Kathryn Downing

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Daily Sketches 7-8

I took a trip to the Iowa Historical Building today to draw some of the taxidermy. I some ideas in my head involving antlers and lots of critters so I thought I’d draw some animals that wouldn’t move. I didn’t remember the museum lighting being so low. It was extremely dim inside the exhibit making it hard to see much detail of many of the animals. I drew several sketches, but some weren’t blog worthy. I also took photos to look at later. They’re on Flickr, so if you’re interested you can compare them to my chicken-scratch drawings.

Since I was there, I also checked out a WWI exhibit (which had some nice illustrated posters) and an exhibit on restored Iowa paintings. The display on how paintings are restored was really interesting. There was supposed to be a video demonstration as well, but it didn’t work no matter how many times I pushed the button. The paintings themselves were eye-opening for me. Some of them were the typical boring portraits of people I’ve never heard of, and landscapes of non-descript locations. There were some that were strangely intriguing though. I may have to do a something with beards/mustaches. There’s something about the unruly growth of hair that is rebellious and slightly creepy. I was also amazed at the care and detail taken with most portraits’ faces, but many of the torsos/bodies lacked much detail and many seemed amateurish. There was one painting in particular of a man with shelves in the background that I really liked. The shelves were filled with taxidermied animals and at first glance you’d think the guy was Dr. Doolittle or Snow White with all her little friends. I thought about taking photos, but the flash might have damaged the art and my camera sucks in low lighting without it.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Daily Sketches 3-6

Here are more sketches from this week. I don’t know who’s worse at sitting still—the dog or Troy. I felt pretty silly baby-talking Princess to get her to keep looking at me. She kept wanting to burrow into the blanket where I couldn’t see her face. So far, I’m not overly pleased with any of the drawings, but I’m going to keep plugging away at it. I’m sure I’ll get better. 

Monday, February 16, 2009

Stop making excuses and draw already!

I recently ordered and have been reading a book called An Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration from the Private Sketchbooks of Artists, Illustrators and Designers. I also went to the recent faculty art show at Grand View where everyone was asking if I was still producing art. Of course I said yes, and was too embarrassed to admit how little I’m producing and what a creative slump I’ve been in. I’ve been caught in a never-ending cycle. I don’t draw/paint much because I’m not happy with the results. I’m not happy with the results because my skills are out of practice. Add to that the feeling that I’ve never really found my voice as an artist. I think the only way to get there is to draw. A lot. For me drawing is more about ideas producing ideas than painting is. And the more I draw, the more I should start to develop my own style.

So I made myself a commitment to draw every day. It doesn’t have to be fancy and it doesn’t have to be good. Kind of like my pushups, I’ve just got to do them and get it over with each day. With enough practice I should be able to progress to knuckle pushups and clappers, but if I do nothing I’ll have weak flabby arms that I’m feel like I have to cover up all the time. I’m sick of trying to live up to some expectation of what my art should be. I just want to do it for the sake of doing it. Here are my first two sketches:

Now I have to hurry up and get started on tonight’s sketch so I can get some sleep!

Friday, October 17, 2008

Not in Kansas Anymore

I barely finished this one in time. In fact, the clear finish is drying as we speak. I had a million ideas floating around in my head and none of them really seemed good enough. Every time I sat down to sketch an idea, I hated the drawing and gave up. We were sitting at Aguila Real eating Mexican food and I just decided to doodle a Sasquatch and this is the result.

I’m really liking the subdued color palette and I got to use my silver paint which had been sitting around for months. At the end, the patterns in the background seemed to start overwhelming Mr. Bigfoot, so I decided to paint over it all with the silver again.

Maybe I just have werewolves on the brain after finishing the Mercy Thompson series, but I had the temptation to add wolf ears to him at the end. Maybe I’ll have to do another one.

Geometric Animism

This is “painting” number two for the Paintpushers show, although I’m not really sure I should call it a painting since it’s digital. This one is a more doodle-based approach. I started by sketching a lot of different shapes and then giving them a little life by adding features and limbs. The end result is way different than what I’ve done in the past, but it was fun to do. The challenge for me is to stop adding details until it loses its simplicity.

I ordered the digital prints of this and “One Lump or Two?” and received them on Monday. They look awesome and I’m really impressed with the quality of the wrapping. The front of the canvasses were wrapped in glassine paper and a piece of cardboard was placed outside the paper. This was all inside a bubble-wrap envelope. Both canvases were shipped in the same box. For once it was nice to not have to wire them for hanging because it was all done (with D-rings and even the little bumper dots on the corners). I’ll definitely be doing more digital prints in the future, but might try paper next time.