Polar Bear Sketching Fun

Polar bear and cubs pencil drawing

A couple of weeks ago I was in Michaels and couldn’t resist buying some of those cute miniature animals. Telling myself that I would use them as props in paintings and drawings, I happily carried home a wolf, a Percheron draft horse and a giraffe. But what captured my interest and imagination the most were the polar bears: a mother and cub. 

This morning I happened to turn on the TV at the end of a documentary on a female polar bear and her two cubs. Remembering my own sow and cub and my plans for them, I watched and studied the bears as they went about their daily activities. When the show was over, I grabbed a sketchbook and did this drawing from memory of a polar bear and her two cubs on the ice. 

I didn’t bother with using my little models; I just wanted to grab from memory with no reference and no expectations of this little sketch being a preliminary for something more refined. That’s the way I often drew as a kid; from memory with no references. I spent many many happy hours drawing this way just for the pure enjoyment of it. 

If you’ll recall, I took a workshop three years ago in which we drew a stuffed polar bear at the Dennos Museum in Traverse City. I channeled my memories of that experience, too, along with the observations of the bears in the documentary. These are the only two times I have ever drawn bears, and I’m  fairly pleased with the results. I like the gesture of the mother bear’s movement and the babyness of her cubs. That is not to say that any of them are perfect, but that wasn’t the purpose or goal of the sketch. 

When I brought those polar bears home from Michaels, I had a painting in mind to do with them. The scene would be in the winter darkness with the Northern Lights in the sky behind them. Wouldn’t it be cool, I thought, to paint those light colors into the coats of the bears and on the ice? Perhaps this sketch will be the starting point for that painting after all; just an idea of an image to expand upon in a full fledged painting. Perhaps I’ll head to the Dennos and do some more sketches of that stuffed bear in the lobby. 

Yeah, that sounds like a plan. 

Day Two; Ancient Egyptian Chariot Horse Sketch

Just a short post today to give proof that I actually did a little art yesterday.

Having wasted most of the day on Facebook, I didn’t get to any art until evening. I wanted to sketch an Egyptian chariot horse since I’ve long been fascinated by that ancient culture. I spent about half an hour looking through a thick book on ancient Egypt that I picked up from the bargain table at Borders, but only found one picture of chariot horses, and it was too small to see many details. So, I just went with memory of other pictures I’ve seen.

The sketch took another half hour or more with lots of erasing to get proportions right. I didn’t worry about being accurate with tack and just enjoyed the process of sketching like I used to do as a kid. Obviously, I’m a little rusty so a lot more sketching is in order. But, it was fun, and that’s the important thing; learning to just enjoy the process again instead of enduring the drudgery of getting the image “just so”.

For now that’s enough.

Will It Sell, and Should I Care?

Up until now I've been subject to an affliction that plagues many an artist; the notion that each work of art we begin must be marketable in some way. This notion has its down side because it can severely limit what we choose to paint or draw and how we go about the whole creation process. It can also paralyze us with fear that we're going to ruin whatever piece of artwork we're currently working on.

Many of us aspiring artists fall into this trap in the early stages of our careers; at the point when we decide that we've become good enough to actually be able to sell our art. Then the pressure is on to make every piece good enough to sell. That pressure becomes stifling of our spontaneity and creativity. Sometimes we paint what we think will sell and not what we're passionate about or what truly inspires us. Our growth as artists can come to a standstill.

That's the point I've found myself at, and now I'm struggling to free myself of those market-driven decisions. It's hard to eliminate them altogether, so I've come to a compromise of sorts. For instance, I know that Friesians are a very popular breed right now and that I only have one image to offer for sale. With that in mind, I decided to do a Friesian for my next art project. Going through Friesian images in my reference photos, a couple of photos caught my eye, and I chose one to work from and began a sketch. You can see it above.

But, another photo also spoke to me, and I kept coming back to it. It may not be something that will appeal to the average horse lover, but it has lots of Art Appeal for an artist. I took that photo out of the box as well and have even toned a canvas for it. I'm even excited at the prospect of beginning the painting and trying a new technique! Just to be sure that I don't put too much pressure on myself, I chose a cheap canvas board. This one will also be a study, and if it turns out well, I would like to do a larger version.

