Stipple no more

After working on the stipple piece for about three hours (an hour a night) I decided it was not for me. In fact I hated every minute of it. But at least I tried. I'v got that out of my system. Posted is how far I got before I couldn't look at it anymore. After I scanned it in I started a charcoal of the same set up. I'm much happier now.

Stipple Started

As stated above, I started the stipple piece. Set up the still life, got the bristol board out and filled a 3x0 rapidograph. Now I just have to start applying the ink. No pictures yet.

I think something is clogging my 2x0 rapidograph. I cleaned it out after I finished the last pen & ink and now I can't get it back together. I can't get the wire back into the point. I'm afraid some small particle got in there and now I can get the pen back together. Rats! That was my favorite pen. I may have to suck it up and buy a new one.

Complete

I was working away on the conte piece last night when I stopped abruptly. The only thing I could do was overwork the piece so I called it done. I think it came out pretty good.

My next piece will be a pen & ink stipple. Stippling is where the drawing is created from millions of little dots. There are some great stipplers on the wetcanvas site. I have called them crazy for all the time and effort they put into their works. In turn they said it is no worse than the time and effort I put into the Daisies piece. So I am going to give the stipple approach a try.

Still Life #3

Saturday night I went to our local fireworks display. It was pretty amazing. They do a great job in our town. But we got home pretty late and so i didn't work on the new piece.

Sunday we went to Lake Compounce. It is the oldest amusement park in the country. It is half water park and half rides. They have a great wooden roller coaster called the Boulder Dash. It is built into the side of a hill and takes you through the woods. It is my favorite ride. When we got home I was too tired to work on the conte piece.

Monday I was back to work. So no excuses. I worked a little more on what I am now calling Still Life #3. So far I have only used a black conte crayon. Tonight I will start using brown and white.

So Far So Good

Here is the work in progress. I like it so far, but I have a lot to do.

New set up

The long weekend is throwing me off. I forgot about softball yesterday and didn't bring my gear to work. Fortunately I remembered it was Wednesday and went home to get my stuff. The other team was only able to field eight guys. The umpire gave us a choice, win by forfeit or we could play the game. You are suppose to field at least nine guys, but the ump was in a good mood. We chose to play. They didn't field a second baseman. We won 18 - 1.

Later that night I set up a new still life. I'm going to use conte crayons again. This time I'll use different colors and try to loosen up a little and just try to have fun with it.

July 5th

After four days of barbecue's I've had my fill of hot dogs and hamburgers. The long weekend went well. It was good to have the break from work.

I finished the drawing of he statues and pot. It came out alright. I stayed with my plan of only using white. I tried smudging the conte crayon and didn't like the results so I took away the blends with a kneaded erasure. The pot came out with some depth but the statues are flat and look that way in the drawing. I want to do another using black too and maybe gaining some depth in the statues too.

Getting Ready

I know it has been a while since my last post. I have been having a hard time getting into my next drawing. I have been playing guitar at night instead of drawing. But last night that all changed. I got set up. It took me a while to get everything to where I liked it so I didn't actually draw, but I'm ready to go.

This being 4th of July weekend and all the barbecues we are invited to, I don't know how much drawing I will get to, but I am ready.

Men in Black

Just a quick conte drawing I did on canson paper. It is 9.25" x 5.75".

Blog Change

I am going to change the address of my blog very soon. So those of you who have book marked my blog the new address will be: http://www.randycarboni.blogspot.com/

The reason for the change? The old blog was mermbut.blogspot.com which was associated with the web comic I used to do. Since I have stopped working on the web comic and am concentrating on fine arts I figured i would change my blog name too.

I didn't work on anything last night. We took the kids to a local carnival and got back too late. Tonight is my movie night so I will not be working tonight either. I have Brazil rented. This is an older movie that came out in the 80's. I liked so much I saw it twice in the theater. I have not seen it since then. It will be interesting if I still think it is good.

Ugly Game

My softball game last night was exciting for a while. 1-1 going into the 5th inning. Then we fell apart. We made more errors in one inning that the rest of the season. It's amazing how we do everything as a team. We hit as a team and slump as a team. One guy makes and error everyone else feels obligated to make an error. Oh well, guess you can't win them all.

I was able to scan in the Daisies last night. It is so big I had to make four scans then piece it together in photoshop. I couldn't get it to quite align properly, but this is not too bad. The final size is 18.5" x 12". I did it on Strathmoore watercolor paper series 500. I was going to color it when done but I think color would ruin it. The watercolor paper is not ideal for pen & ink. Next time I'll use my standard bristol board with a smooth finish. Oh, and I used a rapidograph 2 x00.

