Dippity-Doodles

Posted on June 17, 2021 by Dana Burrell

Earlier this year I swore I wouldn’t sign up for any classes this year. Instead, I said to myself, I’ll work through some previous classes that I haven’t finished and also revisit some classes that I found particularly useful.

That lasted two whole months when I caved and signed up for Sktchy’s 30 Gouache Portraits in 30 Days. Confession time… I completed exactly ZERO portraits. That just means I can add that course to my burgeoning list of uncompleted art classes.

I continued to work on my other art projects including my tenth Fake Journal for International Fake Journal Month in April, re-scanning most of my fake journal pages, and creating slideshows for each one. (By the way, if you haven’t had a chance to see my fake journals please visit my dedicated Fake Journal blog, Skylark Karma, skylarkkarma.wordpress.com. All the videos will be posted by Wednesday, June 23rd and the final wrap-up of my entire Fake Journal experience is scheduled to post on Friday, June 25th).

Anyway… did I learn my lesson about signing up for classes? No, not really.

I tried to ignore the emails from Sketchbook Skool but the lure of a half-day workshop on creating art and calligraphic text with a dip pen was just too good to pass up. Danny Gregory, one of the founders of Sketchbook Skool, was sharing his tips and tricks.

I already had the dip pens, assorted nibs and a few bottles of India ink… how could I pass it up!

We first practiced our strokes and drew a couple of drawings while Danny filled us in on the pros and cons of working with dip pens and showing how he creates his freeform calligraphy alphabet. I took notes and worked along with the webinar.

I inked this quote of Paul Klee’s along with Danny, copying his alphabet stroke for stroke and line for line. When I opened my book the next day, the large open space to the left just begged for an illustration. Out came the dip pen, G nib, and India ink but this time I was much more confident of my line.

Thanks Danny Gregory and Sketchbook Skool!

EDM 103 – 106

Posted on June 21, 2015 by Dana Burrell

Since I finished my latest sketchbook this morning I wanted to upload my EDM – Every Day Matters pages when I noticed I hadn’t uploaded my work from my way back in February! So… first things first…

I’m working my way up to number 328… good thing there’s not a deadline! See the entire list here at Danny Gregory’s site.

Recess at Sketchbook Skool

Posted on December 30, 2014 by Dana Burrell

I had great plans for the winter holiday hiatus from Sketchbook Skool. I thought I’d take the opportunity to sketch a portrait of every teacher. There were only 14 instructors… 3 terms, 6 teachers each… and each term 2 of them were returning teachers, the founders, Danny Gregory and Koosje Koene. No sweat… plenty of time.

HA! …. it’s amazing how time just evaporates.

I did manage to sketch all 6 instructors in the SBS – Beginnings class: Danny Gregory, Koosje Koene, Prashant Miranda, Jane LaFazio, Roz Stendahl and Tommy Kane.

Have you been wondering what Sketchbook Skool is like? You can find out by taking a free klass. Get a taste of creativity, it may be just what you need to get you through the winter. Beginnings starts again January 2, Seeing starts January 23 and Storytelling starts on February 13.

Don’t be too kool for skool!

EDM 101 & 102

Posted on October 20, 2014 by Dana Burrell

I’ve hit a snag as I continue working through all of Danny Gregory’s 328 Every Day Matters drawing prompts. But I will not feel guilty. I’m still drawing… just not what’s on the list.

No deadline… it’s all good.

Sketchbook Skool… art for me!

Posted on April 13, 2014 by Dana Burrell

I’ve matrikulated into Sketchbook Skool!

This endeavor is a wonderful kollaboration of Danny Gregory and Koosje Koene, two artists I’ve followed for quite a while. They’ve put together a six week kourse, (adding the k is killing me… I’ll stop now.) each week featuring the art, inspiration and guidance of a different artist. Danny took the first week and inspired us to draw the ordinary, the everyday… no special equipment, just a sketchbook and a pen. Paint the page first if a blank white page makes you freeze… just start.

Just yesterday, Koosje’s lessons, week 2, were posted.

I particularly appreciated Koosje’s intonation to “get over yourself!”… to just get out and draw… out in the open, in the community, even if… gasp!… people may be watching! This has long been one of my goals so I packed my sketchbook Friday evening when we went to a friend’s home for a Celtic music house concert.

My apologies, portraiture is not a specialty, but I’m going to keep working on it!

Next up… Prashant Miranda.

Sketching Reboot — EDM 22-18

Posted on February 21, 2014 by Dana Burrell

Way back in 2012 I heard about a group committed to sketching every day in the month of May. I did some searching and found Wendy/Quirkyartist and Liz Steel/Borromini Bear planned to do what has been called EDiM… Every Day in May. They spread the word to use the Everyday Matters Challenge list starting with #100 and go in reverse order for the month.

I thought it was wonderful that there was a list of 100 sketching prompts out in the interwebs for me to use. Little did I know that I would find the list was much longer. As of now there are 328 drawing prompts! The full list is kept by Karen Winters and can be found on her blog. This is turn led me to Danny Gregory, friend and sketching guru to those of us who found our artistic way later in life.

I started in on May 1st 2012 with #100 and decided to work backward to #1 and then pick up at #101 and work my way to 328. Even allowing for lapses and my other work I thought I’d be further along than I am now.

Sheesh! I was working fairly regularly on the list when I hit #22 – Draw a piece of clothing. I don;t know what it was but the list just kept getting transferred from sketchbook to sketchbook and that piece of clothing never got it’s day. I did plenty of other sketching… I even drew my clothes as I packed for my vacation. But I didn’t label it as EDM 22.

I only had a few more pages to go in my sketchbook and again I thought of moving my list to the new journal.

NO! I will not move it without making progress! … Earmuffs count as clothing, don’t they?

The spell has been broken! I finished the sketchbook (one of my handmade books with Fab. Art. 140# soft press paper) with EDM 21.

EDM 20, 19 & 18 have been the first entries into my new Stillman & Birn Alpha. This is a new sketchbook for me and it’ll be interesting to see how I like the paper. I noticed how white it is right away. Boy, the colors just pop!

You can see some buckling at the bottom left where I painted a fairly wet wash. It flattened as it dried and now seems to be within my “acceptable” range. The Alpha has a lot pages so I better get used to it… 124 pages… that’s twice what I have in my beloved Strathmore 500 Mixed Media Journal. The paper is slightly lighter,150gsm to Strathmore’s 190 gsm, so we’ll see. It’s always fun to try new things.

Dana Burrell… Art

… adventures in creativity.

Tag Archives: Danny Gregory