Why draw when you can paint?

Sometimes in the endless thinking about painting, drawing
is a way to relax. The first drawing I'm showing you tonight
I found in one of my sketchbooks. Toph Schink says he
doesn't draw, he just paints, but he does draw while he's
painting, the way all the rest of us do. He just doesn't
separate drawing from painting.

Sketchbook study Marty's Mom

I did master classical drawing long ago in art school,
but painting in watercolour and acrylic changed me.
Today I'm trying to be myself in paint to the extent that
that's possible.

The first drawing is really a colour study I did
when I was doing a portrait of my friend Marty's
Mom. A wonderful woman, warm, intelligent
and very pretty.

Marty's Mom
acrylic on canvas
24" x 36"
Barbara Muir © 2004
sold

In university I had a friend who drew

with everything, leaves, grass, sticks,
pizza. Nothing was safe from experiments in
line and form when he was around. I loved
that wild way of working -- although I'm far
from wild -- but sometimes I try something
just for memory's sake. In my case, bits of
fruit or flower don't produce great art, but
the process is fun. Here's one done with
purple flower petals.

Sketchbook drawing of a table top grouping
in either purple Iris petal, or pansy petal

And of course I draw to fill in time, divert my mind,
capture a moment, and practice. Before my son, Christopher
left for Korea, I drew endlessly in the pub restaurant where he worked.
I had no intention of turning the drawings into paintings, I just wanted
to stop my mind from running ahead to missing my little boy, who has
grown up into such and amazing man. Drawing anchored
me in the present -- the noise, gestures, enjoyment, serious
conversations people were having in the pub. It helped me
stop my emotions from swamping me. Artists are secret
scientists. In a way every drawing that isn't expected to be
great art, is an equation waiting to happen. Coloured pencil
on heavy watercolour paper -- maybe not. Ink on bond -- not
bad.

Sketchbook study Fionn MacCool's Toronto
Never completed because dinner arrived

Have a noticing-and-enjoying-everything day.

Out of the notebook, onto the canvas

My art class now doesn't have
the rarified atmosphere of an
official art school, it even deviates
from time to time from the requisite
"classical" music. Those of us who like to paint what's in front of us feel a bit out of step with nature.

Art school taught me to have a passion for drawing, but I didn't always stick to the rules. For instance we were taught that it was a "sin" to draw in marker, because it wouldn't last.

Some artists I've studied
with recently never draw, they
just paint, and I get it. The two
disciplines, though frequently combined are very different when you
separate them.

The first four images here are self-portraits from an art school vintage sketchbook. You can see that I tried a number of styles and
different drawing materials.
I still sketch whenever I get the
chance. When my older son
worked in a local bar/restaurant
I always carried my sketchbook
and tried to capture the
atmosphere.

Last week in art class I whipped
up this little painted sketch in an
hour -- a discipline I'm trying to
teach myself. I'm still incredibly
slow with portrait commissions.
But they also need to be much more
finished paintings.

Artists need to have the courage to come out of
the notebook and onto the canvas. Drawing is an
important art on its own, but the drawings need to see
the light. I know so many artists who worry
about materials, the expense of a full sheet of watercolour
paper, or of canvasses. In class you can use the same canvas
over and over if you're painting in acrylic.
If you haven't allowed yourself to put your art on a
wall lately. Start with your own walls. Then ask
someone to display your work in a public space -- and
Ta Da, you're on your way.

Have a showy day.

I'm still sketching

My favorite sketch in this little sample is the one of Steven sleeping, complete with the ear plugs and eye mask he wears while his insomniac wife reads. The next one is Steven fixing a slide projector in our attic room at the schoolhouse. That's Zoey the dog on the floor. Next comes the view from our room in Anaheim, Calif. Some artists say that they never draw. I know I can draw well -- I was trained in the classical method, although I don't draw that way anymore, but more and more lately I've been using sketching like knitting, as a happy distraction whenever I know I'll have to sit and wait. When you sketch in public everything changes every few seconds. I like the challenge that poses. After awhile you realize you can't get it, that man won't turn around and go back to the pose, the woman who had her arm around him, and kissed his cheek suddenly left in a huff. Furniture is better. It behaves. But people push and pull at wooden subjects too, moving the chair you've almost nailed. When I paint in the kitchen, for a still life painting, I cover the kitchen table with sheets of plain bond, masking taped together, then outline the objects I'm painting so I can take my set up off the table for supper, and put it back afterwards without disturbing my family. Your family, like mine, may not like you spreading your paints all over the house, but they are pretty good sketching subjects. First of all they're used to you. You are always there, in fact you may bore them so thoroughly that after awhile they don't even notice you. My fornia last April, looking out over Disneyland, which we never visited. And the last sketch was done quickly in the pub where my son worked. The big man is a bouncer watching the crowd very carefully. It's time to draw the line around this day. Have a thankful Friday.