It started with a reference photo of majestic icicles which I managed to lose shortly after mapping some details in pencil. Not willing to dig through my huge and badly documented collections of shots taken over 15+ years, I decided to continue on my own and see where it ends. Somehow it ended in an abstract that has little to do with icicles or anything else of that kind, but it was fun to work through it without much commitment to the end result.
Miscalculated where the horse should go on the piece of paper, but otherwise happy with the sketch. The subject was a beautiful chestnut, most likely a resident of the horse boarding facility across the street from our home in Cupertino, CA.
A kind visitor at the third weekend of recent Open Studios came up with the title, not me. I often draw during SVOS. People like to see how art is created, and whatever I am working on easily becomes a conversation piece. Sometimes I get a free benefit of getting stuff named for me.
This last little drawing completes the “Gathering” series. It going to be a while before I want to anything other than single drawings.
See the first four pieces in this series:
I will be showing on the first three weekends of May along with many wonderful artists. Two of my newest pieces were completed just in time for SVOS, and I can’t wait to share them with you. Hope you will join us!
WEEKEND ONE: MAY 2ND & 3RD
Site 339
30 Sunrise Court, Menlo Park, CA 94025
11am to 5pm
With Amanda Krauss, Krishna Mitra, Slava Shabrov, and Teresa Silvestri.
WEEKEND TWO: MAY 9TH & 10TH
Site 111
1510 Oak Avenue, Los Altos, CA 94024
11am to 5pm
With U. Q. Livd, Vaishali Sanghavi, Slava Shabrov, and Sarah Soward.
WEEKEND THREE: MAY 17TH & 18TH
Site 149
10300 Torre Avenue, Cupertino, CA 95014
Sat, May 16th – 10am to 6pm
Sun, May 17th – 12am to 6pm
With Janki Chokshi, Denise Howard, James Lee, Jessica Liu, Reynold Alex Martinez, Krishna Mitra, Slava Shabrov, Michele Smeulders, and Isabelle Stachnick.
Or see all sites in one place on my SVOS page.
A joint effort of Corel Painter Mobile and Art Flow (both Android apps), with Painter carrying out most of it because it is so good at faking oil paints. I don’t like how real oils smell and how messy the entire process is, so digital looks like a nice alternative.
Despite several amazing finds among drawing apps and all niceties they offer, I find myself again with a piece of paper and a graphite pencil. Must be a habit.
“Newborn” and “Fortitude” has been accepted into the Connections exhibit at the Main Street Cafe sponsored by the Fine Arts League of Cupertino:
The show will be open from January 31 till February 28, 2015.
There is a lot of great artworks in the show, make sure to stop by!
Main Street Cafe and Books is located at 134 Main St, Los Altos, CA 94022
Open Monay – Saturaday 7:30 am – 5:00 pm, Sunday 9:30 am -2:30 pm.
I will have two of my older pieces at the San Jose Bridge Center from January 27 till April 28, 2015:
There will be no reception for this show.
The San Jose Bridge Center is located at 1300 White Oak, Suite 103, Campbell, CA.
I am gradually making friends with Painter Mobile Pro. Most of it happens on the Galaxy 5 phone because the screen on my tablet responds to a stylus a little erratically. The phone allows to draw surprisingly precise thin lines, it does not mind blending, smudging, or multiple layers. Well, for the most time. Every now and then it needs a little time to show me the result. Very handy for sketching on the go but still does not exactly a replacement for real tools and paper.
Trying out new artist pens that I got for the New Year. They are Sharpy Stylo and Pigma Micron pens. So far, Micron ones win with a little finer lines and more steady ink flow (that’s the left and center leaves).
About a dozen of my artworks will be a part of the Silicon Valley Open Studios preview exhibit at the Art Ark Gallery.
Art Ark Gallery is located at 1035 South 6th Street, San Jose, CA 95112.
Gallery Hours: Saturday, January: 17th, 24th & 31st 11-4 pm.
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 10th 6-9 pm.
Closing Reception: Friday, February 6th 6-9 pm.
I will also be sitting in the gallery on January 31, 1:30 pm – 4 pm.
Stop by if you are in the area, it will be great to see you!
Other participating artists: Lisa Babbitt, Rebecca Bangs, Leanne Bouwer, Trudi Burney, Jerry Carpenter, Gabriel Coke, Angela Cunningham, John Ediger, Marianne Eichenbaum, Liz Fennell, Yvette Head, Yvonne Head, Marilynn Host, Susannah Jackson, Leslie Lambert, Jim Lee, Alyssa Levitan, Oleg Lobykin, Stephanie Maclean, Daniel McLean, Dana Nehdaran, Dariush Nehdaran, Christine Oliver, Karen Olsen, Mohana Pradhan, Christine Rasmussen, Sally Rayn, Bill Sarnoff, Edwin Simon, Anthony Stenberg, Janet Trenchard, Nancy Woods, Helen Yang.
