Chris Harvey has a lot of long straight architectural lines in his painting, and no matter what he tried, every pass with the brush resulted in another wobbly line. The wobbles weren’t interesting or expressive, they were distracting from the painting’s quality and mood, so I built him a bridge. This bridge is very fancy. I stuck 2 pins in a board, and voila! We have ourselves a tool that helps a person paint straight lines. (Chris has honored it with a name: “The Tool.”)
I’ve never understood why people berate their artistic abilities by saying “I can’t even make a straight line.” People, you don’t have to. That’s what tools are for.
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Hopefully Chris can finish the painting in time for the Seattle Artist League show! All students and teachers are encouraged to bring in work. Next month I’ll show you how to make a tool that slows time. You’ll need five rubber bands, a paperclip, and 3 extra long zip ties for that one.
[image_with_animation image_url=”9446″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] For the past couple quarters I’ve been teaching beginning figure drawing shorties. “Shorties” are Seattle Artist League shortened classes – shorter by hours, by weeks, or both. These are run like cardio exercise classes, fast paced and intensive, but short enough to not be too overwhelming. I’ve been adding …
Exquisite Corpse is a collaborative, chance-based drawing game invented by the Surrealists in the mid 1920s. Each participant draws or collages an image on part of a sheet of paper, folds the paper to conceal their work, and passes it on to the next player for their contribution. This is the first week in a …
[image_with_animation image_url=”9654″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] It’s said that Cézanne would plan a general composition, then step around and closer, moving his easel to each object to paint it with his full attention, thus disrupting the illusion of perspective that occurs when looking from a single viewpoint. For today’s creative challenge, find or arrange a …
The Bridge: A Very Fancy Painting Tool
[image_with_animation image_url=”8653″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”]
Image above from Urban Sketchers Chicago
Chris Harvey has a lot of long straight architectural lines in his painting, and no matter what he tried, every pass with the brush resulted in another wobbly line. The wobbles weren’t interesting or expressive, they were distracting from the painting’s quality and mood, so I built him a bridge. This bridge is very fancy. I stuck 2 pins in a board, and voila! We have ourselves a tool that helps a person paint straight lines. (Chris has honored it with a name: “The Tool.”)
I’ve never understood why people berate their artistic abilities by saying “I can’t even make a straight line.” People, you don’t have to. That’s what tools are for.
Hopefully Chris can finish the painting in time for the Seattle Artist League show! All students and teachers are encouraged to bring in work. Next month I’ll show you how to make a tool that slows time. You’ll need five rubber bands, a paperclip, and 3 extra long zip ties for that one.
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