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About Us
- Susan and Bill Bonnell
- Seattle
- We live at the north end of Seattle in Shoreline, Washington. Between the two of us, we've been struggling, striving, and sometimes even enjoying our efforts with oils, pastels, or acrylics for 80 years! We'd love to hear from you.
SusanBonnell@olympus.net
Pears In Shadow - Available
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Waiting for Marigolds - NFS
Pears Study - Sold
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Cherries Study - Sold
Rabble Rousers - Sold
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PETUNIAS - Sold
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Hooligans - Sold
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Clementines - Sold
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Sitges, Spain - Sold
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Painted Pitcher - Available
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French Watering Can - Available
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1 comment:
I've been neglecting all my blogs for a few weeks - anyway, your progress is great!
A couple suggestions - don't want to throw you off track but just to consider:
1. It's a lot to do contour (line) drawing and full value in just one session/day. Even a simple single object.. that's a lot of work! I think attempting too much in one sitting is overwhelming you on the non-thumbnail studies. Try the contour one day and the values the next. Thumbnails are a great way to do composition and contour and value all in one sitting - but break a larger study down into steps.
2. Looks like you have been fighting the graininess of the paper especially in the earlier sketches... the most recent cherries look to be on more appropriate paper. Materials make a huge difference.
3. You are a true artist because you are so hard on yourself! A huge part of progressing is learning how to manage the panic/despair, which is always with all of us. I can see you are learning to control that and not let it control you. You'll continue to learn that as you go. Take breaks, be kind to yourself, this is difficult! As soon as negative thoughts start to drift in, I take it as a sign I am looking at my drawing more than my subject. Put down the pencil, breathe, and just look! I also put NPR on to drown out the discouraging thoughts :)
4 Be motivated by curiosity, not by putting pressure on yourself - use the carrot not the stick! Don't think about "being a better artist". Think only "How does this look? Why does this look the way it does?"
You've done so much work and your progress is really showing. I know it feels like floundering but the thing about drawing and painting... the more you do it, the more you find yourself "practicing" in your mind every waking minute... you notice something and look look look and ask yourself why it looks the way it does, even if you don't have pencil at the moment (or you are driving in the car!).
Congrats, this is a huge effort and it's paying off and will continue to pay off in ways you can't imagine now.
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