Sometimes it’s seems everyone has a tragic pet story they want to tell you. This is especially true if you have chickens. I promise this isn’t that sort of story. This one has a happy ending, and a point. But if you really hate hearing people’s stories about their pets, then I’ll see you back in the next post. Because what follows is the story of my Himalayan cat, Luna. How she got lost in the woods, and how she was found. Also, how the experience taught me to never lose hope. Miracles can happen, but they are more likely to occur if we can stay open to them.
Many times, this occurs after we have completely let go of wanting the hoped for outcome.
If you’re familiar with the Sedona Method, or one of the other methods inspired by Lester Levinson, you will understand what I mean by letting go. For me, it’s imagining I’m a super hero standing on top of a tall building. And then I just allow myself to fall, with no fear. And knowing everything is going to be okay. When I release into this visualization, I realize that I’m not actually falling that fast. I can control the speed, or even stop or reverse it if I want to.
Two Cats in Need of a Good Home
Back in the early 00’s, my now husband and I were living in a small one bedroom condo in Seattle. Just before Thanksgiving, I was browsing a website called PetFinder. Many of my pets have been found here, and I think it’s a site my husband wishes he could block sometimes when it seems like our clan has grown too large, and I want to rescue just one more homeless cat.
On this occasion, I typed in the search term, Himalayan, because that’s what our male cat was. Usually when I search for Himalayan’s they are senior cats. But this search brought of a photo of two sisters. And they were only 2 years old. They lived at a shelter on the same island our friends lived on.
When my husband got home, I showed him the picture. “I guess we could get two more cats,” he said, hesitantly. “But next weekend is Thanksgiving. So we’ll have to wait.”
I’m guessing he was partially so agreeable because there wasn’t much chance two young, beautiful, purebred cats would still be at the shelter in another week.
He was Wrong, and We Found Out Why
Morgaine and Luna, that’s what we named them, belonged to someone who was a Navy pilot. Whenever they went on missions, they boarded the two cats. Eventually, we were told, the owner of the kennel told them they should find them a better home. And that’s how they ended up at the shelter.
One of the shelter workers brought out Morgaine, the smaller of the two, and let me hold her. I could tell she was really scared, and wanted to get away. They were both really frightened, shy cats, but we decided to adopt them anyway. I still remember standing there, watching the worker trying to catch Luna to put her in the carrier, and wondering what we had gotten ourselves into. She was a wild cat!
Fast Forward 10 Years
Oddly enough, we eventually moved to the island our cats came from. It took us a long time to settle the two cats who had been left in a kennel so often in their youth. Even ten years later, they still didn’t like to be picked up. But they regularly came to us for pets, cuddle time, and playing with their feather.
Our house is in the middle of a forest. We regularly see owls and bald eagles. And occasionally raccoons and coyotes. Outdoors is no place for house cats. Generally, our cats never showed an interest in going outside. They were happy watching the birds at the feeder, and napping in sunspots.
Which is why I was surprised, when my husband woke me one July morning just before he left for work. “I found Morgaine sitting on the front porch,” he said. “But I can’t find Luna. The back door was left ajar. I think she might have followed Morgaine out.”
If you have ever lost a pet, you know the frantic searching we go through, and the imagining of all sorts of unpleasant outcomes our mind creates for us as we are calling for our pet, and there is no response. It is hard in those times to never lose hope.
Here is Luna’s story:
I think I searched for hours. First in the house, because Luna was the scarier one. She generally spent most of her days under my bed. “She would never go outside”, I thought. I called my husband. “Never lose hope,” he reminded me. “I’m sure you’ll find her.”
After I searched the house from top to bottom, I started looking out side. I called the vet. “She would most likely stay near the house,” they assured me.
“That’s good”, I thought. Our forest is thick with salal and huckleberry for her to hide under. And who has a cat that will come when you call them?
By 11:00, my “never lose hope” attitude was fading. I’d been in the forest for several hours calling her name. And crying. In the opening below our house, two great horned owls sat side by side in one of the cedars. I stopped and asked them, “Have you seen my cat?” I hoped they hadn’t.
I Called a Psychic for Help
At the time, my mom and I had recently read a book by Amelia Kinkade, Straight from the Horses Mouth. She’s animal intuitive, who helps find missing pets. In the forward of her book, she tells the story of how she helped Dr. Bernie Siegel never lose hope, and find his lost cat. So I started looking on the internet for a psychic who could help me.
The woman I found was local to the Seattle area, but when she called me back she told me, “I’ve never found a cat alive on your island. There are too many wild animals. But I’ll try. Never lose hope.”
Imagine hearing that! My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach. But it got worse.
A Few Hours Later, She Called Me Back
“I’ve talked to your cat,” she said. “And she told me what happened.” The psychic proceeded to tell me how Luna told her that she did indeed followed Morgaine out the back door. She was still close to the house, and just wanted to get back inside. And she was scared.
The psychic also told me she was standing between a light colored car and something with a big wheel. She thought it was a wheelbarrow. I stopped her there. “We don’t have a white car,” I told her. “And our wheelbarrow is under the porch stairs.”
“I didn’t say white,” she replied. “I said light. And there is something with a big wheel.” She then continued her story, but never stopped insisting that Luna was between a light colored car and a wheelbarrow. I continued to interrupt her saying there wasn’t a wheelbarrow behind the car. She was growing exasperated with me. “Luna said something grabbed her from behind. It was a coyote.” she finished.
I listened in shock as she went on to tell me that it was better to be snatched by a coyote, because they snap the necks of their prey right away. Owls play with their food.
My brain wasn’t registering all this. “Is she still alive?” I asked.
“No, she’s not. I’m sorry.” And then she hung up. So much for trying so hard to never lose hope. My cat was dead. Having a psychic tell me it was instant didn’t help one bit.
