Dear Sarah - 020
Prickles and stickles
Dear Sarah - January 20, 2025
Meet Prickles!
When we were in Japan we went to a zoo starring a herd of capybaras that enjoyed daily bathing in some artificially-created hotsprings (same herd I mentioned in an earlier message). The day we visited, though, was freezing cold. A howling wind meant that while the capybaras were pretty happy in their hot water bath, we spectators were shivering, hopping up and down trying to stay warm.
Turns out the zoo is also well known for its vast collection of cacti, sheltered inside large pyramidal greenhouses connected by a series of underground tunnels. Normally, none of us would have been so enamoured with the prickly display, but given the weather conditions, we were all happy to poke around inside for as long as we could.
In their own prickly way, cacti are fascinating and beautiful and, of course, I snapped a LOT of photos while we were wandering around inside, hiding from the windstorm.
Today, I thought I'd draw one of the 'simpler-shaped' specimens, but had all kinds of trouble. I took a photo of the pen and paper efforts, imported it into my phone, and then added some personality using Pocket Procreate.
Though this didn't amount to much, I kind of like the idea of combining digital and analog to see what happens when I mix and match. A side benefit is that the original drawing is still intact, so I could perhaps go back and try to fix it at some point (or not). Or, I could keep re-importing the original and then alter the basic drawing in the app to create a whole family of cacti.
Hi Nikki,
Prickles looks like a maniacal motivational speaker, a cactus who cares. Unlike Saguaro, who's a bit of a bully, always putting down Powder Puff for being so small, and Crown for being too showy.
First drawing class today--very exciting! Two and a half hours zipped by, as Natalie gently led us into our first exercise: blind outline drawing using a pencil. First you choose an object from her large container of things like pinecones (of all sizes), broken and intact dishes, teapots without lids, urns, sticks, shells, bones, feathers, etc etc. I chose a gnarled stick about a foot long. As I sat down to draw, Natalie pointed at me and shrieked, "Joseph!" I jumped a bit in my chair--she was quite close to me-- and she said, "You brought in Joseph!" The penny dropped--she had recognized me from a class I took with her about six years ago, to which I had brought in a human skull. (It's a long story.) I had named him Joseph. I think the rest of the class thought we were both insane: her for shrieking a random name, and me for having a human skull (other than my own).
After that, we did an exercise that involved drawing the chosen object three different ways: first with your non-dominant hand and without looking at what you are drawing. Basically just looking at the object, and drawing it as slowly as you can and in as much detail as possible. Next you switch to your dominant hand, and draw the object again--still no peeking The hardest part). Then you draw it again, this time peeking at your drawing once in a while. I've included all three attempts here. I definitely think the "blind" drawings informed the final one.
Next we switched to a fine-tip pen and chose a different object to draw. I chose an oyster shell. We were supposed to stick to outlining, but I started shading, trying to add contours to the shell. Turns out almost everyone else did too, which led to the next part of the class: Tone and shading. We practiced hatching, cross-hatching, stippling, scribbling--and then it was time to stop.