Category: Sketching

April in the garden and the sketchbook, plus other news

Jen


Spring is in full bloom, and filling my head with ideas. Behold!

Out and about

The garden is up and running – largely without me, I admit. The daffodils are especially robust this year. (I wish I could say the same for the studio lighting or my poor old camera.)

jfries-daffodils-4.8.24-72dpi
JFries hyacinths 4.8.24 72dpi
JFries daffodils still life 4.2024 72dpi
JFries worktable 4.2024 72dpi

A little sketchbook tour

Inspired by the energy of the season, I’ve been letting all my ideas make their pitches. Those glorious daffodils again, this time in two vases. This year’s solar eclipse – from photos. We didn’t get totality over Massachusetts, so while I took a moment to observe the partial over my studio (safely!), I also watched the totality over and over, live on NASA tv. The little Medusa concept doodles happened because I am convinced Medusa and the Gorgons were solar mythic beings. Next, ephemeral springtime forest plants – North American bloodroot flower and fern fiddleheads. (Did you know, that part of the violin is both named and designed after the plant?) All of these sketches are plans for future artworks.

The color sketch was just testing out some watercolor pencils. I’m not particularly in love with this set, but the SATOR design is an idea in development for some typographic abstracts. The SATOR square is one of the oldest good-luck charms in western culture, found decorating doorways of ancient Roman buildings.

And finally, testing out different pens – a dip pen, a bamboo reed pen, and a fountain pen – the one in black. I sketched with a glass pen, too, but forgot to photograph it. I like them all, but I think the reed pen gives that Real Artist vibe, at least in these little drawings.

JFries sketchbook 4.2024 1st daffodils 72dpi
JFries sketchbook 4.2024 eclipse 72dpi
JFries sketchbook 4.2024 bloodroot 72dpi
JFries sketchbook 4.2024 ferns 72dpi
JFries sketchbook 4.2024 rabbits 72dpi
JFries sketchbook 4.2024 sator 72dpi
JFries pen tests 4.2024 72dpi

In Other News

New small paintings are ready. I’m just editing the photos. I’ll post them separately, and they’ll be added to the shop soon.

An Alchemy of Dragons is on a brief hiatus. As I prepare to introduce the second protagonist, Iarius, and expand my characters’ world, I found I need to corral an explosion of plot bunnies. I also realized I made some mistakes in the earlier chapters. So I decided to pause, rework some details, and get more of the story written in advance of posting. Maps are being drawn. Character portraits are being designed. A world-building wiki is coming together as I go along. I’m pretty excited about the upcoming improvements. Watch this space.

An Alchemy teaser.

-Jen

New Art – Illustrations, a small painting, teasers in October

Jen


A round-up of what I’ve been drawing and painting lately.

New illustrations for An Alchemy of Dragons.

I decided to take pity on you all for once and split my longer chapters into two parts for easier reading on teensy-beensy little phone screens. Of course, each chapter still needs at least two illustrations, so that means more art!

Chapter 4 has been split into Chapters 4 and 5, with two new images. You can see these in the novel text, here, and get a close-up look in the Artworks Gallery, under Illustration, here.

jfries-alchemy-ch-4b-initial-10.15.23-72dpi-1

jfries-alchemy-ch-4a-dragon-10.18.23-72dpi-2


Chapter 3 is also going to get split. I need to do one new image for that. I’ll probably default to Ch. 3, Pts 1 and 2, rather than edit all the other page titles after it.

A Small Botanical Painting


Dog roses from my garden, pastel on paper.

I actually don’t work well with pastels in the traditional way, as a dry medium. I apply them wet, like watercolor paints. It gives me an interesting matte finish, like a more ethereal gouache. I intend to write about my process in the near future.

Teasers

Coming Next: The first illustration for Chapter 6 of Alchemy. Here’s a sneak peak of the sketch.



Still Inside My Head: October is the month for lunar art, don’t you think?


I’m thinking collage for this one.

Why, yes, I do take photos of the moon with a rubbish old point-and-click camera with no filters or proper settings, from my studio window in the middle of the night. Doesn’t everyone?

Happy Thanksgiving: Autumn Book and Pumpkin Pie

Jen

Well, the holiday season is officially upon us, and in the midst of life’s battles, I have to admit I have a lot to be thankful for. We have our health at my house (knock wood). I enjoy my work, my town, my friends. There are birds outside my window and cats sleeping on my bed. What more can anyone want?

Later, I’ll rant about all the things that are off the rails, going wrong, just plain nuts, and utterly intolerable, but that’s not what this weekend is for. Today, it’s about feasting and merriment, football, parades, and King Kong. You know, the traditions.