This preview is an opportunity to see some of the art and meet the artists prior to the Open Studios held in the first three weekends of May, 2015.
I wanted to finish this one yesterday and make it my last horse drawn in the departing year of the Horse, but of course that didn’t happen. So let it be the first horse of the new year with many more to follow.
I want to thank you all for following me and supporting my art and wish you all the very best in the new year 2015!
The fourth piece in the “Gathering” series got no horses, it is dedicated to the beauty of many rock patterns.
I think I will do the final piece the same way, without any representative images. Most comments that I get about this series is about the beauty of rocks themselves it seems fitting to get back to the original idea and focus on that.
As usual, the ATC exchange at CAG today was a lot of fun. Here are my contributions to the event:
I love how the fall edition of the ATC exchange happens around my Birthday. This year it’s on a day before, so I got four early Birthday gifts:
I will have a few pen and ink pieces in this show:
If you are in the area, stop by for the opening reception on December 5th, starting at 7 pm.
HARK! 9th annual holiday exhibit & sale is open from December 5th, 2014 through January 16, 2015.
KALEID gallery is located at 88 S 4th St, San Jose, California 95112
Corinthian House in Campbell has a new exhibit now, and several of may artworks are a part of it:
Corinthian house is located at 250 Budd Avenue, Campbell CA 95008.
The exhibit is open from 9:00am to 4:00pm, Monday through Friday till January 18, 2015.
The reception will be held on Sunday, December 7, 2014, 2 – 3:30 pm.
My mixed media creatures were accepted into the Silicon Valley Small Works exhibit at the Vargas Gallery on the Mission College campus:
Mission College is located at 3000 Mission College Blvd, Santa Clara, CA 95054. The gallery is in the Gillmor Center, room 102. See the map of its location here: GC-102.
The exhibit will be on from Wednesday, November 12 till Wednesday, December 10, 2014.
The opening reception for Silicon Valley Small Works will be held on Wednesday, November 12 from 4-7 pm.
The Vargas Gallery is open Mon. 3-6 pm, Tues. 1-5 pm, Wed. 3-6 pm, Thurs. 1-5 pm, Friday 1-4 pm, Sat. 12-2 pm. Closed November 27 – 30 for Thanksgiving.
Just let the pencils have their way with the paper to take the mind off a rather detailed pieces I work on. Not sure if the result qualifies for an abstract since there is definitely a figure in it.
Here is my newest tiny digital canvas. I haven’t done any for a few months and completely forgot my past experience with colored pencil on this kind of surface. It is a bit slippery and does not allow to build up really dark darks unless you carefully plan for them from the beginning and use very sharp pencils all the time. Unlike with paper or traditional linen canvas it is not possible to start with lighter colors everywhere and then go darker in as many layers as necessary. Darker colors on a digital canvas start to chip off relatively quickly if you are not careful.
So with a refreshed memory, I am now going to use digital canvas with soft graphite pencils only and leave colors to linen ones. Or maybe it’s worth trying to gesso a digital canvas and see if it becomes more tolerant to dark colored pencils.
The original miniature ($35.00) is available in my Miniatures online gallery.
Updated: October 26, 2014
It’s finished. I like how it turned out more than the first two pieces in the series.
Updated: October 17, 2014
So most of my ideas are not suitable for small shapes and have to be put aside for now. I think there is a larger rocky piece in my feature; meanwhile this one continues to take shape.
Updated: October 2, 2014
I have more ideas for rock textures that are going to fit into this small piece, and not all of them are going to play nicely together. Decisions – they are very time consuming.
Original post: September 9, 2014
For the third piece in the “Gathering” series I decided to start with the horses instead of smaller rocks. Apparently it is easier to complete more critical parts of the drawing first than worry about ruining the entire thing if something in the horse does not look right. Who knew! So, outlines are done, one foal is completed but may need some touch-ups when I get to its rock, the other one is not giving me problems so far.
You can see the first two drawings in the series here and here.
Just learned that one of my pieces in the Bay Area Wildlife art show, Explorer, was featured in The Epoch Times newspaper. Nice surprise. Thanks Teresa Silvestri for letting me know!
pen and ink, graphite, colored pencil, 6″ x 4″