Monday, June 18, 2012

Bears and Crows in Pencil and Watercolor

Spirit Bear
This morning, I decided to do another painting on Yupo paper. I set my alarm for twenty minutes, thinking I might submit it to the Twenty Minute Challenge.  I redrew yesterday's sketch on Yupo paper with a black Prismacolor pencil and then painted quickly and boldly with transparent watercolor.  I have been thinking about the mystical Spirit Bears up in British Columbia ever since I saw this National Geographic video.


I have been practicing contour drawings which made me realize that I don't draw the interior of my subjects enough. Contour drawing should be about exploring and expressing the shapes inside of the outlines. This was done from the bear photo I posted.


This bear figurine has a lot of shape and texture which I really got into and overstated. In drawing, I try to practice, improve, learn, grow, push my boundaries and not to be too concerned about the end result.


Two minute gesture drawings are a great drill and help you to see the big picture without getting bogged down in the itty-bitty details. This is a plastic toy bear that I have sketched many times. I kept turning it a quarter turn after each 120 seconds. See more sketches and a photo of this bear.


These two minute gesture sketches of a crow are done with a 3B pencil. When each two minutes is up, the crow (a Halloween decoration) is turned 1/4 turn, the same way as the bear above. I strongly recommend this exercise! Remember everything is sketchable.


I'm not the only one sketching bears these days! YAY!! Thanks Susan!
Susan Bronsak posted these adorable critters on her blog here and here.


I hope you are getting inspired and your summer is off to a great start!
Thanks for reading and as always, I'd love to hear from you!

8 comments:

  1. Lovely drawings! Is that your horse and foal drawing on the side? I love it! =)

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    1. Thanks Felicity! Yes, that drawing is by me. Nice to meet you here. ☺

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  2. I love the way you study things in depth. Great artistic expression. Your bears are all great.

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    1. I am so glad we finally met up and you invited me to post on the 20 min. Challenge blog, Teri! Woo Hoo, I can feel those creative juices flowing! Can't you? Thanks so much for your encouraging words!

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  3. I love your contour and gesture sketches!!!! The Yupo paper is interesting and like the results you achieved. I might have to try that sometime ;-)

    Thank you for sharing the bears I did.

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    1. Thanks Susan! Hey - I can't believe you have never used YUPO paper AND that there is something that you haven't tried yet! LOL, You are the queen of art materials! As always, thanks for your participation and comments!

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  4. OH Sandy, your spirit bear is just marvelous! I love your contour drawings and your thoughts behind it - I think I need to spend more time on that as well - exploring the shapes... I have never had much luck with yupo, so I really admire your results here!

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    1. Thanks for your nice comments. Nice meeting you here!

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