Partners

Posted on October 8, 2015 by Sarah Sullivan

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Today’s sketch is based on yesterday’s, but I made some adjustments to add emphasis to the two figures and convey a stronger message that this sketch is about their relationship. The two figures now fill more of the page and the background figures are moved further back into the distance. Both faces are tilted up a bit so they appear to be exchanging a thought. The woman’s figure is now closer to the front of the page so that her raised foot might appear to be resting on the facing chair, suggesting a more intimate relationship (I still did not get it right). I added texture with watercolor pencil to both figures and made the shoreline move diagonally across the page to give more visual interest. I used markers, watercolor pencil, pencil and a pen.

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My 100th Post

Posted on October 7, 2015 by Sarah Sullivan

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This is my 100th post, a day to take stock of my progress, and a day to determine next steps.

In the past few days I have been looking through my old sketchbooks and thinking about the question that drives this blog, “Am I drawing better?”

Although it continues to be hard to post sketches that I wish were better, the daily discipline of sketching and blogging about it is associated with accelerating growth. This is clear to me as I look through my sketchbooks from the last 50 years. After many years of static growth I feel I am improving. My growth is also helped by following the blogs of fabulous artists, taking on-line classes, sketching at an open studio weekly and most important of all, sketching with the San Diego Urban Sketchers.

But my real goal is to convey a story through every sketch and I have a long way to go before I can do this well. At this point I can look at a real scene, decide on a possible meaning, and then use strategies such as exaggeration or emphasis to show the story that is in front of me. But I am not yet able to compose a scene that tells a story. This is my goal for the next 100 days. I want to tell the story I feel as well as the story I see. I want to become a story creator as well as a story recorder.

The sketch above is my first attempt at telling a story I feel. I decided to show something about my parents, to interpret their relationship with each other, and with their many offspring. As I thought about them, I remembered how much they liked being together, being at the beach and being with all of us. So I began with a sketch from 2009 of my parents reading on the patio of my sister’s home. I chose this one because they are facing each other even as they read alone; I thought this might show their independence and interdependence. I added in figures from beach scenes that I sketched here in San Diego to represent the tumult of a large family reunion and to make the beach part of the context for their relationship. And I included a dog, since they always had at least one around.

I used markers, watercolor pencil and a pen.

Posted in Deliberate Practice, Story Creation | Tagged | 2 Comments

At the bay

Posted on October 6, 2015 by Sarah Sullivan

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This is a quick sketch from a cove at Mission Beach. I actually sketched it in ink last week but left the site before adding color. Today I experimented at home with markers and watercolor on several similar black and white sketches.  I overlaid the markers with violet watercolor in the foreground and also used the violet in the sky. I was trying to see if I could convey energy and movement by using a few colors but applying them unevenly and boldly.

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Write each word 5 times each…

Posted on October 5, 2015 by Sarah Sullivan

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I am enjoying helping my young neighbor with his homework, and tonight am reminded about how hard it is to truly become fluent as a writer and speller. My neighbor puts such effort into his penmanship, forming each letter carefully, erasing when it is not up to his high standard, and in the process slowly destroying the paper on which he is writing each word five times. All meaning about the content and larger purpose of spelling well is lost as he focuses on getting the form of the letters right. He might progress faster as a speller if his attention were more on the word rather than on forming the letters that make up the word.

The parallel between my neighbor’s efforts as a speller and mine as a sketcher is not lost on me and it reminds me that it is easy to drift away from effective ways of learning. I need to remember that although my goal is to communicate ideas through images by deliberately practicing compositional elements, I might progress faster if my attention stays more on the idea I am communicating rather than on forming the image.

Posted in Deliberate Practice, Uncategorized | Tagged | 2 Comments

Please take your turn!

Posted on October 4, 2015 by Sarah Sullivan

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Four of us were playing a slow-moving game with each player agonizing over each move. We had our coping strategies; sketching, crossword puzzles, KenKen puzzles, pointed looks, and so on. I was content with the pace as the slower the moves, the more I could sketch. As the evening progressed I was able to capture delightful facial expressions from the two players across the table from me. The gaze of both figures are turned looking at the same player off to their right. Eyes, eyebrows, and expression match. Their resigned looks are reinforced by their body language; the male’s shoulders are leaning back as though he has not changed position in a while and the female’s face leans against her hand, which holds a bright yellow pencil for her crossword puzzle. I worked in pen, watercolor and marker.

Posted in Body Language, Facial Expression, Groups Interacting | Tagged | 3 Comments

The speaker

Posted on October 3, 2015 by Sarah Sullivan

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This is the first time I sketched from a video. I was so moved by listening to a recording of our relative that I drew her 8 times, attempting each time to interpret her beauty, strength, integrity and generous spirit in an image. The video recording is an interview she gave to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Oral History Branch. What moved me so much was the contrast between the brutal facts that caused her family to perish and her own warm and loving outlook. She stood in line with her mother and four siblings at Auschwitz and was sorted into lines of work or death yet went on to live a full and long life as the matriarch of a new family she made with her husband Chicago. In the last minute of her recording, this speaker of truth sounds a warning for us, “It is happening all over again, not just with Jews. It’s happening in Africa, it happened in Yugoslavia. It’s happening.”

I used strong lines to show her strength, warm colors to show her spirit, and emphasized her eyes to show her veracity.

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Appreciating the sea

Posted on October 2, 2015 by Sarah Sullivan

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It also seemed likely that I would not have enough time on this second day of October to sketch so here is another sketch from last week. I like this sketch because it suggests a sense of quiet appreciation for the sea. The figures are next to each other, not interacting exactly, but definitely together in a quiet common space. The figures, sea, and sand are emphasized because of the limited use of color and marker and I think this simplification adds to the message of appreciation.

Posted in Telling a Story | Tagged | 2 Comments