Category Archives: Level 3 Art and Design

Sketches and Color Finding

Posted on by under Level 3 Art and Design, sketch book, Sketching

I’m still trying to make time to sketch a bit every day. The every day thing isn’t working out but I am getting two or three done per week. Also still practicing the color finding with colored pencils.

This is a sketch of a wild lupine in standard pencil and the leaf with the colored pencil beside it. Greens are still really hard to do.

Here’s a different green of the snow on the mountain leaf. The sketch was done with water soluble graphite pencils. This one took several days to complete as I only have 10 or 15 minutes in the morning before I go to work.

Here’s a dried up leaf that I did this morning with watercolors and permanent pen. I had more time today to try to get a bit more detail into the sketch. I had a bunch of dried leaves but decided to start with just one.

 

Repeating Patterns in a Circle

Posted on by under Level 3 Art and Design

I had a few questions last week about how the repeating patterns in the circles work.

Here are a few of the patterns that I used.

Can you pick out which pattern goes with which design?

Here’s a couple I did this week. Thirds and fourths of a circle instead of sixths. Hope you have a good weekend.

More Circular Designs

Posted on by under Level 3 Art and Design

I’m still working on more designs that repeat in a circular format. These are all circles that started split up into a 6th of the circle.

It’s always interesting to me to see how the overall pattern turns out.  If the edges of the design touch the edge of the 1/6 pie shape, then they connect in your final design. This design started very linear and ended up looking like a large flower. It’s colored with markers.

I purposely colored this one to give it a floral look. I’m sure it would change dramatically with a different color scheme. The color is added with colored pencils with this one.

This design looks almost like it was created in thirds but it started as a 1/6 pie shape as well. This is colored with black markers of different tip widths.

And here’s the last one. It is a colored in with gel pens. I’m just trying out a variety of media with these. Next I’m moving on to 1/4, 1/3, 1/8 and 1/12 pie shapes. It’s amazing the variety of designs you can create with this technique.

Color Finding

Posted on by under Level 3 Art and Design

Part of my homework for Level 3 Art and Design is to work on color finding. Mainly, I am supposed to do this with colored pencil but I’m using other media as well. I take something from nature and then try to replicate the exact color with layers of colored pencil. I find this exercise quite a challenge.

Here are four that I did in class. It’s really hard to get the correct color let alone the right value. And there are so many different greens to choose from.

 

So on my daily walks, I pick up something small to sketch and to find the colors. This one is a tamarack pine. It’s a pine tree that loses its needles in the fall, they turn a golden, almost yellow orange color in the fall and then drop off. While I was visiting New York City, I visited a small shop called CW Pencils. It was a delightful shop and I purchased some water soluble graphite pencils, a stub holder and a pencil sharpener. The sketch of the tamarack is done with water soluble graphite pencil. I did add a bit of water to the stem but left the needles alone.

The next try was lichen on a small branch. It’s hard to see the colors on this one but they were pretty close. It’s just there is so much darkness in between the little lichen bits it’s hard to see. I did the sketch with sepia pen and white colored pencil. This was about filling in the negative space with the dark background and leaving the lighter spaces with just a little bit of color.

And this is the one I did this morning. It is done with permanent ink pen and water color. I am really enjoying getting back into a better habit of sketching and finding color in nature. I’m also working on circles and octagons but I’ll show those next time. Have a great weekend!

Circle Design

Posted on by under Level 3 Art and Design

I started on my homework from my Level 3 Art and Design class. We are developing repeating patterns in circles.

This is my first attempt. I tried to emphasize the feather like part of the design and less of the flower shape. Still really see the flower shape mainly. I’ve got lots more of these to try. Have a great weekend.