What I Saw Out the Window Shocked Me
I stood up and looked out the bedroom window to the driveway below. Parked at an angle was my mother’s silver Saturn. And upside down in the ditch behind was a wheelbarrow. The late afternoon sun that filtered through the trees reflected on the metal of it’s big wheel.
I stopped looking for Luna.
That Friday night was warm, and all the stars were out. I stood on the porch thinking about the song, “Somewhere out there,” and wondering where Luna was, or what was left of her. At the end of the driveway, those owls, maybe the same ones I’d talked to earlier in the day, were circling the forest, and making a lot of noise. “Luna would be so scared,” I remember thinking. “I’m glad she’s on the other side now where nothing can hurt her.”
The weekend came. I spent most of it in my room, reading, and crying over Luna. Morgaine, her sister slept snuggled next to me for two nights. Something she never did. She was grieving too.
My Son Never Lost Hope that We Would Find Luna Alive
On Sunday morning, my son, Sebastian, came running into my bedroom. “We found Luna!” he shouted. “Daddy needs you to come and get her.” My husband was standing out near the end of our driveway about 300 feet from out house. He pointed back into the woods, “We were moving the trash cans and Sebastian said to me, ‘What’s that white thing?’”
I looked where he was pointing. Next to a fallen log was something white and furry. Only Luna is a brown cat. I didn’t hesitate, but I moved cautiously so as not to startle whatever it was. When I got closer, I saw it was indeed Luna, however the hair on her back was much, much lighter.
There would only be one chance to get her. I inched closer, and then I lunged, grabbing her by the scruff of the neck. After carrying her all the way up to the bedroom, I set her down, and watched as she scurried under the bed. She came out briefly for food and water, but she spent 3 days under there, and wouldn’t let any of us get close. She only wanted affection from her sister. But Morgaine, who had be so distraught that she had slept cuddled at my side for two nights, hissed as this strange pale cat under the bed.
It Took a While for Luna to Return to Normal
Luna’s fur eventually returned to brown. My vet told me he had never heard of fur changing color before, although we know people’s hair sometimes turns white or grey from shock, such as a death of a close family member. Of course, their office also told me Luna wouldn’t stray far from the house.
We never did figure out what happened to her out there. Did something actually try to grab her? Maybe. That would explain why a cat who had never been out of the house would be found so deep in the forest. And why the fur on her back changed to white.
I’m happy to say, that was her last adventure. Luna lived 7 more years before she eventually died from old age at 12. She lost her sight, but she navigated herself around the house with such grace, you would never know she was blind unless you watched her carefully. And Morgaine eventually forgave her.
Some Things in Life Just Can’t be Explained
I told you, my tragic pet story had a happy ending, if not a logical one.
Thankfully the psychic was wrong, but she was also right. There was a wheelbarrow behind a light colored car. But my cat was alive.
I have since heard that many psychic won’t look for lost pets. Firstly, because more often than not, the pet is dead. But in addition, it’s difficult for them to determine whether or not the pet is dead or alive, since they believe they can talk to them either way. And sometimes when a pet is killed instantly, they don’t know at first they are dead. Therefore, after my experience, I believe some psychics can communicate with pets, and probably people too. Because I insisted to her there was no wheelbarrow, but she held to her story. And she was right.
Letting Go of Attachments is What We are Here to Do
This is what I believe anyway. So do the Buddhists. Some attachments are more difficult to let go of. For example, after I wrote my first post, Why Did I Wait so Long to Start a Blog?, we had to move my mother to a nursing home. In March of 2020 we were told my mother contracted Covid-19. Three times I received phone calls saying she wasn’t going to make it. I felt like I didn’t want to hold her here if she was ready to go. After recovering, she was locked in what seemed a never ending quarantine. But I still gave up hope what one day I would be able to hug her, and she would be able to hold her dog again.
Another example, I’m starting a new blog. Some people say, “It’s too late. No one is reading blogs anymore.” I’m letting go of the fear that I will never be successful. I will write it anyway.
So go ahead. Make your plans. Set your goals. Then release caring about the outcome. Do it the best you can. Never lose hope.
When we are facing new struggles in life, it’s helpful to look back at times in our lives when we had lost all hope, and then a miracle happened. I know, these times are rare. But what I have found is the more we believe they can occur, the more miracles happen. The thing that we thought was completely hopeless, or lost, appears in our life again. Just like my cat Luna who never had another adventure like that one and lived to the age of 14.
For a long time, there has been a lack of understanding about why some people can figure out the secret rules of realistic drawing, but many of us can’t. We are left longing for this magical skill that the few just seem to pick up so naturally as early as grade school. But here’s the real secret:
According to Betty Edwards, author of the bestselling book, Drawing of the Right Side of the Brain,
“Realistic Drawing is a learnable, teachable skill!“
This is fantastic news for the rest of us who wish to learn realistic drawing, and make beautiful characters!
Even though we didn’t gain the skills we desired in high school or university art classes, which left us more convinced than ever that drawing realistically is a magical skill only a few can master, we now know a contributing factor was the lack of proper instruction and learning how to see as an artist sees.
Can you imagine not taking a cooking class because you don’t know how to cook? But that’s the exact excuse people give for not taking a drawing class! And my college drawing class experience told me they were right. My drawing didn’t get one bit better.
Until I learned how to see.
If you have always wanted to learn to draw, but thought you couldn’t, download my free Drawing Warm-Up Exercise Worksheets to quiet your drawing critic, and allow the creative side of your brain to talk over.They are a great way to make drawing a daily practice!
Learning How to Draw is Learning How to See
What does that mean exactly? Well, think about it. When you are drawing something from life, you are putting a 3-dimensional image onto a flat piece of paper. You must create the illusion of depth, because there is no depth on paper.
For example, if you are drawing a figure, and the arm is bent, you need to use foreshortening to create the illusion. Otherwise, it just looks like a short arm.
