B.E.A.R. Episode no. 10

A little watercolor demo and the progress painting of a polar bear postcard :) Trying to establish an “art exchange” with other regional schools where my Drawing & Painting class can hopefully make a few smallish “postcard” paintings of their own, mail them off to some other students in similarly isolated “art class” situations, and hopefully then receive some surprise student artwork of their own. We’ll see if we can make it happen!

Weekend Polar Bear Paintings

This past weekend I painted polar bear. It made me happy. Enough said. Enjoy!

B.E.A.R. Episode no. 9

In this video: A DRAWING CHALLENGE! Watch something. Study it. Spend 10-20 minutes just observing. Afterwards, go back to your paper or sketchbook and draw or paint as much as you can remember. Look for shapes. Look for colors. Look for feelings or personality or character. Spend some time on this end as well - 10-20 minutes or more - and see what you can do :) 

Perfection not expected. Practice seeing. Share your results! 

* HAVE FUN * NO BAD IDEAS * GIVE IT YOUR BEST EFFORT *

Harts Pass no. 481

Lucky for us we have a new puppy and a nearly seventeen year old who have lots of positive "keep busy" energy and occasionally slow down enough for an excellent snuggle. Take care out there!

Harts Pass no. 480

It's totally true, logging is like social distancing :) And in this case for a similar purpose. The distance between tree makes it harder for a catastrophic wildfire to totally destroy the forest. True enough! Now if only we could rake the ground in between people who are properly socially distanced... THEN we would really kick this Covid-19 thing in the pants!

Harts Pass no. 479

Kit Courageous, defender of childhood and bravest wolverine around! Kit last made an appearance in these pages during the Carlton Complex wildfire in 2014. She is back again to help us through. Wash your hands. Stay in your den. Flatten the curve! Take care out there. GRRR!

Harts Pass no. 478

OK, sometimes a hug is all it takes. I mean, a socially distanced hug if necessary at this point -- but a REAL hug if you can get it!

B.E.A.R. Episode no. 8

A quick intro from Mr. Brooks plus two different DAILY DRAWINGS from the ART IS... prompts #10 "terrified" and #11 "united". In these two drawings, markers, colored pencils, pen, and crayon are used to create some layers of detail. This is "live" hand on paper. Nothing digital about it. Enjoy!

B.E.A.R. Episode no. 7

Following up on our value scale with pencil (Episode 6) this video demonstrates creating a range of light-to-dark with a single color. I chose a yellow ocher to start, but you could do similar things with any color you choose. This demo directly references a recent exercise from my high school drawing & painting class. Students used acrylic paint, but you could simulate this with anything from pastel to colored pencil to opaque watercolors depending on what you have available. My digital version was painted on the iPad Pro with the Procreate App. 

The demo is SUPER quick, so feel free to pause or rewind - go back-and-fourth in certain areas to see the values slowly blend together and build up into the final image. Keep making art!

B.E.A.R. Episode no. 6

In this episode I do a quick demo of ART IS... prompt no. 4: VALUE STUDIES. This is some very basic practice for shading light to dark. For my students, think of it as review :) Sometimes its also just nice to watch something like this and then to try it again your self with fresh thoughts in mind. And for a BONUS EXTRA!!! Check out the slo-mo dragon voice at the end. NICE. Take care out there!