Lions and Tigers and Bears...

Well, no lions or tigers. But I have a bear!


Got up early (painfully early) for a trip to the zoo to sketch the animals. I had my heart all set on drawing lions and tigers, but none of them would oblige me. There was one lion lounging way too far away to draw, and the tigers were not to be found. But I found the cheetahs.


Interestingly enough, right next door to the cheetahs were... zebras.


Why they would put prey right next door to predator, I don't know.
Fortunately, they keep the free-ranging monkeys far away from the carnivores...
I didn't get to draw any of the free-ranging monkeys, since they were all hiding in the trees, but I got a nice view of some gibbons that were chilling (literally) next to a fan in their pen.



But the most fun I had all day was sketching the flamingos and cranes.










So now that my hands are stained black from doing ink drawings all day, I've decided that I definitely prefer the brush to the pen. (That could be why I only did two drawings in pen during the whole day...) The brush is lighter, easier to use, and its strokes are smoother and more nuanced. Being a painter to begin with might also have something to do with my preference.

I used two sketchbooks today - a medium-sized Strathmore and a medium-sized, hard-bound Canson. I like the Canson better than the Strathmore, since the paper is slightly heavier, the pages are easier to turn, and it generally lasts longer. But it's also more expensive, so I tend to go with Strathmore sketchbooks. I used a #1 round Princeton watercolor brush and Higgins Black India Ink.

Georgia

Just a little landscape... I don't do them often, but I was in the mood for something quick and simple. These little things require very little thought from me. (Which is good, because I've been feeling really dumb lately). Anyway, this is from a photo I took as I was traveling through Georgia a few years ago.

First the sketch in ink...


And then the watercolor.


6"x8"

The 2006 Tenth Annual International Art Competition

Two of my works - Katie Looking Down and Portrait of Katie - were selected for the 2006 Tenth Annual International Art Competition, in which I received Third Place. Juried this year by F. Lennox Campello and held at Fraser Gallery in Bethesda, the show will be up from July 14 to August 9 this summer.

The Fraser Gallery
7700 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite E
Bethesda, MD 20814

Ink Sketch

Just a little doodle between paintings....

Portrait of a Girl

Just finished this one the other day:



13"x10"

Geisha

I finished this one Thursday but kept forgetting to photograph it over the weekend, so here it is now. It took about a week to do. (See how much faster it goes when I don't have classes getting in the way? I love summer break...)

A Day Later...

This one's actually really close to being done... all I need to do is finish the shirt and the jewerly and touch up the face a bit.

Finally...

... Finally, it's summer! (For me, at least.) Now I can paint as much as I want...
Started this one Sunday and worked on it all day yesterday:


18"x10"

Pensive

Finished this one on Saturday:


Not a very good pic, but I'll put up a better one once it's flattened.

Mother and Daughter

22"x16.5"
Completed 4/29/06.
(Sold.)

Looking Down

Started a new one today:


(22"x16.5")
This is about five hours' work.

Mother and Daughter

Finished it this weekend. I'll put a better picture up once it's flattened and photographed and all that good stuff.

Mentioned on DC Art News

Art critic F. Lennox Campello recently reviewed the April Art League Show, which includes my Hands with Bangles, on his blog. Here is an excerpt from his article:

"My favorite piece in the show was another stunning watercolor by Jenny Davis. This piece, titled "Hands with Bangles," continues to establish the young Davis (daughter of equally talented watercolorist Tanya Davis) as one of the prime watercolorists in our area. Completely self-taught, the young Davis, who has just finished High School, already masters the most difficult of mediums in her obvious mastery over transparent watercolors. While I was there staring in rapture-like ecstasy at her watercolor, I was informed that Jenny had recently been accepted to the Torpedo Factory as one of its newest (and youngest) artist members and will soon have a studio there."

You can find the whole article here.

Another Classroom Sketch

Mostly the same people as before, though. Foreign Policy is the only class I have where I have time to draw and where I know the teacher won't mind. But it's a really small class, so there's not that much variety in subject matter...

A New Painting

Or not new, actually. I've been working on it since the 9th. It's slow going because of how much homework I have and how little time I have to paint. Only 25 more days until the semester ends and I'll have all day, every day to paint! I can't wait.
So anyway, this is a new mommy and a new little baby (plus a cat in the background).


I'll post it again when it's finished.

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

(Or drawing with the left hand, at least.)
I got to hang out with my friend Erika today and we spent hours It was so fun... I only wish I'd had better pencils with me. I borrowed Erika's charcoal pencils to do these three:


I drew this with my left hand... (I'm right-handed.)


... and this with my right hand.


These were Erika's hands while she was drawing me. (Used my right hand again.)

Oh, and here's a sketch from my last trip to the library that I never posted:



And that's all for now.

More Doodles...

... Literally, doodles. I brought my sketchbook with me to my foreign policy class yesterday night and decided to start doodling in that rather than in my notebook. That class involves a lot of note-taking, so I ended up shuffling both books around in my lap, drawing with my regular pencil, and switching back and forth from sketching to writing. I think I should start doing that more often. I forgot how much fun it is to actually sketch (in a sketchbook) people in school... I just haven't done it because I take so many notes in all my classes.

It was actually a little bit harder drawing in class than in a cafe, because when people are eating, they tend to look in the direction of the person they're with. In class, everybody's looking up, down, up, down, back, forth, etc. It's especially hard to draw the professor - he paces a lot.
Anyway, here's a page full of doodles of classmates.