Or when a road recedes into the distance, everything not only gets smaller, the lines of the road narrow. Objects close up appear larger, and they are also more in focus.
But don’t worry. If you really want to learn to draw realistically, you can train your brain and your eyes to shift into an artists focus. With regular practice, the shift happens easily.
Skill in drawing comes from the eyes + the brain. I remember my grandmother collected greeting cards done by a very talented artist who didn’t have use of her hands. She drew with her feet! It’s the brain that learns to draw, not the hands.
You are Never too Old and It is Never too Late
I put off learning to draw until after my son was born, because I thought it was too late to learn realistic drawing. Even though I started off majoring in art in college, I couldn’t draw as well as I wanted to. And I didn’t think I could improve my drawing either. After all, I’d already taken Drawing 101.
More and more universities and art schools have filled up with professors who do not know how to teach realistic art to students who do not already know how to draw, and unfortunately, I thought, my professor was among them.
Why does realistic drawing create so much fear and anxiety among many of us. After all, we can draw in the privacy of our own homes. We don’t have to show anyone our work if we don’t want to.
It’s our inner critique. We take it with us where ever go. And sometimes it seems like it never shuts up. It compares us to other more experienced artists, it tells us we’ll never be any good, and it’s too late to start anyway.
5 Ways to Quiet the Critique
The reason practicing realistic drawing for me is so enjoyable, is at some point my mind becomes really quiet, and I’m unaware of time passing. There are many ways to enter this no-brain state where we are no longer criticizing ourselves or comparing our artwork to others. My personal favorite from this list is number 5.
1. Meditate
2. Watch your thoughts and let them go
3. Yoga and Chi Gong
4. Working in your garden
5. Learning to draw, and shifting into the quiet creative brain mode
So put on your favorite indie/pop/smooth jazz playlist, and join me for some Drawing Warm-Up Exercises to quiet your drawing critic.
Your Right Brain already Knows How to Draw
But shhhh, don’t tell.
See, the left brain wants to stay in control. It wants to load our mind with lots of thoughts and criticism, so that we’ll give up. If there is one book I wish I could have read as a teenager, it’s Betty Edwards classic, “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain”. That’s the book I used to learn realistic drawing while my son was napping, after thinking for nearly 30 years that I could never learn.
These are the important things I learned about the brain from this book:
Drawing is comprised of a set of skills, such as different line types, shading, etc.
Verbal thinking is located in the left brain, visual thinking is in the right
These are the components of drawing: edges, spaces, relationships, lights and shadows, and gestalt (the whole)
How to access the right brain, the R-mode and quiet the mind
Shift Your Brain into the R-Mode (right brain thinking)
One amazing thing for me that I love about drawing is that after a while, my mind becomes really quiet. I lose all sense of time, and I’m in the moment.
But to get to this phase, I have to go through what some call the bored brain gate. The left brain has to get bored, and fall asleep before we can have that quiet.
When we engage in exercises that the verbal half of the brain finds boring, first it gets really nosy, telling us this is boring, or even criticizing our work, however, if we keep going, after a while, it settles down and seems to go to sleep.
Then we’re in the drawing zone.
During these states, drawing becomes almost meditative, with a feel good sense of oneness, and freedom from worry.
If there is no other reason to learn to draw, then let this be it: because often the universe provides us with the answer we were seeking in other areas of our lives. Why? We stop trying to figure it out.
Four Ways to Shift into the Creative Brain Mode
1. The Face Vase Exercise
This is one of the most popular exercises in “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain”. First you draw the portrait of a face from the side. However, when you draw the opposite side of the face/vase, you are not allowed to name the parts of the face as you draw. Instead, you look at each angle, and try to copy it in reverse. The idea is that your left brain can’t do this, but your right brain can.
2. Realistic Drawing Upside-Down
When we turn an image over, and copy it, and in addition, try not to name the objects we are drawing verbally, it confuses the left brain. Instead of saying to ourselves, this an a nose, this is the upper lip, we notice the angle of the line, the amount of space between the lines. This is a longer exercise, as the book recommends allowing 40 minutes to complete, so it’s a great exercise in shifting into the quiet right brain mode.
3. Drawing With Your Opposite Hand
This is a technique I learned from a portrait drawing class I took. When you try to draw with your non-dominant hand, your attention becomes more focused on the movements of your hand. My teacher claimed that her students who tried this progressed in their drawing stills much faster.
Also, since most people are right handed, when you draw with your left hand, it’s directly connected to the right brain!
When my son was in elementary school, he took art lessons at a school based on Drawing with Children by Mona Brookes. This book teaches that there are 5 types of lines, which they practiced at the beginning of each class. I also begin practicing these line types as warmups, along with some other drawing warmup exercises that I rotate, so that I only do warmup practice 5 to 10 minutes before each drawing session.
Practice Realistic Drawing Warmups
Most of us wouldn’t run around the track, or start a tennis match before warming up our muscles. These drawing warmups stretches our creativity. They also put us in a more creative positive mind set. To learn more, check out my other post, Why Practice Simple Drawing Warmup Exercises.
Spending just 5 minutes each day practicing warm-ups can dramatically improve your drawings. And the best thing about these quick warm-up exercises is they are so simple to do, and they put your mind in a calm and creative state. You will be ready to tackle any drawing challenge.
Try out these free drawing exercises. You will receive 3 sets of worksheets. They include practicing the 5 lines types common in all drawings, reverse image exercises that are so important in drawing realistic faces, and more! Come join me for an artistic journey. It’s never too late to learn to draw!
In my earlier post, 5 Valuable Things Sculpting a BJD Taught Me, I mentioned how I sculpt my dolls in both polymer and paper clay. Polymer clay is also great for making accessories for your dolls and dioramas. I will be creating some tutorials in the near future. But first, let’s talk about how to condition polymer clay.
