Cecily Steele

THe last day of sketching these before I get back into the painting they go with.

So to speak.

I need to finish a painting. I didn’t have time to set up everything tonight and I need to work on the design of the zeppelins in the painting some more before I dig in again with paint. So, here are some wacky zeppelins and some sketches from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Because that movie needed more zeppelins.

The Dr. Sketchy Anti-Art School held a “Back to the Future” session. The models were … inexperienced and the long poses were frustrating because of it. But here are a few of the shorter poses.

At the break, I decided my friend Jessie was great at standing still.

I have a small show in February, so I created a few small images for it.  I’m going to bring them to a printer on Monday for printing.  Lucky you, random web-traveler.  You, you get a preview.

Exploring making different kinds of lines!

We read Harold (well, I read it to the class and they marveled at the story) and as a group we then decided that he used four different kinds of lines in the story.  Aside from “straight” lines, the kids named the different lines as: squiggly, bumpy, and circle lines.

I made a little chart for them of each sort, and then passed out extra-long paper that had red dots on one side and green dots on the other.  Students were shown how to find a green dot (our “starting dot”), decide on a kind of line they wanted to draw and then draw it across the paper to the red dot (our “stopping dot”).

I thought the kids would do one or maybe two of these and then get bored, but they wanted to try it again, and again and again!  The grooved crayons I made were fun to play with, but the PreK kids had a hard time pulling a crayon on its side across a page and were more satisfied using the crayons upright.

One student got so into this that he started to make lines of patterns of shapes from the story (moon, circle, square …).

Click on each image for a full view of the cool lines!

Well, sort of.  We did two sessions of Australian Aboriginal Dot paintings. We looked at all kinds of real examples of paintings done by Aboriginal artists, even some I brought home with me from the Top End.

On day one, students used concentric circles that are usually meant to represent billabongs in Aboriginal Dot Painting.  They used plastic tupperware lids, juice caps, plastic milk jug lids and other circles as stencils. They were asked not to make lines unless they were connecting two billabongs with a “river” symbol.

On the second day, students learned about just a few of the Australian animals that show up in Aboriginal stories and paintings. We looked at pictures of some really crazy Australian animals and made a second dot “painting” using oil pastels and animal stencils.

Tucker provides his public service as Art Critic Esq.

Echidnas, Kangaroos, and Kookaburras, oh my!

That blue “blob” is a foot.  One of the paintings I showed them had footprints painted on it to tell the tale of a hunter following some kangaroo.  I had a foot stencil which proved a little hard to trace for some kids, so I left it on the table in the stencil tray, but I didn’t make mention of it.  One student found it and decided to add it to his kookaburra painting.

Submission for a Halloween Show in Plantsville, CT.

I’m going to cut them apart and put them in separate frames if I can find something the right size in time.

Mindless things I don’t mind if I get interrupted while doing at work when there is a lull.

I loved the loose watercolor technique and the dark shadows in this cover art by Rufus Dayglo.

After needing a break to find my groove again on a commission, I did this little piece to get the feel of working so loosely in watercolor and ink as well as get a handle back on the commission I’m in the middle of.

The actual piece is a little less red than this scan shows and headed more toward yellow and sepia, but you get the idea.

This is for a friend who is particularly fond of foxes. Here is the right side of the diptych as a bit of a teaser. I will post the left side and a view of them together later.

Update: Scroll below for the left side and the diptych together!

Watercolor, india ink, gouche on Canson 140lb paper. Tools: dip pens, crow quill pen, and a variety of watercolor brushes.