Art Critic--Another Death Image

http://www.tomsarmo.com

Art Critic (detail crop). Mixed media (Colored pencil, India ink, white gouache) on toned paper.

http://www.tomsarmo.com

Art Critic

What can I say--I like drawing skeletons  :D

Thanks for the visit!

Another Goblin and a Creature-in-Progress

http://www.tomsarmo.com

Working on lots of new characters--and many of them turning into wood cut-outs--for a new, long-term project. Here's one!

http://www.tomsarmo.com

And here's another--a work-in-progress.

I'll keep you posted, as more are on the way :)

Thanks for the visit!

Goofy Goblins in Pen and Ink

https://helikongallery.com/product-category/studio-artists/tom-sarmo/

I'm working with pen and ink lately, and pretty much exclusively. Always have loved it, and am enjoying every minute of my studio time.

https://helikongallery.com/product-category/studio-artists/tom-sarmo/

Much of the works are goofy goblins, but I've done a few creepier pieces recently too, which I'll post next time.

https://helikongallery.com/product-category/studio-artists/tom-sarmo/

Many of these are pieces for larger, more complicated works-in-progress, and I'm excited each time a new one flows out onto the paper.

https://helikongallery.com/product-category/studio-artists/tom-sarmo/

They are all done on the same brown paper with the same colored pencil, brushpen, and pen and ink. They just look different depending on the light under which they're photographed.

Thanks for reading--hope you'll check back as the works progress!

St. Francis and the Wolf of Gubbio

St. Francis and the Wolf. Mixed media wood cut-out.

It will be varnished, then framed in a shadow box.

Lately I've been working again on spiritual pieces for a local gallery. When asked to provide a St. Francis with wolf, I jumped at that. St. Francis was the name I chose at confirmation, because at the age of 12 becoming a veterinarian was at the top of my occupations list. 

Also, St. Francis has been a favorite subject of mine. His mission was always peace, and his life and teachings celebrated the natural world. He saw even poverty and death as friends rather than enemies to be feared. Best of all, St. Francis was a free-spirit--an eccentric--who rejected the greed and short-sightedness he observed in mankind, and he generously embraced those whom society rejected.

The image was first drawn in red pencil on toned paper, then inked. After highlights, I sprayed the drawing with archival acrylic spray. Mounted on wood, the piece was cut out using a scroll saw. The color--translucent acrylic inks thinned a bit with water.

The legend of St. Francis relates that he tamed a savage wolf that was eating up the folks at Gubbio. You can check out a fascinating and thorough examination of the story here:

Francis of Assisi and the Wolf of Gubbio

Thanks for checking out my blog, and supporting the works I do.

Angry Goblin Process

A bit of a sequence to this artwork with some less-than-steller iPhone photos.

The drawing began with red colored pencil--Verithin Poppy in this case. White highlights added with a Signo white gel pen. Crosshatching was next.

The finished ink drawing is lightly sprayed with acrylic gloss coating, then color added with transparent acrylic inks.

I like the way the red pencil shows in the final work, and also how the acrylic washes 

soften the india ink lines.

(A follow-up to last week's post: Still experimenting with zero Facebook (outside of keeping up with local events). Continue to feel much lighter and have slept incredibly well this past week. That may be a coincidence, but nonetheless I have no desire to go back to Fb. Not posting on Instagram, but am keeping up with those I follow. IG doesn't seem to bug me as much as other social media, maybe because it's mostly photos of art.)

Thanks for the visit!

Death gets a lot of Idea-Help

http://www.tomsarmo.com

Death might run out of ideas from time to time, but people always manage to assist him with new and effective ways of killing their brothers and sisters. Poison gas? Sure! Automatic weapons aimed at concert-goers? Why not?

http://www.tomsarmo.com

Couldn't keep reading the repetitious news full of lame politician's "thoughts and prayers", so I drew instead.

This one, like most of my sketches, began with a red Verithin pencil on toned paper. (I like Kona Classic best because I can use wet media on it if I choose.) Beginning a drawing with red pencil rather than graphite seems to keep my initial gestures looser, and I like the original red lines still visible in the finished art.

http://www.tomsarmo.com

The red gestural sketch is then tightened up with either a Pentel brushpen or a brush and India ink. Then, most often, I add the white highlights, before the shading begins--in this case, a fine-point white Signo pen was used for the white. The cross-hatching follows; I like Maica brand Hi-Tek-C pens if a crow quill and ink bottle isn't handy.

http://www.tomsarmo.com

This drawing is small--4" x 6". It's the third work of October--or "Inktober". The previous two were sort of humorous. Who knows what the news will bring in the coming days.

