Birds of a feather...

Dear Sarah 027

Dear Nikki - January 27, 2025

Another fun art class, this time exploring tone, first using different pencils, from hard to soft. Natalie gave us each an enlarged black-and- white photograph and asked us to fold it in a way that deprived it of its "thingness" and turned it into a study in tones. Dark, light, and everything in between. I was given a photo of a hummingbird getting nectar from a flower. I folded it so that I couldn't see the bird's head or the flower. Then I turned it upside down. Tricking myself into un-knowing what I was drawing, and drawing only shifts in tone was really hard. There were a ton of different tones and only three pencils: an HB, a 3B and an 8B.

When we were finished, we could line up the folded photo against our drawing and see if what we drew bore any relation to the whole object.

The second half of the class was about negative space (or as Natalie likes to call it, supportive space), and using charcoal. Hard concept to grasp and hard to execute. But that's tomorrow's post.

The sun is shining here, so it's time for lunch followed by a walk. The rains are coming on Wednesday, and yes, I know we need the rain, but no, I'm not happy about it. In fact, it puts me in a negative space. And not in a good way.

Dear Sarah - January 27, 2025

Wow - you should be pleased with your hummingbird! I LOVE how that turned out - excellent to see head joined to body in full flight. Fascinating how it helps to concentrate on what is there (tones) and not what our mind thinks it should ‘see’ (hummingbird).

So cool. Very much looking forward to tomorrow’s supportive space exercise (I fully approve of that term - so much better than 'negative space’).

OK, this looked so cool I decided to try it myself. I also turned my black and white image upside down so it was less obvious what I was drawing and used a limited selection of pencils.

The heartbreaking part of the image is the shackle around the owl’s leg. Zoos. I really don’t like them.