Penn's Sketchbook

Learning to draw again as an adult is a tad bit different from learning to draw as a child. There is a freedom of imagination and expression in childhood drawing that gets overshadowed sometimes by the need to control and plan in adulthood. A watercolor sketch from direct observation Some say that learning to draw is learning how to see, but that isn’t quite right. It is important to see certain aspects of form, shape, light and atmosphere in order to better observe what you want to represent realistically. But learning to draw is all about learning to control lines, shapes and edges on a surface in order to build a picture of what you see. So drawing involves much more than seeing. Drawing is a constructive and organizing activity that communicates ideas. In this way it goes beyond seeing and simple observation. It is related to speech. It organizes lines and shapes on a surface so that something new can be seen, felt or understood. A cave drawing organizes lines so that viewe...

Jonathan sketching Drawing is a form of entertainment that goes way, way back in the history of humans. It's also a powerful tool for imagination. Computer and AI assisted animation are simply advanced forms of imaginative drawing. I like to use drawing in service of the imagination by drawing what I'd like to see in a narrative. My son Jonathan enjoys movies and imaginitive adventure. So Saturday night before bed, I told him we could get our shared big sketchbook off the book shelf and imagine we were going on an adventure. I asked him what we should start with. "Draw a jeep," he said. So I drew a jeep driving down a rugged path. Jonathan then drew some trees. He asked me to draw some dinosaurs; a dilophosaurus spitting green venom, a brachiosaurus eating leaves, Dakota Raptor running through the trees, a pterodactyl sauring in the air. "Draw an Indominus Rex," he asked after all the others. "Cool!" was his response when I sketched somet...

Field Stream. Acrylic on canvas. 11"x14". 2018. "Field Stream," located in rural Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, was a place where as a child I could observe the created beauty of nature. This painting depicts a stream running through a farm field in Gap, Pennsylvania, on a misty early Spring morning. The cows and mules are in the barn at this time and except for the song of robins, there are few of the busy sounds that will soon break into chorus when Spring moves toward Summer.

Longhorn cow.  Pen and ink sketch.  2017 I took photos of the steps taken to draw this longhorn cow for day 4 of Inktober. We encountered this very pretty cow during one visit to Lake Tobias. The materials I used were: a cell phone photo, sketchbook, .07 mechanical pencil, kneaded eraser, Faber Castell ink pens and brush pen, and a water brush filled with a mix of reddish watercolor ink.  1) First, I drew a rectangle box to contain the shape of the body and a triangle that would contain the shape of the head. I then drew straight lines to mark off angles and body parts. Next, I began drawing lines to define the cow's form. 2) I drew lines within the straight line boxes to define the animal's form and parts. 3) After the shape of the cow and its parts were defined, I began to draw little details and mark areas where shading and color could be added later. 4) I outlined the pencil lines with ink and used a water brush filled with ...

Saturday, September 2, I went out at 7:30 AM to paint the Leola Thrift Shoppe. The sky was overcast, but I wanted to complete the storefront challenge opened by James Gurney, which had officially ended two days before, and also start using my new customized outdoor easel. I setup my watercolors and began with a careful sketch of the storefront. I used a ruler to help with straight lines and angles and to estimate perspective. When the shop manager arrived, I explained what I was up to and requested permission to continue. She was very encouraging and expressed interest in seeing the final result. Customized outdoor easel After correcting the sketch to a satisfying degree, I began painting quickly, mixing and adjusting colors as needed on the fly. It began to rain, so I held an umbrella in one hand after unsuccessfully clamping it to the side of the easel. Before opening time, two associates, one of whom happens to have plans to study art, arrived and came over to see my ...

I took the advice of my sister recently and added some of my sketches to Instagram . My plan is to update Instagram with new sketches as I am working on them. Watercolor sketches have been slow for me lately because of other commitments, but when the time becomes available again, I will be doing another portrait painting and a landscape painting, if God wills. Here is the account: https://www.instagram.com/penntomassetti/

En plein air  refers to the practice of painting outdoors on location and is French for "outdoors." This is the opposite of painting in a studio. Below is a plein air painting by John Sargent of Claude Monet painting outdoors. Claude Monet  Painting by the Edge of a Wood  (1885) by  John Singer Sargent . Oil on canvas. 54.0 × 64.8 cm.  Tate Gallery , London. [Image from Wikipedia .] See more works by Claude Monet from artsy.net . Since learning more about this practice of painting and drawing, I am slowly beginning to try it out. This weekend, I had an extra hour, so I went to a park and found the tree below, which I painted on location in watercolors. I used a water brush (inspired by James Gurney's post here ) and a portable watercolor palette that I added some paints to. I wanted to do a study of a tree and found this perfect young oak as a subject. The next day, I was at the playground with my wife and son, when s...