Thanks for the visit--I wish you peace.

Thoughts from 2015

http://tomsarmo.blogspot.com/

Had an interview a couple years back with Annie Aqua at Helikon Gallery. 

I recently read it over and still agree with my thoughts on question 3 :) 

What do you think?

Here's the link:

 Helikon Interview

Anyway, thanks for checking it out!

Landscape and Urban Sketching

http://www.tomsarmo.com/

Last Sunday's Plein Air group decided on an urban site. Instead of my paint set-up, 

I'd brought a sketchbook and drawing materials, planning on doing 

some research for a new project.

http://www.tomsarmo.com/

When doing on-location sketching of this type, I usually go for 

simplicity and quick studies, but...

http://www.tomsarmo.com/

...this intricate scene caught my eye. The planned research sketching went right out the window.

http://www.tomsarmo.com/

The complexity was a bit daunting, but decided to interpret the scene while 

capturing much of the detail.

 

Materials: Kona Classic toned paper sketchbook, Verithin Colored Pencil (Scarlet), 

Pentel Brushpen, Pilot Hi-Tech-C Pen (03), Uniball Signo (for white).

 

Thanks for reading!

 

 

Leaning Forward

Winterbreeze. Mixed media, private collection.

 

When a cold blast hits, leaning forward feels better than running away. Maybe because the forward bend means resistance rather than compliance; conjures courage rather than cowardice; maintains hope rather than fostering despair.

Here's Winterbreeze in progress...

 

 ...and another sketch along the same theme. He's gotten a blast of bad news, but he's not gonna run.

I wish peaceful Holidays to all.

Thanks for reading.

 

 

Borrowed Thoughts on Drawing from Lizzie Stewart

Drawing of a tree (University of Denver campus)

Drawing is one of my great loves. And I like reading about it too. Lizzy Stewart, whose work I admire immensely, posted awhile back about why she draws. What she wrote resonated strongly with me, so I'm re-posting excerpts, illustrated with some artist's drawings I particularly like. (The words are by Lizzie Stewart, the artists are credited in bold.) Hope you enjoy.

Lizzie Stewart

"On a few occasions I have been asked why

it is that I draw, as though the career I am in 

the process of crafting for myself has been

rationally reasoned and considered. 

It is a question that, for a long time, I have

not taken seriously. I glossed over it with a 

flippant remark- ‘its the only skill I’ve got’ 

or something about really wanting to cultivate 

my terrible posture and poor eyesight. 

Recently however this question has begun 

to demand a more considered response. 

Larger musings, admittedly self-indulgent 

ones, on who I am at this quarter-century 

stage of my life have brought me round to 

thinking through what I do, this thing that 

has, and will continue, to define much of 

my life.

Alessandro Toccacelli

"I will often say that I draw because I am not 

musical; that my inability to write a great 

break-up album forces me to draw it instead. 

Similarly I might say that it is because I am 

a poor writer, childish with poetry or 

dangerously uncoordinated as a dancer. I 

claim that drawing is my mode of expression 

by default, that creative failings have led me

 to plump for this as my outlet. This is all 

true, in a sense, but it gives short shrift to 

drawing for, in truth, it is one of the most 

natural an instinctive forms of expression 

I can think of. Not for a second do I 

genuinely feel I have settled for a lesser 

medium.

Cuvier Day

"Firstly I should establish that whilst I am 

‘an illustrator’ I am not talking about 

illustration here. Drawing is not illustration 

and illustration is not drawing. Whilst 

differentiating between the two might 

verge on the pedantic and is certainly, 

in many ways, reductive it is also 

necessary in this context. 
  When draughtsmen recorded nebulous

 masses of stars through eighteenth 

century telescopes or the sinewy capillaries

 of a lung dissected in a Victorian 

operating theatre they were not drawing. 

