I can draw! I love to draw! I know when I pick up a pencil, whether it be graphite, charcoal, pastel or colour, that it is going to do what I want. My hand knows how to hold a pencil. I know how much detail I can add with a pencil. I know what the result will be before I even start. I really love drawing.
I have attempted to paint in the past .. I have acrylic paintings on my walls at home, which are….meh! But let’s be honest, I’ve never really put in the effort to learn. Painting is messy, it requires space and drying time and is certainly not something you want to leave around the house with toddlers lurking. But now my youngest child is in school, and I have a little space and a tiny bit of time, I have branched out and purchased a bunch of oil painting supplies.
I am an absolute beginner with this stuff. When I was about 14, my father bought be some oil paints and set me to work in the yard with a bottle of turps and no instruction at. I had a great deal of fun, but i didn’t know anything about mediums or thinning down paint, so I ended up with these big thick impasto blobs and a wreck of a painting that couldn’t be touched for the next 6 months. It’s no wonder I didn’t fall in love with painting.
These are my first attempts and there are plenty of mistakes. I’m sticking to subjects that are easy to draw out, that way I don’t have to feel bad when I stuff them up! I keep accidentally mixing my colours together, I have no idea what brush does what, I have no idea what I’m doing with that palette knife (although I like the results) and I’m doing horrible, horrible things to my brushes trying to clean them… but I sure am having fun.
Art has always been a part of my life in one form or another… it is only recently that have I intentionally made time to practice and improve my results.
It has become a borderline obsession. Some part every single day of the past 2 years, is spent studying my craft. If I am not working on a larger, complete piece, I am scrawling away in my sketchbook, watching other artists on YouTube, reading books on the old masters, or just spending the time to take in my surroundings and mentally decide which colours I would use and how I would depict the scene.
I have noticed a change in the way I see the world, yes I mean an actual change in my visual perception of the world. Colours are brighter and shadows are deeper and the highlights are brilliant. I see the way light bounces around objects, light bouncing inside shadows, the reflexion and refraction of light through a body of water… Of course my eyesight hasn’t improved (If anything, it’s getting worse as I age!!) but with practice I have learned to notice more of these little things that build up our visual world. I suppose it’s a bit like physical excercise, constant flexing of my perceptual muscles has made them stronger!
To test out these new muscles, this week I intentionally chose a subject that has been very difficult for me in the past. I have never before drawn a tiger I was happy with. All those stripes and the changing colours of the fur has always left me stumped, but having noticed a great improvement in my work lately, I thought I would “tackle the beast”again.
This time I can say I am truly happy with the results… There are a few areas I would have liked to do differently (but there always are) but overall I am proud to say this is one of mine. The image for this post shows the result of 19 months of solid, dedicated and deliberate practice. Judging by the difference, I can say that I cant wait to see what I can do 19 months from now!!
(here is the video I made of the recent tiger drawing. Learning to video as i work… now thats a whole new ball game!! more to come )
Sometimes it can feel like you’re not making any progress as an artist. Practice is slow and improvements can seem to take forever, if at all. So it can nice to look back occasionally and see just how far you have come. So this New Year, I am taking a few moments to look back on my progress and achievements and putting some thought into what I would like to see happen in the year to come.
“All the blues”” colour pencil on paper 41x29cm
My year started in chaos. We moved house and my precious pencils were packed away and left untouched for a month! I felt incredibly anxious to get back to the drawing table. I suppose some part of me was afraid I would lose momentum and neglect my art for another 10 years! But I shouldn’t have worried. “All the blues” was my first full piece for 2016, and I loved it! This piece went on to become my profile picture for my burgeoning social media pages and was the first piece I uploaded to my Redbubble page to be made available as prints.
I picked up a paintbrush! After many failed attempts in the past, I took just one more shot. I hurt my wallet and bought some quality oil paints and started painting fruit on cheap canvas pads. For the first time in my life the paint did what I wanted. Each painting has been a bit better than the last and I am keen to paint more.
In March, I saw one of my pieces published in the gallery section of Colour pencil magazine. This was huge for me! I made sure I bought a paper copy of that month’s issue, you can’t just download something like that!
spilled bouquet 29×41 colour pencil
In November, I saw one of my drawings voted to be the banner for the Colored Pencils, Graphite & Pastels Facebook group. I see so many amazing works of art posted to that page, I was humbled to see my piece gracing the top of their page for a month!
In May, I took a massive leap of faith, strapped my iPhone to a plank of wood and uploaded my first YouTube video. I have since upgraded to adding voice overs and I am constantly learning new editing techniques. With 15 videos now created, I have managed to consistently upload videos fortnightly and I am really enjoying the process.
And finally, in March I opened up my own little corner of the internet and started this humble blog. Although it is a little neglected, I have thoroughly enjoyed taking the time to write about my journey.
Looking back, this year has seen some HUGE leaps for me. I am quite proud of many of the colour pencil pieces I produced and never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined how much progress would be made. It would seem that all the time and efforts have made quite an impact and this is very reassuring for the future.
So whats next?
Well, I am very excited to keep working on that YouTube channel. Recording my work is hard work and time-consuming, but it is so much fun and I really hope that I can inspire others to create through it.
I have purchased Scott Christensens Paint the ocean course. I live so close to the water, but I have had no success in painting it. I cant wait to use some of those scenic photos on my phone for reference, and apply some of his techniques to create my own water filled landscapes
I hope to learn to be a better salesperson. The more art I can sell, the more time I can dedicate to my passion ( instead of dedicating time to that dreary retail job!) While I have that redbubble site, I feel very self conscious in letting people know it is there. I need to learn how to feel comfortable in marketing myself.
On the topic of sales, I will soon be setting up shop for original artwork. While I do occasionally sell pieces through Facebook, I have not set up a dedicated platform for sales. I have no idea how to do this…. but like so many things this past year, I will learn.
I am so excited to see what opprtunites 2017 will bring. I hope I to create even better art and more and more of it. Bring it on!
Cassandra Hanley Art 