Still Pursuing Portraits

Artful Gathering the online Art Retreat is underway!!! I you want to take an art ‘staycation’ this is it!! Many classes to choose from and you can take more than one! Not sure you’ll be able to complete your class during the 6 week course? No worries, many of the workshops are offering a DVD option in their classroom, including me!

Student work has begun rolling in for my brand new online workshop Still Pursuing Portraits and I couldn’t be more thrilled!

 

We are chatting it up and flexing those drawing muscles and fearlessly pursuing the art of drawing portraits using a method I taught myself that allows you to sketch rapidly and develop a portrait style all your own.

Just check out some of the work that has already been done since class opened on Wednesday!!! We are one large, happy group and we’d love to have you join in so if you’re looking to improve your sketching skills this summer this may be for you! This is the only time this class will be offered in 2012, so don’t miss out!


This, that, and the other

What a fun guy Mark Lipinski is! I had a great time being a guest on his radio talk show this past Wednesday. If you missed the show you can catch it here. The whole show revolved around finding time to be creative-right up my alley:-)

On the note of finding time to be creative, I’m still sketching every day in my journal. I’ve also been seeing a lot more sketches on Facebook lately which is really fun! It’s a great exercise even if your first love is painting or some other art form. Sketching requires only simple tools and can be done anywhere and best of all there is no drying time! I filled my 8×10 Moleskine journal and I’ve moved into a 9×12 Strathmore Visual Journal-100lb drawing paper. Strathmore has been so nice to provide me with plenty of journals to work in. I really love working in a larger format. The paper is so nice too!

This sketch I started last night in bed, but fell asleep before I finished. I’m going to work on it in a bit. I’ve been trying to leave my blending stump alone and just use the pencils. This is just the first layer of 2H lead. Working with pencil is much different from Conte Crayon, but I really enjoy working with these simple mediums. It’s a great break from the onslaught of paint, paper and more in my studio. I also use these sketches in multiple ways by scanning them and using them in other projects. Gotta make the most of our art!

If you haven’t signed up for my free online workshop with Strathmore Artist Papers, there’s still time. We have over 13,000 participants in this event! So much fun and they are a chatty group, so click the image above if you want to find out more.

On a bit of a down note I’ll finish up this post. I tried the Sharpie Liquid Pencils and as much as I tried to like them ( I so love the idea of them!) I really can’t recommend them. I bought four of them  and all but one really skipped and didn’t lay down smoothly at all. The one feature that I’d read about them that most motivated me to buy them was that they became ‘permanent’ after 24 hours. Well the word ‘permanent’ was used loosely. They don’t, they just don’t erase as well after 24 hours. They didn’t work well in my Moleskine journal and as you can see up above, they ‘erased’ when I went over the writing in her hair with water soluble graphite. I was disappointed in them and actually so was my 9 year old who brought his back to me and said he’d rather use a regular pencil. So there you have my opinion, if you have had luck with them I’d love to hear about it! Let’s see what you all think and maybe we can find a good use for this new product!

All Good Things Must Come To An End

All good things must come to an end eventually, and in order to clear room for future workshops and in the interest of keeping things fresh and up to date, I’ve decided that Visual Journalism 101, Shades of Grey, and Pursuing Portraits are going to be retiring. I want to make sure everyone has ample time to complete the workshops and in case there are those who’ve been wanting to and not done so yet, registration will stay open until July 31st. The class materials will stay up for 1 YEAR, allowing ample time for everyone to finish no matter how many workshops you sign up for . I appreciate the many people who participated in my first online workshops and am looking forward to new and exciting things in the future. If you have any questions please feel free to email me at pcarrikersart@yahoo.com