3D, Cardboard, Texture and Buffalo...and paint.

I follow a lot of art teacher blogs. Not that I'm teaching art right now (*sniff*) but I really enjoy looking through some of the great art projects other teachers come up with. And in the case of That Artist Woman's Mixed Media Owl project, I am sometimes inspired in my own work. 

I started off by highjacking a tube of DR's liquid nails out of the garage and smearing half the tube onto two old canvases (I'm still working on the second one). Then I added some texture with some bits of wood and stuff while it was still wet. At this point I had a VERY vague idea of what I was going to create. I decided to just go with the flow and have fun. 

That Artist Woman used wall spackle but I was too impatient to get started to go buy some, so I just searched the garage for something that would work. After the liquid nails dried (geez, hope DR doesn't need it for anything) I painted up the background.....sky, grass....

...and then I cut out a few pieces of cardboard and painted a few of them like some funky clouds and glued them on.....

...and the others I cut out and painted up for the buffalo and the grass in the foreground. 

It isn't a great painting by any means but it was a lot of fun painting on texture and adding a three dimensional element. If I ever get back to teaching this is definitely something I would do with my students. 

The second textured canvas is coming along and it wilder and crazier and has to do with dragons! I'm hoping to get that one done to share with you in a couple weeks. 

Buffalo

If you travel on Highway 83 north from Scott City, KS 

....and if you are very lucky you may just get to see a herd of buffalo

 that roam on their own 200ish acres. 

I love buffalo. 

I carved all kinds of buffalo for my Masters of Fine Art Thesis Project back in 2001. 

The carving was fun...that huge paper I had to write was a bit of a pain. 

 I drove all the way to Wisconsin once just to see one particular buffalo. 

But up til last week I'd never seen so many at one time. 

What a lovely landscape! I could have stayed there all day taking photos. 

Some of the younger buffalo were curious and were coming up to check me out at the fence but one of the older buffalo kept trying to chase them away from me. 

Aren't they fabulous? 

One buffalo in particular caught my attention but never came close enough for a good picture. She (I guess it's a she) had white on the tip of her tail, a white blaze on her forehead and various other white spots on her body. She wasn't a cross with a beef nor an albino. Buffalo can changed colors; shades of brown, red and black mostly but I never thought they'd be spotted like this one. 

And it used to be buffalo roamed these plains by the millions....what a sight that must have been! 

Lousy Pastel that can't be saved

I posted a couple weeks ago this drawing of the buffalo and asking for help. I knew it wasn't done and it needed something but I was stuck. Leigh suggested I was lacking a focal point. Exactly! You nailed it for me Leigh, thanks!

So, here it was before.

And here is after I did a bit of work to it.

I tried to move the viewers eye towards the buffalo and center. I'm still not happy with it though. I think the best I can do is just put it away for now and work on something else.

It's hard to find long interrupted time periods in order to draw since I have kids. Working in short time spurts makes it difficult to really get into a drawing and do quality work. Before kids I could work for hours at a time. Someday I'll get that again.

I've started some small colored pencil drawings on black board lately of yucca plants that I'll try to share with you sometime next week.

Buffalo Grass Pastel

Last night I finally had the chance to get back to doing some drawing. This one has been sitting on my easel since before Thanksgiving. I probably worked for a good hour on it and then felt I had to stop before I messed something up. Usually I can give it a couple hours and have an idea what I need to do next to a drawing but this one has me stumped.

It's an abstract take on some weeds I saw in a ditch a while ago with buffalo beneath them. As though the plants are growing from the bodies of the buffalo; circle of life type of thing.

Buffalo...

...weeds....

What do you think?

I like the bottom (dark buffalo areas) and I like the top (blue sky and weed tops) but I'm not feeling the center (weed stems and horizon line) but I don't know what I need to do.

I thought maybe I need to develop the stems. Or maybe I need to work on the horizon line and background. Now I'm not sure if I want the buffalo to look as though they are below ground or above ground. I do know I like the rough sketchy style going on. I don't want anymore realism here, just abstraction.

Thoughts? Opinions? Any ideas would be most helpful.