July 26, 2011

Summer Mood


These are two summer sketches from the garden. 
Values. Slowly I start to understand them, practice helps a lot. 

On train to St Petersburg (I post two more photos from the trip below) I read excellent pages, printed from the text I  saw here, Innisart's "Underpaintings" blog, and saved for reference. 
It was "Fixler's Laws", the drawing and painting instructions of gifted teacher and talented artist.
So exact and detailed information on drawing, painting, values, light and shadow, I hope it will be useful for you, too.

Pavlovsk, Ex-Pond
Onions of Peterhof Palace

July 25, 2011

St.Petersburg


Last week I went to St.Petersburg. For sightseeing. Very beautiful. But for me it was difficult to find inspiration in the city with straight streets, square houses and almost no trees. Well, difficult for chronic Muscovite who loves the chaos of Moscow. So I went to the woods around the city and enjoyed every moment of the palaces and mansions surrounded with trees.  They are gorgeous, I will post photos and you will agree with me. Mansions and trees.
One sketch was done in the downtown, as tribute to Sketchcrawl Moscow (link here) and worldwide sketchcrawl.

The second one is the side view of the Peterhof residence of Russian Tzars.

And the last one was drawn in Pavlovsk, 40km from St.Petersberg, residence of Tzar Pavel.
The weather was wonderful and the places were so kind to me.
And few photos made in Pavlovsk.

July 17, 2011

Big Size Paper


It started when I bought big size wooden painting surface. I decided that time has come and I was ready for big art. 75x55cm (29.5"x21.6") is no funny size, believe me.
Only when I soaked and stretched paper, I realized how really big this frame was. And that I had no clear idea about the "masterpiece" content. So it took almost 2 months to find the subject, to draw it and to finish it with oil pastels. And to realize how difficult and responsible the artist's activity is. And how much work and practice lays ahead.
These girls are the angels on my kitchen shelf. They watch and protect me (yes, I believe). The friend of mine, when saw this painting was surprised: "oh, you started children's pictures?" The artist is so often misunderstood.. It was serious work, somehow turned into lot of fun and joy..

July 15, 2011

Buildings Sketching

Faber Castell PITT Sepia Brush and "S" ink pens

I posted about this building in my Moscow Daily photo blog (here). When I finished with photos, it felt not enough, so I sketched it.  

And, as there is no color here, I would add some info about reds in my previous "Lilies" post. It is the answer to Judy from Da Draad Aquarellen blog (link here, please visit, she is watercolor master!) question.

For petals I  used Yarka's reds: Scarler (110), Cad Yellow (102), Carmine (112) (ref. at Dick Blick's page).

I met different reactions to the quality of this brand's watercolors, from serious critic to admiration. But they are cheap, and I believe that true masterpieces do not depend only on quality of pigments)). Did you hear about Whiskey painters of America, for example?

July 13, 2011

Lilies


Yes, a bit obsessed with lilies at a moment)).

From the sketchbook.

Sketching in the Country


Now, architecture.
Father's eyes are getting worse every day. He was completely caught 2009 summer by the idea to construct this small barbeque place (summerhouse?) with his own hands with only little help of his friend. He was proud to show us that he could do it, that his eyes were very good. That time his left eye was blind and his right eye was 40% functional. Dad, I am sure you'd like this sketch if you could see it.

July 12, 2011

New Sketchbook


First pages of my new (#4) sketchbook. Inspired by and created near my parent's country house live models.

I was out of blogs-world for almost a week, and tried to look at almost all your posts upon return.  Amazing pleasure!
Guys, you are so talented and inspiring. If it was not 2 AM right now, I could fly with the wings you gave me))) 
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