Studio News for July 2024

Here it is August already. We’re on the backside of 2024 and it seems like we just got started. It’s now also time for the studio news for July 2024.

Studio News for July 2024

Fourth Spring Storm Jelly Bean Class & Related News

The fourth class based on my drawing, Spring Storm, met Saturday, July 27. The class itself went very well and was well-attended.

But the week leading up to class was definitely a challenge. We lost all internet service early Monday evening and it wasn’t restored until Friday morning. No email, no blogging, no work on the newsletter or anything else that required the internet. It was almost like being on vacation!

Or, as one emailer said, living back in the stone age. Since I grew up in the days before the internet or personal computers, it wasn’t such a hardship in many ways.

My rehearsals for class amounted to watching videos of previous classes and talking to myself as I walked laps. In other words, it wasn’t at all the typical preparation.

But having done the class three times previously helped a good deal, praise the LORD.

What did I do during that week? More on that in a moment.

CP Magic! News

The August issue of CP Magic was already with proofreaders when the internet went down so it published on time.

If you haven’t already seen it, pet portrait artist Susan Wehrman is the featured artist. She’s familiar with a lot of different mediums, but loves colored pencils for creating lovely, detailed work.

However, she has adopted some methods that help her use colored pencils in a more painterly way. If that’s something that interests you, check out out her tutorial. Not only is it fun and beautiful, but the finished artwork is already award-winning.

Home Improvement

We continued working on the exterior of the house, scraping, sometimes sanding, and doing a lot of painting. I’ve learned to use a paint sprayer, but have also put my brushing techniques to use.

There have been some structural improvements, too, so the process is a slow one. But we are making progress and that’s good!

Artwork

What losing the internet cost me in time spent online it gave back in time spent drawing. I put in over eight hours at the drawing board that week. It was great! Total hours spent drawing for July were 25.47 hours (the goal was 23).

Finished Work

I completed several pieces in July. Most of them (20) were ACEOs. I like doing these little works of art because they can usually be finished in 15 minutes or less, though I have spent up to half an hour on more involved designs. If nothing else, doing so many small pieces is improving my drawing skills and ability to use just a few colors and good contrast to create believable drawings.

I also finished two small pieces for blog tutorials. The first one was a simple cloud in a patch of blue sky, which was published July 6. You can read it here if you missed it.

The second was a sunset landscape mini tutorial which published August 3 in my review of Art Spectrum’s Colourfix paper.

That post also involved doing some color swatches testing different strokes and basically getting a good feel for the interaction between Polychromos pencils and this unique surface. You can read all about it here.

But the biggest piece I finished in July was Pasture Patriarch. No, it did not turn out as I was hoping. I wanted to do the entire piece with Derwent Drawing Pencils against a plain paper-color background. By the time I finished, there was a filled in background, and I’d used Derwent Drawing, Faber-Castell Polychromos, Caran d’Ache Pablo, Prismacolor and maybe a Luminance or two.

But overall, the portrait turned out well, even if it did take some detours along the way.

Works in Progress

There aren’t many works in progress. There were too many other things to do or prepare for. I had some ideas and I looked through photographs, but nothing really struck me as worthy of translating into colored pencil.

Mentally, there are always works in progress, especially when it comes to thinking of subjects for ACEOs. ACEO sized artwork on Colourfix anyone? I’m seriously considering cutting part of a sheet up into card size just to see what I can do with them.

House Lion and October in the Flint Hills are still both officially works-in-progress, but I did nothing with House Lion (except think about how to proceed) and very little with October in the Flint Hills. That work involved moving the horizon downward and considering how I might crop the artwork to make a better composition.

The main work-in-progress for July is this one, Sunlit Trees. I started this and made the most progress the week I was without internet. It also served as a practice work for the July 27 Jelly Bean class because it’s on the same type of paper (Charcoal Grey Pastelmat) and it’s a detail version of Spring Storm.

It’s not finished, yet, but I’m mostly satisfied with progress so far. Right now, my best work seems to be on Charcoal Grey Pastelmat. I wonder if that would also be true for other dark colors? An interesting thought.

Looking to the Future

There isn’t much to say for the future. All the usual things are, of course, in the works. Blogging, the magazine, and working toward drawing goals. We’ll also continue working on the house at least until the painting is complete. Once that’s accomplished, I don’t know how else I can contribute. Carpentry is outside my skill-set. I can use a hammer with a fair amount of skill, though it’s definitely hit-and-miss!

The ACEO group is going well. The first ever monthly ACEO gallery PDF published in mid-July. As I write these words, the second ACEO gallery is finished and ready for proofreading. The group continues to grow and a lot of artists are finding ACEOs a great way to test new paper or pencils, to experiment with new subjects and techniques, or just have fun.

As I mentioned above, all of those are true for me.

For those who may not be familiar with ACEOs, they’re a form of miniature artwork for which size is the only requirement. ACEOs (also known as art trading cards) must be 2-1/2 by 3-1/2 inches in size. Our ACEO group is for artists who use colored pencils either alone or with other mediums.

If you haven’t already joined, you can sign up here. It’s free and you’ll start out with a series of introductory emails describing ACEOs and few basic facts. Regular newsletters go out once a month, and each month, members are invited to send in their best ACEO for the monthly gallery.

That’s the Studio News for July 2024

It’s been a busy month for me, but a pretty good one. I hope you’ve had a good month, too.

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