Drawing, Pipes and Plumbing

I don't know when I became so enamored with plumbing 

or pipes in general, but I do love to draw them. 

 Found this lovely old pipe with the blue top someplace

 in our basement area.

Colored pencil drawing.

 Another drawing of an old faucet in my laundry tub.

 I thought I ought to have a drawing of a new gleaming faucet

 to complement the old one so I found this in the bathroom at a motel.

 Wandering the grounds of the old Navy Training Station in San Diego

I kept finding similar groups of pipes on many corners, 

all painted bright colors. This was just one example. 

Never could get that blueish color bright enough 

or with enough contrast with my colored pencils.

 These two drawings are of pipes I saw in an 

old building against a cinder block wall.

I so liked the shapes and the colors i decided to

 embroider these pipes or plumbing or whatever they were.

The embroidery on the right was enlarged a bit 

more than the original drawing

Finally finished this pair of embroideries....however, 

I felt they needed something so had a couple 

of birds fly in to roost on them.

Pencil sharpeners and drawings, old and new.

For years I have bought and used pencil sharpeners I either 

chose myself or they had been recommended. 

All of those shown above worked perfectly for graphite 

and usually for my colored pencils.

They worked with battery, electricity, or were operated by hand.

However, I was always looking for the perfect sharpener 

for colored pencils. 

 Recently Jeanne Benson gave me a new hand manipulated 

sharpener, that came from England.

 The pencils at the bottom were sharpened with my old sharpeners

and those above with the new hand cranked sharpener from the UK.

 Over the years in planning my embroideries I would often 

draw the image first with colored pencil.

 The drawings were never complete as they were just 

a design for a future embroidery. 

Since I started using my new sharpener 

I looked back at the old drawings and reworked several.

 It is a pleasure to use these very sharp colored pencils 

on the textured papers, filling in the white that shows through.

 This lily was drawn fairly quickly in Gladstone, Australia, and 

the orchids, below, in Melbourne when on a teaching tour in 2001.

I have enjoyed adding contrast, fine lines, and definition 

to these old drawings. 

Although I am using up my pencils a little faster than before, 

it has been a pleasure to spend this past month 

with very sharp colored pencils.

Drawing, colored pencil still-life

Choosing to do a drawing for a Christmas gift 

I began by buying an unusual little vase, about 9 inches high, 

from the Glen Echo Potters 

when they had their holiday sale at the Lab School.

 I took several photos trying to decide on a small grouping

 It shouldn't be but it is always surprising, 

for me to see how much colors change 

with different backgrounds. 

I wanted to work from life and I knew I would not have constant light

 during the day and probably not at night, as well. 

 I decided to use the darker background and a white base 

so there would be some reflected white on the objects

 I was using a high texture heavy substrate so a lot of white

 came through even though I kept my pencils very sharp.

 It is quite evident, here, with the texture of the paper showing through.

 Even after using some blending much of the papers texture was evident.

 I didn't want to fill the background with dark gray so just gave a hint of that color.

The title is Red, Yellow, and Blue.

 Since I was unhappy with the substrate's texture

in that first drawing, 

I decide to try the same still life on a smoother surface. 

Using Bristol Board this time, thinking it was a lot smoother, 

I began drawing. 

Soon I saw that it, too had a texture that I didn't want for my colored pencils. 

At this point I decided I liked the first drawing better 

so gave it as the gift along with the vase.

During the second drawing,

I had to switch apples as the first one had become

 soft over the week or two I was drawing. 

For all, but the apples I used Prismacolor pencils.  

I used Polychromos only on both apples and today used

mineral oil to blend the pencil lines on this apple.

 I still see so much of the paper's texture in the rest of the drawing. 

This image appears brighter in this photo than it really is. 

Now I want to go back to my favorite drawing paper

and try another still life.

Hardware and Tools

 Several years ago the New Image group had a Hardware show. 

 At that time I started drawing (with colored pencils) many of the 

old tools I found around our home as seen in this sketchbook.

After the drawings I embroidered each tool, life size.

 This is Timeless Tools created for that Hardware show. 

The hands in the center panel I consider the original tools.

Total size of the 3 panels is 15 by 65 inches.

 This detail shows that the embroidered tools are 

appliqued to two layers of window screening 

with HARDWARE written on the bottom layer.

 I recently found an old photo of some tools hanging in our garage. 

I have started embroidering many of them in a 

smaller size than the originals.

I will rearrange them on some kind of a shelf or hanging device. 

These will include a few tools I hadn't used before as well as 

odd images that will not necessarily belong. 

So this is the beginning of a new hardware piece.