Back in the Saddle

After reading a blog post about making a "to-go" sketching kit, complete with 2.5X3.5 sized slips of paper to work on during lulls in outings, I had to give it a try today. Considering how long it's been since I did any kind of regular sketching, it wasn't too big of a failure. Lamentably, I forgot to include an eraser in my kit. Tortillons might not make a bad addition either. I haven't sketched like this since I got back from South America. Back then I had the luxury of a full-sized set up with handy pockets and different pads of paper and what not. These days any sketching needs to have the ability to be whisked quickly into my tote when the kids need me, or when an important phone call has to take front-burner. No one ever appreciates the simplicity of their life in any given moment until things get FAR more complicated.

Today's sketches were entirely in Prismacolor black colored pencil and no graphite. It was smooth like satin! But what I wouldn't give for a kneaded eraser and a larger range of grays from which to sketch. Acquiring grays will have to take a back seat to collecting a range of colors with which to render flesh tones.

For a first attempt at sketching on an Artist-trading-card sized surface, I'm relatively pleased. I started this sketch when I saw a child in black on a colorful inflatable slide and I was in the middle of creating the sketch from a moment's flicker of a pose . . .when the phone rang. Always with the phone ringing. Phones are the bane of my existence.

I sketched a second piece from a passer-by, but it came out very childish (which is ironic, because I was drawing a child) after another interruption jolted the mental picture out of my head. I spent a few minutes trying to recapture the pose, busily rendering the girl's purple three-tiered skirt to my own great satisfaction . . .only to see the girl run through again and see that the skirt had been BLUE and I'd bungled a whole host of other details as well.

I certainly can't say that today's artistic endeavors were without value as I started to integrate a host of new-found knowledge that I gleaned during recent months. Hopefully I'll have some time in the studio to freely explore and ponder these concepts more thoroughly before the month is out. Hello March!

- To God be the Glory! I'm out.