myself. I have been experimenting with ArtRage ( digital painting program). It has so many features and options that I find I keep getting lost in trying out various types of media (ink/watercolour/paint,etc) and variations on settings,etc that I forget that the object is try to do a drawing! So, back to penguins and this is a result of me trying out some digital watercolours on ArtRage. Maybe for my next ArtRage experiment I'll have a few beers first to unleash the inner painter!

Pens

In one of my internet wanderings [ i keep finding myself arriving at websites that bear no relationship to where I started my surfing!] I came across Goulet Pens . This is a small business run by a pen-o-holic offering a wide range of fountain pens and a myriad of inks, along with reviews, comparisons,etc. The pen that caught my attention was a new series of pen from the USA ink company, Noodler's. Noodler's has a wide range of inks, some of which are a "polar' series that will keep on writing in arctic conditions. Goulet also offers ink samples so that you can try out inks before buying a whole bottle.

Back to my topic; Noodler's owner has a philosophy that we should not be using throw-away pens ( there are one time use fountain pens now on the market, as well of course as one-time use roller pens) and that they can be made well and cheaply in the USA. His pens ARE all made in USA, using a vegetable based resin ( it has a plastic feel but is not plastic) and they retail in the $20 range. He has designed them so that they are readily taken apart for cleaning and/or part replacement so they will last a life time.

The fountain pen shown is Noodler's flex pen; the nib is flexible and can produce a wide range of line widths. [ another aside: he is a Moby Dick fan and the clip on the pen is a whale shape and the pen is called the 'Ahab'.]

In the photo you can see the brush pen, roller pen and fountain pen. These are all available from Goulet and I recommend them. You can also get ink syringes from Goulet so that you can refill ink cartridges for other pens that you may have.

Now all I have to do is start drawing more with these!

Here is a quick example of the lines from the pens:

I can't believe I have procrastinated for 6 weeks since last post!
In honour of the opening of the new penguin exhibit at the Calgary zoo and my 2 1/2 old grandson's fascination with them, I've decided to do a series of penguin drawings/sketches.

When Adrian saw my first minimalist efforts ( I have a larger version of one of these up on my office wall) he said "They are penguins..... they look cold". I'll get some more up this week.

To try and get out of my current drawing rut, i'm also setting aside a few hours one day a week to go to galleries and/or do some urban/ en plein air sketching.

If anyone is reading this, I apologize for the gaps and will be more diligent from here on.

I also see that for some reason the link to my flickr site 'gadget' is no longer working on the blog; i'll try to see if I can fix it. If not, a reminder that the link is www.flickr.com/photos/cbrucewarren

I will get better.... I promise!

It is already more than one month into 2012 and no new postings here yet! Perhaps I can embarrass myself into getting into a drawing/painting routine. I still am struggling to keep at it and not sure what the problem is.
If I start putting up my sketch book doodles, I expect that will spur me on to do more practice since the sketch books tend to be pretty rough and ready and not really ready for "prime time"...not that this blog is prime time!
 The only thing I've done in past while of any note is the bird identification cards I gave Adrian for Xmas and I did not scan them before they made into his Xmas gift pile; i only have drafts/preliminary sketches. I'll have to borrow them so I can scan them. I do have a photo of all of them together which I will try to dig up and post.