I love encouraging other artists to work with polymer clay. But because of reformulation to make the clay less toxic, the plasticizers were removed several years ago. This makes proper conditioning of clay even more important.
Moonies are a curse of working with polymer clay. I mostly use Fimo Professional clay now for my dolls, and so moonies are less of a problem than in the past. But even with Fimo Clay, they sometimes happen if the clay is not conditioned or baked properly. And sometimes even when you condition polymer clay perfectly, they happen anyway. When making accessories, I generally use Sculpy Premo.
What are moonies, you ask? No, they’re not handing out pamphlets at the airport. Tiny bubbles that form as air pockets are called moonies in the polymer clay world. They magically appear when you bake. When you take your piece out of the oven, you might notice a lighter colored patch.
This is a moonie!
In a prominent spot, like the cheek of a doll, it ruins a beautiful sculpt. Sometimes sanding it away works. But if the bubble is large, sanding often opens up the air space and creates an ugly pockmark.
Finding the Perfect Clay
Some clays are more prone to moonies. if you ask a dozen artists what their favorite clay is, you will hear many different responses. Test several different brands yourself. That’s the best way to figure out what works for you and your oven.
I tested a lot of brands of polymer clay, but chose to work primarily with Fimo clay for dolls and Scuply Premo for accessories. Everyone’s experience differs because other factors contribute to flaws in your finished pieces. Examples are: how you condition polymer clay, oven temperature, cooling, and age of the clay can also cause moonies to appear. Even humidity increases risk of moonies. The types of clay I that caused the most trouble for me were Super Sculpey (the worst) , Sculpey III and Prosculpt. There are other artists who use these clays without any difficulty and recommend them.
Also, many of the manufacturers reformulated their polymer clay multiple times since 2008 to comply with new EU directives. This is good news and bad news. Polymer is now even less toxic, but because the plastisizers were in there for a reason, many artists are now finding that the clay is stiffer and harder to work with. If you have never worked with polymer clay before, my best advice to you is to try a few different brands and see what works best for you.
3 Ways to Condition Polymer Clay
When you open a new pack of it will often be really stiff. Even if it said soft on the package you will still need to condition polymer clay. Here are three ways that I have used to condition my clay:
1. Food Processor and pasta machine
You need a food processor for this method that you only use for polymer clay. Check your local thrift stores. You can usually find a fairly inexpensive one. Either crumble or cut the clay into small pieces. Then pulse the food processor until the clay is softened into tiny pellets. Depending on your brand of clay, it’s age, and the method it has been stored, you might need to add a few drops of Sculpey Clay Softener.
For the second part to this method, you need a pasta machine dedicated to clay only. Use an acrylic roller to roll out the clay like you would a pie crust. Start on the thickest setting. Fold the clay in half and run through again. This is where bubbles can get trapped between the layers of clay so press out from the center before you put the clay through the roller. Change to thinner settings as you proceed. My experience with the pasta machine hasn’t been good. I usually end up with a lot of small bubbles. I only roll clay if I need a very thin sheet, or if I am making a Skinner blend. And you can’t make Skinner blends without one!
2. Hand twisting
First, break off a piece of clay from the block. If you are using one of the small squares, just split off a section. Roll the clay into a long sausage shape on a clean surface. I use a special glass mat. It’s easy to clean, and has helpful measurements on it. Then bend your clay in half and begin twisting. If I’m going to add a few drops of clay softener, I do it here. Twist until there is no air space between the coils. Then roll back out into a long sausage. Repeat this over and over until the clay is workable.
I remember sitting at the kitchen table with my mom when I first started to learn to sculpt. We spent a whole morning together conditioning clay.
3. Use a press
After the manufacturer of Fimo clay changed their formula, I almost gave up sculpting. The new clay is so hard that it sometimes took me hours to soften a small batch. My son even said to me, “You spend over 50% of your time kneading the clay.” When I first heard about Never Knead press, I instantly wanted it. It really does speed up clay softening because you can put a whole block of clay under the press at once. I don’t think it is as fast as the seller of these machines advertises, but it is faster than conditioning by had.
The problems I have had with this press is that oil leaks from somewhere in the machine. It’s a tiny amount. It’s hard to even see where it is coming from. I wipe the tray and the press each time, otherwise, by the time my clay is softened, there is a dark marbled pattern in it. I have found the best way to prevent this is to wrap my clay in either a baggy or plastic wrap. This keeps the clay clean, but it slows things down a lot because I have to keep pulling the plastic off and re-wrapping it each time I press it. Hopefully they have fixed this problem. I purchases one of the first ones.
Those are 3 methods I tried to condition polymer clay. They all have their pluses and minuses. I think my favorite right now is the press, because I have shoulder and neck problems.
Otherwise I would just use the twist method and make sure my hands and surface area are really clean.
How To Keep Your Clay Clean
A really important thing when you soften your polymer clay is to keep it clean. Make sure you clean your surface first. You can use organic glass cleaner on your glass mat. My room is always well dusted and I run an air filter. Also, I usually wear a white shirt and light colored pants when I sculpt. Some people wear hospital gloves, but I think it interferes with my work.
In addition, I keep my hands really clean, especially under my nails. Even then, mysterious little fibers that must be floating through the air still get into my clay. It probably doesn’t help that I have cats!
Use a magnifying glass to look for fibers, and an x-acto blade to scrape them off your unbaked clay. Once you condition polymer clay, wrap it in Glad plastic wrap until you are ready to use it.
Do’s and Don’t for Baking Polymer Clay
Not only can baking your clay properly prevent Moonies, it can keep your piece from cracking. When I was just starting, some of the advice I received from other clay artists about baking was bad advice. These are my own personal do’s and don’ts.
Don’t:
Don’t mix brands of clay, especially if they have different baking temperatures.
