Mary Lawler Blog

Napkin pattern. pen and watercolor sketch

Roswell sculpture. Luis Jimenez.

Nutcrackers

I spent another day looking at pictures of nutcrackers and the Nutcracker Suite ballet. I looked at different folk art wood carvings from Germany. There is something compelling and dream-like about the nutcrackers. What I drew here is in the wooden toy form, definitely not in the animated ballet dancer form. What story would these figures tell if they came to life?

Nutcrackers. pen and ink and watercolor on watercolor paper. 12" x 9".

Thanks Krazy Kat.

Looking at The Ralph Steadman Book of Dogs (Version 2)

This time I got more experimental with media. With an old toothbrush, I spattered strong red watercolor first and then with black ink. Then I tried to create blots with the ink, but got a runny mess that threatened to ruin the entire journal, so I wiped it off. Then I used a pen with black ink and white ink.

Looking at The Ralph Steadman Book of Dogs.

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I admire the line quality and spontaneous expression of Ralph Steadman's dog drawings. 

Datura on a grid. Pen drawing.

Borrowing some from Chuck Close, here is a square drawing, broken up into 81 squares, of a datura flower. I learned from doing this that the technique is not as easy as it may look. I ran out of ink in one pen, and used aonther pen with a stronger mark to finish it.