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Repurposing an Art Caddy

November already? Time seems to pass in ways that defy human perception.

I haven’t had much opportunity to draw or paint lately, but over the last few weeks, my art space has been another kind of project zone. Project #1: the annual or semi-annual organization overhaul, which always takes the better part of a week. During this, I emptied an art supply caddy–one of many that friends & family bestowed on me as a wee bairn, filled with bright colored pencils, paints, and pastels, and the obligatory small metal pencil sharpener. Rather than chuck the caddy, I thought I’d convert it into artwork storage (project #2). All it would take was adding 4 panels to prevent papers from sliding.

“All it would take” — ha. Na bi gòrach. (Scottish Gaelic for “Don’t be silly/stupid.”) Of course it took more than that. DIYers, let’s get ready to roll.

1) Remove black plastic art supply holders/lining. (Please excuse any funny-looking images; recently some blog images have started to appear stretched while others do not. Not sure why WordPress is displaying them differently.)

2) Remove or smooth as much of the hard glue that held liners in place. This involved a razor blade, flying glue chips, sandpaper, and safety goggles.

3) Cut fabric rectangles to line the box.

4) Glue fabric to interior of box.

5) Cut used mat board for panels.

6) Glue panels to box — the trickiest part (getting them to stick and to keep them from falling down).

Books, old awards, wood, and old mat board were all called into service to keep the panels from falling while the glue dried.

All done? Nope. I had to reglue the rightmost panel so that papers wouldn’t fall to the center when the caddy closed. Then it was done. Whoo hoo!

Here’s how it closes. Isn’t expanding storage great?

Presently it is only storing air because I am in the midst of project #3: sorting & digitizing hundreds of drawings from middle school, high school & college (plus some more recent things). This weekend alone, I’ve recycled 2 piles of dog-eared, battered, & other sketches I don’t feel inspired to keep. Apparently an artist’s work is never done, even when not making art.

Maybe the next post will be an artistic yearbook/blast from the past. ‘Til then, thanks as always for reading.

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Newsletter fix & more streaming sketches

Hi, everyone. Just a quick post to say I’ve been doing some tweaking & with the newsletter mailing list. Today when adding a new subscriber, I discovered I have to do an additional step to assign email addresses to mailings — so some of you whom I thought I had added or updated a few months ago should now actually receive updates in your inbox. (You may or may not have received a default welcome email from Draws the Eventide as a result.) Thanks for your understanding. I’m still learning how this new mail client works.

Also, welcome to the newest subscribers who signed up recently. For anyone who’d like to catch up on the latest posts, you can skim the Captain’s Log page/blog reel. The most recent posts were about using media streaming services for figure drawing practice, a purple painting of my oboe, and some animal artwork.

Where would we be if I didn’t share some art before the post ends? Here are some more “streaming” sketches described in the previous post. This week I’ve tried to do more quick gesture drawing instead of detailed rendering (though that’s there, too) and using pen to force myself to commit to the page, even if the lines end up icky.

For better or worse, there are no bad James Bond jokes in this post. 🙂

“Rock, paper, scissor…” “Shoot, you won again.”

A few notes on the next one: I ran out of blank pages in this sketchbook, so I drew on the inside cover before starting a new book. Shonen Jump is a popular Japanese comics magazine anthology. Eyeshield 21, which he is reading, is a Shonen Jump manga (and I replaced whatever the character was actually reading with that.)

“Perusing my sketchbook without permission? That’s almost as naughty as taking my Shonen Jump.”

That’s all for now. ‘Til next time. Thanks for reading.

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Sketches & Streaming

There’s no question that these days, a large percent of the American population has increased media/video streaming for amusement. But how many folks have started using streaming services for figure drawing practice?

Sounds like a package deal: A bunch of complete strangers striking interesting poses under good lighting in the comfort of my home. And they can stay still as long as I want grâce à pause button.

For fun, I’ve been using old colored pencils (“old” meaning “I’ve had them since I was a kid”). They don’t always provide a good range of values (lights & darks), but using different colors from the usual pencil grays is enjoyable. I did adjust some of the scans so they show up better onscreen. Some oranges and most yellows just can’t go to the Dark Side — maybe that’s why Rey’s lightsaber is yellow at the end of The Last Jedi! Just kidding.

Sometimes, partway through a drawing, my oblique humor will surface, and I add silly comments. (They have nothing to do with the action onscreen. It’s kind of like those “add a caption to this photo” contests in magazines.) Watch out for bad James Bond jokes further down.

“Hey, Mom said I could have the last bottle of YooHoo~”
“I saw on Daniel Craigslist that you’re seeking a new James Bond actor.” (I’m a math major, so I have a perfect skill set for “Casio” Royal & Divide Another Day remakes.)
That’s enough TV for tonight. Thanks for reading.

			


	

	


		
			
		
			

	

				

						
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Once Handmade Hopewell (HH) finished, I could spend more time working on art again instead of working on presenting art. Here are recent animal paintings. 





This sea turtle was “finished” a few weeks ago, after HH. To give a sense of scale, it is leaning against a door. 










At the start, there were some energetic, sketchy elements I quite liked, eg., around the flippers, but most of those areas ended up getting more refined or painted over. Looking at it now, I wish I had preserved more of them. Even so, the painting satisfied my need to do something artistic besides re-painting tulips and working on my video for HH, and I am generally content with it.





The Wednesday after HH, I got a call from neighbors who asked whether I were willing & able to come up with something artistic & humorous that night to mail Thursday morning to a couple getting married that Friday or Saturday. Although these wedding pandas are not punny of themselves, my neighbors were encouraged to send the happy couple a note congratulating them on going forward with their wedding during the panda-demic.










There are also some bird paintings, but I will save them for another time. 





I hope you enjoyed today’s trip to the zoo.