Don’t start your clay in a cold oven and then let it heat up. It is meant to be baked at a set temperature for a set amount of time. You don’t know how long the heating up phase will take.
Don’t bake at a lower temperature for longer, or a higher temperature, thinking these methods will make your piece stronger. Baking above the recommended range can release toxic fumes, or burn your work. The clay manufacturers have tested the clay over and over. Follow the directions they give.
Don’t harden part of the piece, like the hands or feet, before baking with a heat gun. You have no idea how hot the clay is getting. Small bits, like doll fingers, burn easily.
Do:
If you are using your home oven, either bake inside a large dutch oven with the lid on, or wipe out the oven with vinegar before using again for food.
Do bake the recommended time in a pre-heated oven. And check your ovens temperature with a thermometor. For example, mine is 25 degrees hot. When the timer rings, turn the oven off and open the door a tiny crack to let heat out for 5 minutes. Close door again and leave until completely cool.
Do be very careful using a heat gun to set heat-set oil paints. You can still have moonies show up.
Do look at your work under a magnifier before baking. It’s easier to fix something before it has baked.
It’s okay to bake something in stages, but follow the recommended time even if you plan to bake again.
Don’t forget to remove your work from the oven after it has cooled. Otherwise, someone might come in, put on the temperature and never think to look inside. This was a lesson learned the hard way!
Tips for removing moonies:
If it is not too deep, sand it out.
Try a heat gun to heat the area, and then press on the warmed clay with one of your wooden sculpting tools, squeezing the bubble out. This has never worked completely for me, but if the moonie was on an area like a cheek, I have been able to minimized the moonie until it wasn’t as noticeable anymore, and then apply blush.
One more thing I want to mention before the end is adding small bits of clay to your piece increases the risk of moonies. Try avoiding that by adding larger pieces of clay, and then shaping with your tools.
Now Get Ready to Sculpt Something!
I hope this information will help you to get your polymer clay ready to use! Stuff still happens, and moonies are a fact of polymer clay life. We aren’t firing our work to perfection in commercial ovens, so it may not turn out perfectly every time. But by following some of these suggestions you can better condition polymer clay in less time.
Comment and let me know what type of polymer clay accessories would you like see tutorials for!
Last month I was busy working on a couple of watercolors for the #mermay2021 event on Instagram. But I’m a slow painter. Even my sketches sometimes take me a few days to complete. And so, I never finished my second painting until now, near the end of June.
What is MerMay, you ask? It’s described as “a month long celebration of creativity”, on the official Mermay site, and was started by Disney animator, Tom Bancroft. He is best known for his creation of the dragon, Mushu, in Mulan.
The site had 30 prompts for daily drawing ideas, and a contest in partnership with Wacom drawing tablets. If you saw a lot of artists posting mermaids on Instagram, and didn’t know what’s going on, don’t feel bad. I didn’t either.
I’m rather sorry I didn’t know about the contest. Maybe next year I’ll think about finding the proper hashtag and entering.
I just knew that I love mermaids, and it was an excuse for painting some. However, as I was getting ready to post photos of my 2nd mermaid painting on Instagram, I discovered that June has been designated Orca Action Month for more than 10 years now. That’s a good thing, because Mermay was over. It went by fast!
Do you Remember What You Cared about When you Were Younger?
It seems as we get older, we get caught up in our own lives, our families, or our careers. We stop paying attention to causes we cared about when we were younger, or in college.
Last week was my son’s final week of online classes. I decided to listen in on his English class, and overheard his teacher asking the teenagers what they planned to do over the summer. Someone was interested in volunteering at the local animal shelter, so the discussion turned to what volunteering the students might be able to do while our state not fully opened.
We are most likely planning to home school again next year, so as I was listening, I was thinking about what kind of volunteer work my son and I could do together as things open up again. For example, there’s a local cat shelter, a food bank that maintains a large garden, and the local library, who are always looking for volunteers.
But there are also many things we can do from our homes, whether it is writing letters about a cause we care about, or changing some aspect of our lives to be more inline with our beliefs.
One thing I really cared about in college was dolphins. So it was by chance my mermaid painting was as much about orca whales as about mermaids. This is what inspired my watercolor. And the thing I dream of doing is sharing my love of nature and the environment through my paintings.
A Rare White Orca Visits Puget Sound
When I was looking for an idea for my second whale painting, I learned about a white orca whale that has been spotted this spring swimming with one of the pods.
This killer whale isn’t an albino, nor is it truly white. His name is Tl’uk, which means roughly, “pale moon”, in Salish. He is actually a palish grey. I haven’t seen an explanation for his coloring.
But he’s unique, and beautiful. In April, he was first seen swimming with his transcient pod in Puget Sound by a local resident who sent up a drone to get a better look at the group swimming by. It caused a lot of excitement around here.
This same pod also had an up close encounter with a group of people standing on a dock just a bit north of where I live. The sighting of this rare white orca brought a bright spot in the dark days of isolation to my island.
Here is an interesting thing I learned about the transient pod, so named because doesn’t have a designated territory like the other groups which are called the Southern and Northern Resident Killer Whales. The transient pod feeds on marine mammals such as seals and sea lions, not salmon. This pod spends a lot of time in Alaska, and off the coast of Canada. This is Tl’uk’s first appearance farther south in Puget Sound. He was born in 2018.
Are Dolphins as Intelligent as We Are?
Killer Whales and Orcas are just two names for the same species. And they are actually the largest species of the dolphin family, of which there are 42 separate members.
Scientists are still looking for the best way to measure intelligence. One way scientists measured a species intelligence in the past was by the size of their brain in comparison to the average size of their body.
Now days, some scientists are beginning to question this method due to high bird intelligence. Another way intelligence is measured is studying how much folding the brain does.