It's Done!!!

I finished the Daisies last night. Came out pretty good. I couldn't scan it in because my wife was working on the computer. I'll get it scanned in tonight.

Looks like a nice night for softball. We had thunder storms the past couple of nights.

Hot Flea Market

Worked a lot on the daisies over the weekend. It is almost done. I should be able to wrap it up in the next couple of days.

We went to the Elephant's Trunk flea market yesterday morning. The weather was suppose to be 95 degrees so I wanted to get an early start. Man was it hot. The flea market is completely in the open sun, no shade. My daughter bought an umbrella to shade herself. I was on the look out for African statues for still lives. There weren't that many, but I did find one. Here is a picture with the ones I already had and the new one. The new one is on the far right.

Getting Old

Not only do I have to wear my glasses when working on the daisy pen & ink, (my first time having to wear them doing art. Normally I only wear them on the computer). But last night while reading Mad Magazine (yes, I'm still a subscriber) I could no longer make out the Sergio Argones margin cartoons. I tell you, it's all down hill after 40 :-)

Busy weekend. My daughter has a softball game Saturday morning then we are taking care of our friends children Saturday afternoon while they are at a wedding. Sunday we are going to the Elephants Trunk flea market. I want to look for some african art. I have a few pieces now and want to do a bunch of still lives of them. Somewhere in there I need to finish putting in our underground hose. It is suppose to be in the 90's this weekend so I'll probably work on that early in the morning before the heat kicks in.

Yesterday after lunch I went out to sketch. There is a sculpture piece in the park dow the block I have been wanting to draw. When I got there it was crowded and I couldn't get a seat. I walked around until one opened up. I was laughing to myself because the guy sitting next to me kept trying to look at what I was drawing without me noticing that he was looking. Part of the joy of outdoor sketching. This wonderful piece was drawn in about two minutes.

Back on Track

We won our game last night. 12 - 7. I think we got all twelve runs in the first two innings, then dried up. And they didn't get any runs until the 4th. The game almost slipped away, but we held on.

I slacked off last night and didn't work on the daisies. I was tired. I watch a show on TLC called Medical Mysteries. It was alright.

Here is the last of my oil paintings that I did a rotten job of photographing. It was from a picture I took. I later added the guy sitting at the table.

Victory no more

Our softball winning streak is done with. And in ugly fashion. Enough said.

Went to the Aldrich Artists only thingy on Saturday night. I was surprised how many people showed up. It was fun. People just walked up to you and said., "show me what you have". It was fun to show off my work and get different people reactions to my work. I even saw some friends I hadn't seen in years. It was a pretty good time.

Still plugging away at the daisies. I don't want to rush it at this point so I'll keep plugging away and finish it whenever it's done. Meanwhile here is another oil painting. What I also discovered is if you click on the image the large size image will pop up.

Friday update

My game did get rained out. We will be playing the same team this Sunday and the weather looks good.

Saturday I am going to Artists only open house at the Aldrich Museum. We are suppose to take a small portfolio of our work and meet with fellow artists to show off our work and talk about what we are working on and so on. Should be a good time.

Still plugging away at the daisies. After about an hour I get tired of looking at it. I may do a couple of other pieces and come back to it. Maybe not. I really want to get it done but I don't want my weariness of the piece to start to show. I'm getting close. Here is a picture of my set up.

No rain, no rain...

Tonight we are suppose to play the other undefeated team in my softball league. But it is raining and supposed to get heavier as the day goes on. I have a makeup game this Sunday against the same team and the weather looks good for that one. We'll see.

Still working on the daisy pen & ink. Meanwhile here is another oil painting. The field is from a photo reference. The man is from memory. I saw him in a similar field. When I got home I drew a sketch from memory then used that for this painting. The colors don't look very good because of bad photography, but you get the idea.

Daisy update

It was a busy weekend so i didn't get much work done. I saw Dickey Betts and Great Southern over the weekend. They were great. Sunday we had our annual block party. Monday, back to work on the daisies. Here is my progress so far.

Holy Cow!

We won again last night. This time 25 - 2. This has been an incredible season so far. I went 4 for 4 at the plate. Next weeks game will be a good one. We are playing the only other undefeated team in the league.

I'm still plugging away at the daisy pen & ink. But meanwhile here is another painting. I did this in a painting class I took many years ago. I had already painted something on this canvas. I finished another piece I was working on in the class early an had some free time so I started this over the old painting. My teacher would only let me paint with a palette knife. I still like painting with a brush better.