Roz Stendahl of Sketchbook Skool by Leada Wood, Texas Artist

copyright by Roz Stendahl and Sketchbook Skool
 

 

What a wonderful week we have had with Sketchbook Skool's Roz Stendahl. The whole class has been great but Roz's generosity and teaching videos were extraordinary! This was one of her parting gifts to us, a memento of our week together. I had to print it out and cut the cards of course but it was worth every minute! Roz has an awesome blog you should check out: http://rozwoundup.typepad.com

It has been so cold this week the only live animal sketching I did was of my little Yorkie, Mollie. She was very suspicious of all the activity following her around with my sketchbook and pen. I found that sometimes standing up and calling her name was the only way to get her to be still...she is a little hyper.

This was my first attempt at a live animal subject and sketching with a Pentel brush pen. This was drawn standing up calling her name as it was the only resource to get her to stand still. This is called a gesture sketch and probably doesn't take over 35 to 40 seconds to create...or however long your subject cooperates. These quick sketches are not meant to be fine art but only practice of capturing the essence of your subject.

The assignment was to draw a live animal everyday. Another gesture pose of Mollie with the brush pen. I really like it for fast sketches.

Mollie getting use to me following her around and tired too...but she won't be still for long!

 

 

 



 

 

I caught her napping in the sunshine before I left for work so I had a quick go at drawing her again.

 

 

 

 

 

And this is the way she looked laying in the sunshine on a cold winters day When it warms up a little I will try again sketching live animals on the farm. Maybe sheep, goats or llamas!

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Why Make Art? By Leada Wood, Texas Artist

        

I have been busy sketching in my sketchbook these days because I am enrolled in Sketchbook Skool, along with 4500 other artists around the world! It is amazing! We have master artists instructing us and encouraging us along the way. Technology is amazing when used for good purposes.

Danny Gregory is one of the instructors and he has raised lots of questions and given some very profound answers.  One that really got my attention was with all the technology was, why make art? If you can copy and past images and compress them on a computer and make art, why pick up pen or brush and create? 

Here is what Danny said:

"So if, in one split second and with no real experience or skill, you can use the phone in your pocket to make an image that is technically superior and precise to anything you can make with pencil, why make art at all anymore?

That’s a question people have been asking themselves for almost two centuries. And the answer that Manet and Monet and Seurat and Cezanne and Van Gogh and the rest of the gang came up with over a hundred years ago is that the purpose of art is no longer to reproduce physical reality, it’s to convey how we feel about it. To capture the human condition, the way we see the world through the veils of subjectivity, experience, emotion, history and all the rest of the stuff that make us who we are.

This is something we have to think about when we draw.  Stop assessing your work based on how close it is to “reality”. Don’t bother posting a snapshot of your dog next to the drawing you did of it. Who cares if you are almost as good as that camera in your pocket. ‘Cause in fact, you’re not even close. That photo is a far better way to make that image. More efficient, more accurate.

But that image isn’t really what you want, is it? What you want is to capture your soul, your inner state, the love you feel for that dog. You want to make a picture of the inside of your mind.

Don’t worry about Xerox®ing reality with your sketchbook. Focus on capturing You instead.

So far nobody, in Silicon Valley or elsewhere, has come up with an app for that."

                                                                                                                      -Danny Gregory

I think he pretty much sums it up don't you?  I know I create because I have to...it's who I am...it completes me.   Leada Wood