Some Doodles...

Got out of botany early yesterday so I went to the library to draw for a bit. I only had thirty minutes, though, not enough time to do anything very detailed, so I just doodled.

German Landscape

I actually finished this sometime last week, but I never got around to photographing it until now. I meant it to be just a little doodle to keep me busy between portraits, but it turned out a lot nicer than I expected. It's 6"x8" on vellum Bristol board.
I did a drawing in ink...


... and then went over it in watercolor.



It didn't take too long to do. I was going through old photos last week and found a picture of this German town and was actually interested by it... Which is strange, because usually I'm not attracted to painting landscapes at all. I don't have the patience to do large areas of green. (Which is why I did this one tiny.) I wouldn't have had the patience to do it if I'd been trying to paint the same thing any bigger.
It's a pretty big departure from my normal style, but it's fun. I like doing that now and then... But I still prefer my normal style of painting, at least for portraits.

The Jurying

I made it! I'm now juried into the Torpedo Factory Art Center.

The Newly Juried Artists Exhibition will be in Target Gallery from April 7th to April 15th. One piece from each juried artist will be on display.

Also, I have one painting hanging in the Art League Gallery (located in the Torpedo Factory Art Center) for the April all media show.
The Torpedo Factory Art Center is located at
105 N Union Street
Alexandria VA 22314


This one is on display in Target Gallery...


... and this one is in the Art League.

K.J.

Here's the final pic of my Portrait of K.J.



Still no new paintings... I have a little one done, but I still need to flatten it. Meanwhile, I've got an avalanche of homework to get done.

Update

Narrowed my lineup for the Torpedo Factory Jurying down to Tess I and Tess II, the first Katie, Katie Looking Down, Megan, and Megan II.

Receiving is tomorrow.

Something Different

Something way different. Photographs! I'm taking black & white photography this semester and I'm especially proud of these three prints. All three are of machinery; respectively, two bulldozers and a dumptruck. The bottom one is my favorite.

Finally, Some New Sketches

It's been ages since I went out and sketched people. Today I didn't feel much like using graphite. (That and I wasn't close enough to anybody to do a detailed drawing.) So I did a bunch of sketches with my brush pen. These are my two favorites. Pregnant mommy and her little baby were running around the cafe. (Well, the mom wasn't running around, but the kid was.) Cute kid, too. Kept smiling and waving at me.




On this one... the top left sketch was the little girl trying to stand on her head - or trying to do a somersault, something like that. She didn't manage to do either one, she just stood there for a few seconds in that position, absolutely thrilled by doing it.

Lineup

Sorry it's been a while since my last post... I've been fighting a couple of nasty colds in a row this last week, so I haven't been doing much work. That and I've been busy getting things together for the Torpedo Factory Jurying. I've got eight things framed for that: Megan II, Tess I and Tess II, Margaret, Megan I, Hands With Bangles, Katie Looking Down, and the first Katie.
I can only enter six of those as my originals for the Jurying... Now that they're all framed, I'll stick them together and see how they look as a group. I doubt I'll enter the hands as an original - to small. My lineup will almost definitely include both Tesses.
Here's a picture of Tess, Megan II, and Margaret together. It's not a very good picture, but hey.


And here's the first Katie, Katie Looking Down, and the Hands with Bangles.

Done

Finished the portrait of my grandfather today.

Old Stuff...

My old oil painting teacher tracked me down in the hallway today at school and gave me this old painting I left behind last spring. This is a 16" x 20" of a bottle and a... cow skull? (I have no idea what type of skull this is. It wasn't a horse. I think it was a cow...) Anyway, I entered in the student show last spring, it got in, but I forgot to pick it up. (Bad, I know.)
It's pale and not as good as my watercolors, but I figured I might as well post it.

And here's a little update of my Granddad... Didn't get much done today because of class, but it's getting there. I need to go ahead and finish his hair and the background and then it will be pretty much done, except for touch-ups.

KJ

Started this one on Friday. The model happens to be a scientist as well as a watercolorist.


And did I mention he's my grandfather? :-)

It runs in the family.

Finished

I lucked out today - my photography class was canceled, so I got to come home and finish this painting! That makes me so incredibly happy... All I want to do is sit back and stare at it.

Day by Day

I'm so proud of this one and having so much fun with it that I am going to have to post step-by-steps... or day-by-days, I guess. Got an amazing amount of work done on it today. I wish I could skip class tomorrow to stay home and paint. In fact, if I had tomorrow and Tuesday off, this would be done by Tuesday night at the latest.
But thanks to college... might not get done until next Sunday.


There's really not all that much left to it. I need to do the necklace, and then some touch-ups...

New Painting

I finished my last painting faster than I expected - mostly because once I saw the photographs of my new model, I was in a hurry to start painting her. So I'm back to painting adults, for now.


This one's untitled at the moment. (14" x 16")

A Little Boy

I went to the cafe yesterday for dinner and got some good sketches of a little boy. He couldn't hold still for more than a minute, but he was really fun to draw.








For some reason I haven't really been in the mood to draw with graphite lately. Actually, I haven't really been in the mood to draw at all - I need a new sketchbook. I bought one, but I took the old one with me to dinner yesterday by accident. Anyway, now the old one has joined the towering pile of filled sketchbooks in my closet, and I should (hopefully) be drawing more.