The choices they made in the information 

they recorded determined contemporary 

unders. standing. Their medium was 

explanatory rather than expressive. 
  Where, in drawing, the artist allows 

for minimal interference between the hand, 

eye and mind, moving between the three 

with deft swiftness and an almost 

unconscious intent, the illustrator must, 

through their own hand, factor in the eye 

and mind of the viewer. 

It is the viewer's understanding that must 

be met before any of the authors creative goal.

JMW Turner

"Whilst expression and creative flair play 

an integral role in the desirability of an 

image the onus falls on clarity of message to 

determine its overall success. The fine 

artist's goal is often an emotional one and 

thus they are afforded a freedom of 

expression that is not always afforded to the 

illustrator. We are, perhaps, more 

generous with our reading of fine art image-

making because we understand that the 

artist's message might not be a tangible or 

concrete one because drawing is so instinctive.
   As a caveat this is not to say that illustrators

are not artists, nor that a fine artist lacks the 

capacity to clearly deliver a message. The 

most successful illustrators marry the two 

and can create beauty and clarity.

Beatrix Potter

  "Sketching, which I confess I do rarely at 

present, is fast and unthinking and and yet 

you are decision-making the whole time. 

With every swift stroke across the page 

you are deciding which parts of your 

subjects are most important to you. In essence 

you are re-sculpting one thing into another

 unconsciously. In filtering visual

information from eye to hand you tell a 

specific story, one that is unique to your 

way of seeing. Furthermore drawing is 

hampered by very few obstacles; information

travels from eye to brain to hand without 

having to be compressed into language, 

rife with barriers and limitations. Feelings 

that cannot be summarised in words can 

often be succinctly expressed with the broad 

stroke of an inky paintbrush or a sweep 

of pitch-black charcoal.   Often drawing 

feels like taking notes; quickly getting down 

as much information as possible, keeping a 

record. My sketchbooks are a mix of images 

and words but the text rarely feels like 

‘writing’ but drawing. There is the feeling 

of ‘pulling’ something out of the page, 

shaping it and giving it weight. Whether 

this occurs with words or pictures is, 

during the process, almost irrelevant. 

Instead there is just the feeling of pressing 

an idea to the page, in whatever form it fits.

 Harry Rountree

"For me drawing is a form of thinking. 

A drawing need never be finished, much as 

an internal thought need never be formalised 

into a precise statement. It also benefits 

from, I believe, an inability to lie. The hand 

will only do what it can do naturally, there 

are no dictionaries, no filtered lenses or 

editing tools to reshape it into a more-perfect 

thing. If a mistake is made you erase it or 

paint over it but the ghost of that mistake 

remains- denting the paper or traceable 

through the slight relief of paint. In this 

respect it seems honest. Even those who, 

perhaps unwisely, attempt to ape the 

draughtsmanship of another will be 

betrayed by the habits and limitations of 

their own hand.

 

 FD Steele

"To return to exactly ‘why i draw’- I suppose 

of a need to expel gathered 

information, which seems a somewhat clinical way to boil things down. As a person 

to wanting to store as much as possible as 

memory I find that drawing acts as a way 

of purging certain ideas before the clamor 

for attention in my head becomes too 

cacophonous. I like that it is, in effect, 

a quietening which is mirrored by my 

physical state when working. The process 

encourages me to to slip into a mode of 

being that is automatic and relatively unthinking.

 

Rima Staines

 "Finally then, I draw because I want, in some way, 

to be known. Not in any genuinely intimate way, 

I’m not angling for romance or hoping to draw 

myself a soulmate. Rather I draw for the same 

reasons that, I believe, anyone makes anythings. 

It feels like people are huge, enormous in fact 

and so many are frustrated by the limits of their 

physical selves that they feel fit to burst; filled 

with vast swathes of thought and feeling, joys 

and sadnesses. Every single person is so much 

bigger and I suppose we fear that the rest of us, 

the parts not represented by body or speech, will 

be lost. I draw, then, for this part of me, the 

majority of me I suppose; because that way it 

might outlive ‘me’. If drawing is the best way 

of establishing what is important to us visually 

then it must go some way towards recording 

what it important to us internally."

 Lizzie Stewart

Lizzie Stewart's blog is always full of insight. Hope you will check it out!

Lizzie Stewart's Blog

Thanks for reading!