Neuroscientist John Lilly believed dolphins had a high level of intelligence, and did a lot of experiments trying to teach them language back in the 1960’s. Some of the experiments he conducted look quite unethical, and some of the orcas didn’t survive his study of them.
For a time, park of his work was funded by NASA. Their scientiests were interested in the idea of communication with possible extraterrestrial life we might one day encounter in the universe.
I was really fascinated by John Lilly in college, but didn’t really understand what he was up to, or about his experiments with LSD and dolphins. He discovered dolphins are not affected by LSD in any way he could determine, just as we humans don’t roll around on the floor when we smell catnip.
If this is true, that drugs affect different species differently, I can’t understand why pharmaceutical companies continue to test new drugs meant for humans on animals. If dolphins and whales are as intelligent as we are, or even if they’re not, some humans certainly have a lot to answer for in the way they have treated them, and how modern society continues to pollute their home with garbage islands of plastic floating off the coasts of China and India, large oil spills, and nuclear radiation spilling into the ocean.
Here in Puget Sound, the orcas are having a difficult time. Contributors to this are chemicals, fertilizers, and even prescription medications found in the sea water; over fishing of salmon, and dams blocking salmon returning to their spawning grounds; and also the shipping lanes.
Positive Changes in How We Relate to the Planet
However, other humans are making important changes in the way fish are caught to ensure dolphins, and other sea life, aren’t caught in their nets. The dolphin safe logo is common now on most major brands of tuna. Also, tuna more commonly are line-caught on a large scale commercially.
If you are a vegetarian, you might not think this is good enough. But only in the 1950’s, dolphins were considered vermin and competitors to many fisherman. They were killed indiscriminately.
Whaling has greatly decreased with only a handful of countries still participating. And many people are working to improve the whales habitat. In Washington State, two old dams on the Elway river in the Olympic Mountains were removed in the 1990’s to allow salmon to return to their spawning grounds. Habitat restoration has been ongoing.
5 Things You Can Do to Help the Orcas and the Oceans
Drive less. Take public transportation if it is available. The runoff from our cars often finds it’s way into larger bodies of water through both underground and above ground streams. Also, these streams are the drinking source for many animals.
Get involved in habitat restoration or beach cleanups. A lot of these are shut down right not, but you can always carry a bag and pick up trash when you are walking along the beach.
Don’t dump medicines into the sink, toilet, or garbage. Like the oil from our cars, these medicines find their way into larger bodies of water. In 2018, they found traces of the opioid, oxicodone in bay mussels in Puget Sound.
Support salmon-safe businesses. These include farms, vineyards, and also businesses active in restoring the urban watershed.
Plant a rain garden. They reduce water pollution, prevent flooding, will increase your home value, and make beautiful, low-maintenance areas of your garden.
Someone Should Do Something, Maybe that Someone is You
I used to donate to big environmental organizations. It made me feel good, and I got free calendars for life.
But then I looked closer into where all that money they collected was going. I also looked into who ran them. And I decided to donate to smaller charities, closer to home.
We can all make small changes in our choices, and together those small changes add up to a lot. One of the biggest choices we can make is where we spend our money.
For example, my favorite salad dressing stopped using glass bottles, and switched to plastic. I switched to their competitor, but also wrote them telling them why.
Not everyone can, or wants to be an activist. And a lot of the activists out there don’t speak for me. On many issues I’ve been part of the silent majority, but it’s time for the rest of us to speak up, and not let the few speak for us all.
We might have differing opinions on different issues, but we all deserve to be heard. I’m an introvert who likes a quiet life, so sometimes I like to let my paintings speak for me.
When I started college, I wasn’t sure what to major in. My mom suggested I try art because she knew I loved crafts and making things. And she knew I loved drawing the human figure. So, with her encouragement, I started as an art major. There wasn’t a face and figure drawing class at the beginner level. Most of us who study art in college begin with Drawing 101. And that’s where I started. But my first drawing class convinced me I’d never learn to draw well enough to be an artist. It was a disheartening experience, and I eventually switched my major to botany.
It wasn’t until many years later I found a small window of free time during my son’s afternoon naps that I tried my hand at drawing again. I pulled a book off my shelves that had been sitting there a very long time. That book was Betty Edward’s “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.” Working through the exercises in that book, I realized realistic drawing is a skill we all can acquire.
Drawing realistically takes practice and patience. I practiced drawing portraits of people and animals, gradually improving my skills. I also learned various techniques from “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain,” such as negative space drawing, upside-down drawing, and contour drawing. If you decide to practice drawing, keep your old sketchbooks! They are an inspiration and a visual diary showing what you were interested in at the time. They are also a record of your improvement. Below are some sketches from a notebook I worked on over 10 years ago. Keeping a record of your journey allows you to track your improvement much better than comparing yourself to artists with more experience.
This article is written for those who wish to learn to draw with some practical tips to get started drawing figures, which is one of my favorite subjects. If that’s you, read on, it’s never too late to learn to improve your drawing.
Figure Drawing: The Magic of Capturing the Essence of a Person
The best part about drawing is anyone can learn. Even if you think you can’t draw a stick figure to save your life. It might sound like a tall order, but it’s entirely possible. I promise.
In this post, we’ll take a quick journey through all the basics. I’ll then delve deeper into each aspect in future blog posts.
So, grab your pencils and sketchbook, and let’s discover how to draw faces and figures together. You might surprise yourself with what you’re capable of!
Note: Although this blog post focuses on pencil drawing, the same techniques are used in drawing digitally. Grab your tablet or iPad and follow along if you prefer to draw digitally. Look for the beginner tutorials to on my blog or the web for using Procreate and Clip Studio Paint if you are new to digital drawing.
