Old Favorites

As a part of the Botanical Illustration certificate program classes I am working through this year, I have been training in some preferred artist tools used more often within Botanical and Scientific Illustration in general.  This means I have been fine tuning a lot of skills in a short amount of time, which has been fun, mostly, and on occasion  exasperating.  This also means that some of the some of my favorite artist tools have been, well, a bit ignored, as I have been learning some new ones.  There is only so much time, after all.

Today was a day where I craved some of my old favorite tools (....even though I need to practice my water color II techniques for class next week...). But it is that kind of day where I wanted the comfort and ease of my old friends...  I would compare it to eating your favorite comfort food on a bad day.  (And, yes, I do that, too.)  So I pulled out my large sketchook, my box of mixed shade sepia sticks, pulled up my digital collection of images for inspiration, and started drawing.

What appeared by the end of sketching was this cephalopoda cuttlefish....

Another peak inside the sketchbook....

"Cuttle Me Fish" by Melissa Moore 3-20-2014

A Peak Inside the Sketchbook.... Take One.

I think a preview into a sketchbook of an artist is always a special treat.  Looking at the art in the sketch book of an artist is often looking at the art of the every day, the stream of conscious art , the every day thought art, and some times, well, just practice art.  I read recently that much of the art a "professional" artist actually does throughout their lifetime is done in the pursuit of actually learning the craft, and is not intended as what the artist would consider finished art for the public.... finished or refined enough to be seen by others in a gallery or taken to completion.  But the work we do, off the cuff, as practice, every day, on the first try.... is often the most full of life, absent of the re-do, the fixes, the re-traces, that often suck the life out of a drawing.  Any practiced artist can tell you that...... So.... here is to the life found in sketch books.... practice, not refined.... mind you.  But a peak inside that world of mine.... take one.

Denver skyline drawing from City Park.

Sushi Bay Restaurant

REcyclery Cafe in Capital Hill neighborhood.  Love this place.... Get your bike fixed while you drink your coffee.  The shops are connected.