Even as recently as twenty years ago, one would have to travel or move to a large city to find art groups to join. Imagine, and many of us can remember, when just getting a reference photo was kind of a big deal. You either took the photo yourself and then had to develop the film, process the photos, etc. Or you went to the 1library or 2bookstore and spent forever going through the pages looking for just the right image. Now, there are literally millions of free reference photos, and even more that are copyrighted, available for the artist student to download, practice, and challenge himself. For instance, this apple was one of the challenges for April in the colored pencil section of Wet Canvas. I enjoy looking for challenges all over the net. Some of my favorites are, of course, Wet Canvas, Draw Space, Illustration Friday, and I think there are some on Scribble Talk, but I’m still new there and just feeling my way around. If you know of any others, please feel free to add them in the comments or, better yet, e-mail me. I’ll check it out and share it with the rest of the class. I intend on doing at least one challenge like that every week and posting it here. I intend on that happening on Thursdays. We shall see.
1 For those of you under the age of 30, a library is like a bookstore except they expect you to return the borrowed books after you read them.
2 For those of you under 20, a bookstore is like the net with “pages” being made of flattened wood pulp instead of on a monitor, except that you have to buy the pages in bulk.
EDM 104, draw some scissors was more of a challenge than I expected. Foreshortening and still keeping the blades sharp, changing colors and textures using only .5mm graphite, and my beautiful young bride standing over my shoulder waiting for me to return her scissors to the kitchen all can be quite disconcerting. I am pleased with the overall result, and yes my lover got her scissors back. For the record, she had every reason to suspect that I wouldn’t return them. I still have the bathroom scale, a spoon, and Girl1’s Buddy Holly sunglasses laying about in my studio space.