The Essential Art Supplies for Your Face and Figure Drawing Adventure
Before delving into the techniques of drawing figures, it is crucial to gather suitable materials. Don’t worry. You don’t need an extravagant supply of art studio-grade materials. In my early stages of learning to draw, I used a number 2 graphite pencil and ordinary typing paper. It is important to note that consistent practice outweighs the tool’s quality. Here are a few suggestions:
Paper and sketchbooks: Opt for a sketchbook or a pad of drawing paper with a medium weight and texture. Steer clear of ultra-smooth or overly rough papers, as they can make it challenging to achieve the desired effects in your drawings.
I have sketchbooks scattered all over my house. Some are still in progress, while others are full. I enjoy keeping the old ones to see how much progress I’ve made. One of my favorite drawing pads is the Strathmore Sketch Paper 300 series.
Graphite pencils: Look for a range of pencil grades (e.g., HB, 2B, 4B, 6B) to try out. Generally, I draw with an HB pencil. However, I like to have a heavier pencil to darken some of the lines in my finished drawing.
You can also use a mechanical pencil. I know many artists love their mechanical pencils, but I’m constantly breaking leads when I use one. My favorite pencil sharpener is the T’GAAL pink plastic sharpener from Japan, which sharpens my pencils to a fine point.
A Study of Anatomy Enhances the Believability of a Figure Drawing
Skeleton: Acquaint yourself with the skeletal structure. It establishes the framework for the human body.
Muscles: Learn about the primary muscle groups and their influence on the body’s appearance and movement. Knowing the names of the muscles is not necessary for accurate drawing. However, it’s helpful for understanding which body part the teacher is referring to if you attend a figure drawing class.
Skin and fat: Learn how drawing skin and fat layers affect the body’s contours and how they add depth and dimension to your drawings.
Understanding Perspective
Perspective and foreshortening are essential for producing believable three-dimensional drawings. Noticing, for example, how objects appear to shrink as they recede into the distance or look larger than their actual size when in the foreground. Manga artists often exaggerate this illusion even more by enlarging a hand or foot that is coming toward the viewer.
There are some excellent anatomy books designed for artists. The essential muscles to memorize are the ones directly beneath the skin. It’s also helpful to know the names of the major bones and how the different types of joints function. My favorite anatomy book is old but still easy to find in used bookshops or online: “Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist” by Stephen Rogers Peck.
Gesture and Poses Drawing:
Quick drawing techniques that concentrate on capturing the action and energy of a subject, gesture, and pose drawing often range from 1 to 5 minutes. Practice this method to enhance your ability to create dynamic and fluid drawings. I like to visit a park or cafe with a small sketch pad and practice drawing the people around me. Since I live on an island, ferry rides are also a great place to observe and sketch people.
Another way to practice quick gesture and pose drawing is to search YouTube timed drawing videos you can practice along with. In addition, there are many books with photos for pose reference drawing.
Drawing poses — Standing, sitting, and lying down:
Practice sketching various poses, including standing, sitting, and lying down positions, to gain a better understanding of how the human body moves and interacts with its environment. I enjoy posing my ball-jointed dolls for model drawing practice when live models are unavailable. They are great pose reference drawing models!
Dynamic and action pose reference drawing:
Try challenging yourself by drawing dynamic and action poses. These help you develop your skills in capturing movement and energy in your drawings. You can also find YouTube videos of dynamic poses. With these essential aspects of human figure drawing techniques under your belt, you’ll be well on your way to creating stunning, lifelike figures.
Breathing Life into Faces: Capturing Expressions and Features
As you progress in your artistic journey, drawing faces is the logical next step after mastering the human figure. However, like many of you, I began with drawing faces. A well-drawn face can convey a wealth of emotions and stories, making your artwork even more compelling. In this next section, we’ll explore the essential aspects of drawing faces, from understanding facial anatomy to capturing various expressions. Let’s dive in:
The Fundamental Structure of the Human Face
Skull: Acquaint yourself with the human skull’s structure, as it underlies the face’s framework. Take note of the eye sockets, cheekbones, and jawline shapes, as these features significantly impact the face’s appearance. Facial muscles: Investigate the facial muscles and their collaborative efforts to create expressions. This understanding will enable you to depict many emotions in your drawings. Use basic shapes to sketch the head. I usually begin with a circle, add a V-shape for the jaw, and connect the two forms with sloping lines.
Placement of Facial Features:
Practice drawing features from three head views: front, ¾, and side view.
Eyes: Improve your skills in drawing eyes of various shapes and sizes. Observe the curvature of the eyelids and the iris shape. When the head turns, the eyes’ size will differ.
Noses: Excel in drawing noses by concentrating on the bridge, nostrils, and tip. Bear in mind that noses are often sketched simply, with details added later through shading.
Mouths: Master drawing mouths by examining the lips’ shape, the mouth’s curves, and subtle variations in expressions. Mouths look better when the lines are simple.
Ears: Practice sketching ears from different angles, taking note of the intricate folds and contours that make up their inner structure, but again, it’s best to keep the lines simple.
Capturing various emotions: Enhance your ability to bring characters to life by practicing drawing a broad range of emotions, from joy and sadness to anger and surprise. By mastering these vital aspects of drawing faces, you’ll be well-prepared to create captivating and expressive portraits that narrate a story. This is a excellent beginning to character drawing.
The Art of Perseverance: Why Practice Makes Perfect in Drawing
Consistent practice and dedication are crucial to mastering face and figure drawing techniques, just as with any skill. Seeking shortcuts or quick fixes may be tempting, but there’s no substitute for investing time and effort.
Regular practice is of utmost importance for developing and refining your drawing abilities. Allocate time each day to draw, allowing you to track your progress, identify areas for improvement, and build on your existing knowledge.
Set achievable goals for your drawing practice to maintain motivation and focus. Break down your long-term goals into smaller, manageable objectives to work towards.