Do I have you in suspense yet to see what I'm so enthused about? Well, you'll just have to wait.

In the meantime, I'll develop this drawing to the point where it can go onto canvas. Because the head angle is tricky, I decided to do a drawing first rather than draw directly on the canvas as I did for "Winter Scotch". It needs a lot of work yet. The proportions are a little cock eyed, and I'm still debating whether or not to add a foal to the image or leave it as is. I'll decide that once the drawing is refined.

"Untitled" above depicts the Friesian mare, Alpie, that I photographed for a portrait several years ago. That portrait became the print, "Forever Friesian".

Will this image be marketable? I don't know, and I'm working hard not to care. For now, it's about enjoying the process of creation and letting the muse take me where ever it will.

Poseidon's Gift; Spanish Galleons

I admit that, although I love sailing ships, I don't know a lot about them. So, my first step was to do research on the internet for spanish galleons. In fact, I got so caught up in all the information that I spent way more time than I needed to on this step. I learned about their design and uses and found several useful drawings and etchings of them.

Using these materials but being careful not to copy exactly, I drew a side view of a galleon in order to get a feel for its structure. Since no two galleon images I found were exactly the same, I sort of designed my own from the information that I'd gathered. That's what you see above. Since this is a working study only, I didn't bother with all the rigging or fine detail. I also did a stern view that will possibly be used in the painting but wasn't entirely happy with it.

My next step was to shoot the panel with my digital camera and put the image on my computer where I "played" with it in Photoshop, creating waves and clouds to see if the idea I had in my head would work or not. I think it will. I also put in a little version of the galleon for placement. Photoshop is such a useful tool for us artists in composing our artwork and saved me the time it would take to create a color study. Here is my little digital layout.



Next, it's on to creating the horses! The really fun part!

I'm a Little Rusty

Okay, I admit it; I'm not nearly as skilled when I draw freehand as I am when I have a reference to refer to. That was brought home to me last night when I did a little sketching while watching TV. The horse started out as a Friesian head and neck study which grew to the whole body except that - OOPS - I ran out of paper. It definitely didn't match the expressive flowing image I had in my head. Or, maybe the image in my head wasn't formed enough to come out well on paper. You'll notice that it strongly resembles my painting, "Forever Friesian" for which I had good photo reference. I've been thinking of redoing this image with improvements and a landscape background, and this was supposed to be an exploratory sketch for that. Clearly, it needs to go back to the drawing board.

The other sketch is supposed to be a wolf, but it looks more like a wolf dog cross or a longhaired German Shepherd. As a former German Shepherd owner, I can definitely see the Shepherd influence in this animal's "breeding". I have a few wolf books and some wolf calendars and need to spend some time sketching from those images to get a better feel for the wolf form before I try to create a real drawing or painting.

Yes, I realize that there's the whole copyright infringement issue, but if I use these materials to study and learn from ONLY and don't claim the resulting images as my own or try to sell them, it's perfectly permissible. That's how artists have learned for centuries, in fact, by copying the masters who came before them. Any art I do from these materials will remain hidden in my studio for my eyes only.

When I was a kid, I sketched from my mind and rarely directly copied. At least that's the way I remember it. Maybe I did more copying than I remember, but I drew constantly and got pretty good for my age from all the practice and exploration. I have a box full of old art to prove it, too. Clearly, I need to do more of that again; either working from memory and imagination or by working from life. That's why one of my goals for this year is to fill a sketchbook by year's end.

My training in illustration in art school taught me to work from photos, and creating pet portraits certainly demanded that level of accuracy be attained. But in recent years I came to face the fact that I'd become too dependent on photos. It's time to break free and go back to sketching and creating just for the joy that it brings without any thought to "will it sell?" or "is it good?"

So, here for the world to see are my first rusty attempts at freehand sketching in quite some time. I hope you enjoy them for what they are; nothing more than practice sketches.