Thursday, December 30, 2010

Samplers



More Expressive Drawing play today. This time I used a variety of drawing materials and created two samplers. The one on the left is done on Rives BFK, a smooth surface, and the one on the right is done on Arches Cold Press paper, a textured surface.

As I made marks, I also made notes about what I felt or observed about each line, each mark, and how the different drawing tools felt and looked on the different surfaces.

I used a 9B graphite pencil, charcoal pencil, Conte crayon, Prismacolor marker, and vine charcoal. It was really interesting to use them, one after the next, and to keenly observe how they were different from one another. The graphite felt oily. The marker felt fast. Vine charcoal subtle. Charcoal pencil resistant. Conte descriptive of texture.

These samplers reminded me of the old needlework samplers that my grandmother and her mother made a long time ago. A sampler is a way of trying out something. No big commitment. The sampler of chocolates only has one of each kind. Too bad, that.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Katherine, this kind of exercise makes my teeth ache - it always amazes me that you have the discipline to work through them. Perhaps I need to see the book to come up to speed. Roxanne

Katherine van Schoonhoven said...

I have the luxury of seeing what comes next, so doing this kind of busy work is a joy. And, I learned something in the process, even better! Thanks for the comment!

loriann signori said...

Good work Katherine. Doing exercises like these opens new doors. Happy New Year!!!!

Katherine van Schoonhoven said...

Thanks, Loriann. I think that years of piano practice have kept me from becoming too discouraged with exercises like this. Good things come from practice. I've already taken away much more than I expected with this sampler exercise. More to come.

Happy New Year! Looking forward to the BIG CHEW tomorrow!!