I finished rebuilding my blue sketchbook into an autumn book for sketching, journaling, and collecting field specimens, all the leaves, twigs, feathers, etc., I tend to pick up. I was inspired by the “junk journal” phenomenon, which is a great way to find beauty and function out of detritus. Even these gussied-up pocket inserts are part of my sketchbook practice, as I used them to work out experiments in paper building and collaging with natural botanicals. The binding is my favorite tetsuyoso style. Superficially, it resembles Coptic stitch, but this is in fact a very old binding from Japan. It lacks the external knots of Coptic, maintains neater tension with less fuss, and is flexible and resilient. Traditionally, the covers would be pasted on, but I adapted the Coptic method of sewing the covers on for a totally adhesive-free binding.

It might seem a little odd to make such a fancy thing just to sketch and brainstorm in, but kind of the point of being an artist is to get our thoughts outside of our heads, to make everything be an expression of how we see the world, to unify the inside and outside realities. So I think the book where I work out the kinks in my creativity should be a product of my creativity. This is what I came up with.

  • JFriesbluesketchbook
  • JFriesautumn19.3
  • JFriesautumn19.4
  • JFries white pine
  • JFriesautumn19.1
  • JFriesautumn19.5
  • JFriesautumn19.6
  • JFriesautumn19.7
  • JFries sunflower & marigolds
  • JFriesautumn19.8
  • JFriesautumn19.10
  • JFriesautumn19.2


And I made the pie this year. It came out fancy, too. 😉

JFries pumpkin pie 2019


Happy holiday, all. Enjoy. Relax.
Express yourself.

Current Projects on My Desk; Autumn Beauty in My Garden

Jen2 Comments

Work continues on selected projects, including some treats for Halloween, as well as coordinating the illustrated essay on magic, using a writing tool I’ll talk about more in a future post.

But the grand theme of the start of autumn has been the garden. Ten-foot sunflowers (brown Autumn Beauty and light yellow-dark brown Lemon Queen), pink cosmos, and 60’s-mod zinnias are off the hook, and the bees and butterflies are feasting to their hearts’ content. I’ve been basking in the glory of these final days of growing and getting ready to dive into the darkness of winter.

current projects 9.30.19
sunflowers sept. 19
monarch on zinnia sept. 19
bee on cosmos sept. 19

Sketchbook Visit: They Say Practice Makes Perfect

Jen

Working on the words aspects of a couple of projects, which is not very visual as processes go, so I thought this week I’d share a glimpse into my sketchbook.

I’m training myself to do more drawing. My poor book – I made it at New Year’s, for encouragement, using a variation on the Japanese tetsuyoso binding – and now it’s being filled with mad randomness. I think I have too much on my mind.

  • Book Nerdery: This binding was a bit of an experiment, combining coptic and tetsuyoso techniques. With the tetsuyoso binding, covers are usually glued on, but to make the book with no adhesives at all, I adapted the Coptic binding method of attaching covers. I like the way it worked.
  • The tetsuyoso binding lies flat effortlessly.
  • Tulips in a vase. My first attempt in years to render flowers realistically. Pencil.
  • It is Balloon! I have no idea why I decided to draw a hot-air balloon from imagination, but I do rather like the effect of the trees in the background. As you can see, I write in my sketchbook as much as draw. Pencil sketch with watercolor and ink.
  • Initial design sketches and notes for the first three Estuary Birds, Mystic River project.
  • Sunflower and brown marigolds in a blue jug on my desk. The more I look at it, the more I like the marigolds. Watercolor and ink.
  • A white pine bough. My first attempt with a bamboo pen, just trying to get the feel of the tool. It might be my favorite sketch of the year. I should do more like this. India ink with bamboo pen.

Journal sketch, Daedalus, and last season’s mums

Jen

I found these little chrysanthemum flowers floating loose in my journal from last October. They looked like suns to me, so I made this collage sketch, with another of my collection of fortune cookie messages, musing on the dangers of ideas, as in the Greek myth.

Daedalus's Promising Idea
Daedalus’s Promising Idea, collage with pressed mums

First art of 2018, journal and mushrooms

Jen

I heard somewhere once, many years ago, that at a certain latitude, if the sky is clear and you look due north at an unobstructed horizon, at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s night, you will see Sirius, Orion’s dog, at its apogee, with winter’s Orion setting to the west of it, and his mortal enemy, spring’s Scorpio rising to the east of it, and the two constellations will be equidistant above the Earth. So the story of Orion the Hunter, lover of Artemis, killed by the poisoned sting of Hera’s scorpion, marks the passage of winter and the new year.

I don’t know if this is true, but I think it should be, and already, the sun is setting a little later, haven’t you noticed?

This little journal collage is my first artwork of 2018. I’m calling it The Future of Orion, inspired by this video from the European Space Agency: Youtube Link.

The little snippet of text is my New Year’s dinner fortune cookie message. “Your fate is in no one else but you, in no hands but yours.”

Plus, I made some little crumpled-paper mushrooms – my first attempts – out of napkins. Super ephemeral, but I rather like them. I’ll play with these a bit more.

Happy New Year!

  • The Future of Orion
  • New Year's Day work table
  • Paper napkin mushrooms
  • Journal and mushrooms