Face and Figure Drawing: Experimentation and Creativity
Don’t hesitate to venture outside your comfort zone and explore new techniques, styles, or subjects. Experimentation is essential for artistic growth, helping you uncover your unique voice and style. Embrace the creative process and remember that not every drawing must be a masterpiece. Mistakes are an inevitable part of the learning journey. In addition, don’t worry too much about finding your style. Relax, draw what interest you and your style will find you.
In conclusion, if you want to learn to draw figures, practice, patience, and perseverance form the foundation of success. By committing to regular practice, setting achievable goals, and embracing the learning process, you’ll be well on your way to becoming a better artist.
Sometimes, I used to wish I could press a button, and my artwork would instantly appear on my blank canvas. However, the emergence of AI-generated art has made me realize that the satisfaction gained from completing a piece of art through my own efforts far surpasses any quick fix that AI-generated art can offer. In addition, the benefits of creating traditional art, such as reducing stress and feeling a sense of accomplishment, outweigh the speed of creating. In truth, the struggle, the process of figuring things out, and the ultimate feeling of calm and peace that comes with creating something myself is a truly meditative experience. AI art vs. traditional art has been a hot topic in the art world for the past year, with people arguing both sides. My personal belief is that creating AI-generated art does not make someone an artist. Someone may be a great prompt writer. However, the sense of satisfaction that comes with creating something by hand cannot be replicated. Additionally, AI art doesn’t truly add anything new to the creative world. It simply recombines existing work. As humans, we have the potential to connect with something greater than ourselves. We can also create something entirely new. At first, I felt a huge disappointment that two of my favorite styles of drawing, Manga and Anime, were used to train some of the first AI. As a result, generating these types of images is very easy, no matter your skill level. It feels that something that took me years and years of practice is now accessible to anyone. All one must do is log onto a program and add some text prompts.
AI Art vs Traditional Art
Last year, I decided to experiment with AI art generators to form a fair opinion. I quickly discovered that they could produce a wide variety of styles. Moreover, generating an image is especially easy when working with a single character.
However, creating scenes with multiple figures was often unpredictable and chaotic. Here are some common mistakes AI art generators often make: extra limbs, empty eye sockets, extra fingers, multiple heads, and heads on top of heads (what I call hat heads). Also, for some reason, AI has difficulty generating realistic hands.
Surprisingly, mastering the art of crafting prompts for AI generators was a relatively simple process. I followed these steps:
I read some tutorials
Looked at other people’s prompts (which you can see in many of the generators)
Made a list of both the positive and negative attributes I wanted the program to use in its generation.
Soon enough, I created visually appealing works that could serve as references in the future. But, while the experience was fun, it didn’t replace the sense of accomplishment that comes with traditional art creation.
I saw a video on YouTube where an artist completed a drawing. At the same time, his brother generated images from the same prompt. In the time it took the artist to complete his sketch, his brother generated over 15 well-drawn pictures of a similar likeness.
The Art of Prompt Writing vs. Traditional Artistry
While prompt writing can be considered a skill, creating AI-generated art does not equate to being an artist. Both AI art and traditional art require discernment. But the similarities end there. If anything, prompt creation falls into the writing skill area. Thus, when there are art shows or competitions, it’s only fair that traditional art, digital art, and AI-generated art should have their own categories. In addition, AI-generated art should also be labeled as such. All this is not to say writing prompts that get high-quality results is simple. For example, look at the face of the dog in the image below. And also the right eye of the girl walking the dog. While most anyone can quickly generate attractive faces, a talented prompt writer can rerun and fix these mistakes when working with more complex images. As a traditional artist, though, if I were to draw or paint the image below, I would be fine fixing the errors myself as I drew. I’d consider the generated image as a reference the same way I do with photos.
AI-Generated Art: Recombination, Not Innovation
Contrary to popular belief, AI-generated art does not introduce groundbreaking concepts. Instead, these programs analyze existing creative works and recombine them. They are learning and starting from scratch in a cyclical manner. This process results in countless unique combinations but does not generate anything new or innovative. But it is also not stealing directly from artists, as many in the art community believe, because of the large number of images in the data set. On the other hand, humans can tap into a deeper creative well and originate new ideas. Our potential to connect with something greater and take the next leap is what distinguishes human-created from AI-generated art.
The Quest for Instant Gratification in Art Creation
However, when it comes to commercial art and graphic design, few people care who created the logo on their jar of peanut butter. I explained this to my teenage son recently. He is interested in an art career. We talked about the idea that companies and studios may look for artists who can both draw and create art themselves, but in addition, be familiar with prompting and how to generate images using AI-art technology because they will be able to produce faster results and save the studios money. When comparing AI art vs. traditional art, AI art wins in a fast-paced world where time is of the essence. The allure of instant gratification has found its way into the realm of art. AI-generated art promises an immediate result that is hard for hiring managers to resist.
The Role of AI-Generated Art in the Future
It’s up to us, the artists and collectors, to determine the role of AI art in the future. AI art-generating tools such as Midjourney and Playground.ai can be useful tools for making art references or photo-realistic blog images without copyright concerns. However, it is important to be aware of a recent decision by the U.S. copyright office. This decision announced that AI-generated works cannot be copyrighted. This could lead to the unauthorized use of your creations.
The fusion of AI-generated art with traditional human creativity may provide an exciting avenue for exploration. However, as humans, our ability to connect with a deeper source of inspiration and develop truly unique ideas sets us apart. Furthermore, no matter how fast AI’s learning ability or how elevated its intelligence becomes in the future, I don’t believe it has a spiritual connection to the divine that so many great artists through the centuries talk about, regardless of their spiritual tradition or culture.
In conclusion, the journey of learning to draw and create art may be time-consuming, but it offers invaluable rewards that AI-generated art cannot provide, such as stress reduction and a deep sense of accomplishment.
Please note, the artworks in this post were made using a combination of AI art generation and Photoshop. I will always try to label images on this website when they are made with AI.
