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Combining assignments

9/23/2012

I've blogged about both Sketch Club and the Daily Draw. The Daily Draw group receives a weekly assignment, and we commit to do a drawing a day based on the assignment. You can follow us on Tumblr: http://dailydraw.tumblr.com/ And, check out Sketch Club (see http://app.sketchclub.com/ ), which has both composition contests (Compos) and a Daily Challenge. I have taken on the personal challenge, when possible, of combining the Daily Draw assignment with one from Sketch Club -- which has lead me into some very challenging themes.

Last week, the Daily Draw assignment was insect portraits. At the same time, Sketch Club had a compo going titled "Remix!" Here is the description: "Take ONE of your favorite pictures/drawings/paintings, done by another artist (from Da Vinci to stencil art -- up to you) and REMIX it!!! Don't just copy the drawing -- create something new, cool, funny, touching, romantic or magic. One image load to give you the structure is fine." In addition, one of the daily challenges last week was Renaissance: "draw some famous renaissance art or make on of your own, sort of in that style." So, I double-dared myself to combine all three assignments in at least one Sketch Club drawing. I needed some ingenuity for this dare! Here, I think, is the best result:

The "Portrait of Lucretia Panciatichi," by Bronzino, gave me the "bones" for this drawing, thus, incorporating both the Remix Compo and the Renaissance Daily Challenge into my Daily Draw assignment. To integrate the insect portrait theme, I used Princess Atta from Pixar's "A Bug's Life" as Lucretia's doppleganger. (As I was writing this blog, I googled "Princess Pancitichi" to steal a jpeg of Bronzino's painting and discovered that my drawing was the second hit! Good gosh! Bronzino would be mortified. Well, maybe amused. I can hope.)

The Sketch Club community has given me a lot of positive feedback on this one. I credit Bronzino, 100%. The original painting radiates beauty, elegance, intelligence, luxury. We see Bronzino's signature notes, the long, graceful neck and delicate, elongated fingers. Observe the luxurious fabric and exquisite jewelry. My humble homage in no way approaches his majestic work. I worked on my drawing about 2 hours. How many hours did Bronzino put in? A hundred? We don't know. We do know that his mastery of painting awes and inspires. Princess Atta pales and curtseys before Princess Pancitichi.

Here, with an inadequate jpg, I present to you Bronzino's regally remote Princess. Visit her one day at the Uffizi Gallelry in Florence, Italy.

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Masks

7/5/2012

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A recent assignment in my Daily Draw group was: choose an object and draw that object each day for a week. I chose a mask that I bought last October in Florence, Italy, from a street vendor. It was cheap, probably made in China, but I liked it anyway. Here are some of those drawings, the last being the one drawing that meant the most to me. These were all done using the Sketch Club app for iPad, along with more than one photo editing app to crop, manipulate color, duplicate, flip and collage.

I took the drawing at left and loaded it into the PS Express app (PhotoShop Express). There, I flipped it, so I had a copy of the mask looking right instead of left. I loaded both images into a photo collage app and put them nose to nose. Then, I imported the resulting image into Sketch Club (via Image Load) and worked some more.

We go thru life wearing various masks, depending on the situation. We even work hard to keep our "social face" ready to meet the world. Our masks in place, the false selves interact, nose to nose, but with no deep knowledge of The Other. Occasionally, we see an exception to the rule: someone with a complete poker face, someone slack-faced with severe depression.

Rarely, we encounter someone who allows the face to become genuine, transparent, alive. Such people can be: charismatic, mesmerizing, inspiring. With luck, we can trust someone we love with our authentic self -- and, in turn, that person can also give us that rare gift of transparency.

Treasure that person with your whole heart.

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The Daily Draw

6/13/2012

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When I saw the assignment for last week's Daily Draw, my heart sank. "Childhood Memories." I don't have that many good childhood memories. As an adult, years of therapy (individual, marriage, group) gradually helped me to "un-numb," grieve, and, as much as possible, move on. These days, I find it is best to not dwell on the events of my childhood, except to answer a question or to help someone else know that they are not alone. I did not relish this assignment. But, I committed to do a drawing a day, based on the subject given. So, I plunged in. I did these drawings on the iPad, using the Sketch Club app, and doing some cropping and color editing with the Camera+ app. I tried to find the positive memories.

So first. I always read, voraciously. The first drawing? I still have my old copy of Winnie-the-Pooh. Not the Disney version, the original. A good memory. And, second, I remembered playing in a pothole after a heavy rain with my best friend, Mary Elizabeth. We were perhaps four years old.

Captain Kangaroo. Soupy Sales. A black & white TV. Comic books, candy bars. The stuff of a 1950's-60's childhood.

Most nights, we had Chef Boy-Ar-Dee for supper. I would open up a can, plop it in a pot, heat it up, and feed my sister and myself. But, if our mom wasn't between jobs, she picked up take-out fried chicken twice a month, on paydays. Nothing has ever tasted as good to me as that fried chicken. In my memory, it was ambrosia. The best.

The assignment had stirred up some bad memories, even tho I tried to focus on the positive. I missed one day, due to emotional exhaustion, I suppose. But, the next day, the last day, I found one of the best memories. I did the text below left using Sketch Club, which has a text setting.

The current week's assignment: pick an object, draw it each day using a different technique/style. I will post those drawings next week. And, for your amusement., here is a Chef Boy-Ar-Dee commercial from 1953, the year before I was born:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSFIdYcClrs

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Abbey Road

6/8/2012

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My favorite week of the Daily Draw Group: pick an album and do a drawing a day based on a different song title each day. I picked Abbey Road, by the Beatles. Usually, I prefer to draw from life. I have the devil of a time trying to draw from my imagination. I enjoyed this particular assignment, tho. Here are my four favorites of that week, all done on the iPad, using the Sketch Club app, then editing in Camera+ and a few other photo-editing apps.

Octopus's Garden

Oh, Darling....

Something

She Came in Thru the Bathroom Window

Yes, there were three others. But, I'll stop here. With my favorites.

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Combining assignments

Masks

The Daily Draw

Abbey Road

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