Industrial Sketch Inspiration from Germany

When I was in Germany in January I didn't do as much sketching as I would have liked, although I did do one page I hadn't expected.

While watching the injection molding machines do their job, I saw a shape in the trash that I found appealing. When you make more than one plastic part in a mold, the plastic has to travel paths to reach those cavities. And the image to the far left is something like the paths that were left behind in a solid piece. Although the original was, I believe, more graceful.

So I simply played with the shape a bit, using it as a seed to imagine and develop pattern from. The other item, in the top right, is a drawing of one of the machines, with deliberate emotional distortion of the parts that had the biggest impact on me instead of depiction of reality.

A Few Landscape ATCs

Just a few watercolor landscapes for an atc swap.

I'd signed up thinking I'd have some good inspiration from being on the Rhine, but all my photos were actually cityscapes and not suitable so I was left with a blank.

So I started out from an entirely different direction than where I finished. I drew some basic landscapes with watercolor crayons and then added water, a technique that I've used for other subjects in the past. That really didn't turn out well. I used too big a brush and too much water. Everything ran together and I didn't even get the neat color mixing watery effects that I appreciate from watercolors.

I had seriously considered developing these by layering acrylic on top, putting in some details, making it mixed media. But I just SO didn't care and was about to abandon the swap when I reached for the portable paint palette instead.

I am happy with the ones to the left that I painte. I guess I'll eventually collage over the ones to the bottom.

And I really need to not sign up for swaps until after I've made the cards. 

Opposites Themed Sketchpages

This month's sketchbook challenge theme was opposites and it inspired all sort of ideas in me. Some of them were obvious plays with color and some were a little weirder. I knew I wanted to make opposites with similarity to touch on my perspectives themes.

For dragons I went the elemental route - fire and ice - making the faces as similar as I could with paper bits. I nearly made skeksis again and still don't prefer the overall shapes I keep making. But aside from that it was a fun sketchbook page to do and I'm pleased with how I kept going until I had a decent result.

For my abstract I went man-made versus natural. The two column split worked better than I expected as a basic organizational point. I'd like to use it again. I love how the left turned out, but am rather disappointed in the right. It seems more messy than organic.

Highly Prized Sketchpage

This year a group of artists is running a Sketchbook Challenge where each month they present a theme.

Already there's been a great collection of articles and sharing. And it was neat to see the different sketchbooks of professional, published artists. Including some pages that I could have done. Whew...

I'm going to do my best to participate each month, mostly because it's fun and partly for a chance to win the yummy prizes. I'd like to do one dragon themed page and one perspectives page, in some form or fashion.

This month's theme is HIGHLY PRIZED. It kind of threw me for a loop because it was so intellectual and I just wasn't sure what direction to take. But then I thought of dragon's and their fabled hoards of gold and knew what to draw.

I would have liked to have colored it with watercolors, but didn't get to it. I can imagine how it could be full mixed-media piece with a brilliant hoard and a dark cave and a dragon lit by the reflection off the gold... and things like that are what's in the notes. I didn't do a perspectives page on the theme this month, but I'll try to work with both of my themes next month.

Just Wait Til Next Week

This is a scheduled post, so I don't know for sure, but I expect I've been taking pictures and making sketches in Cologne, Germany this weekend and will have some great stuff to show you when I come back. 

I'm traveling to train for my new job as an account manager (salesperson) for Dia Nielsen syringe filters, so that weekend is framed by being at the main office and manufacturing area in Dueren, an industrial town a bit away from Cologne. I might be doing a bit of sketching there, too, but I'm not counting on it.

 This is what I'm packing, art-wise. I don't expect to fill the moleskine, but I'll take it during other trips I make where I might have (or need to take) a little downtime. I chose to stick to the black and grey markers for simplicity. Nothing to sharpen or smudge. No water to deal with. And I'm more of a pattern person than a color person.