Burn 25 & 26

Spectracolor red colored pencil, my iPod charger.
















This one's my lovely foot.

Burn 24

I used Staedtler Pigment Liner for this one, size 03. My jeans crumpled up on the bed.

Burn 23

I have one of those posable wooden mannequins. I've drawn it so many times I couldn't even count. Still trying for interesting compositions. Crayola colored pencil.

Burn 21 &22

I decided to try some with pen instead of colored pencil. These are both drawn with Staedtler Pigment Liner, size 03.

Burn 20

Spectracolor black colored pencil. I really like how scanning in grayscale goes so much faster.

Burn 19

My shorts and leg, seen from above. It's an odd vantage point to draw something, but it turned out alright. Not sure what color pencil here, but it scanned sort of orange. It wasn't orange, but there you go.

Burn 18

This box came from Indonesia. A friend of mine brought it back from a vacation she took with her boyfriend. They went to see his parents when his dad worked there. It's got wonderful carvings on it, that I couldn't do justice to in four minutes though. Spectracolor burnt umber colored pencil.

Burn 17

I'm a little behind, but I'm going to post three today to catch up. Here's the first one, it's my backpack/purse, Spectracolor crimson colored pencil.

Burn 16

I got this little woven fiber and wood box in France. I wanted a souvenir from the market in St. Remy, and saw a chair. It's the chair in the first burn drawing.
I'm not so good at bargaining, but I talked the guy down 10 Euro for the chair, and asked him to throw in the box too.

This one I'll need to do again, taking my time. I'm not satisfied with the detail on it at all, but the idea's to get something on paper, not to make something that you're neccessarily happy with.

Happy Birthday to Melanie!

Happy Birthday to my sister Melanie! Love you!

I spent the evening at her house having dinner and watching Justin Timberlake get grilled by David Letterman. It was interesting watching him scramble for words when Dave asked him about the Superbowl wardrobe "malfunction."

Burn 15

Four-minute burn number 15, in black Spectracolor. This one I scanned in grayscale, so it's a much smaller file size. Also, I took a bit more than four minutes because I really got involved in the shading.

My father's got some until recently unidentified trees in his backyard. This came from what we think is a redbud. He let me borrow it to draw under the condition that I had to give it back.

Burn 14

Again, Spectracolor Design pencil, this time Indigo Blue. Though I was thinking, maybe next time I'll just use a non-repro blue, and you can imagine the drawing, kind of like you get to imagine the details that I put but don't show up on the scanner.

I got this mirror waaay back in high school, or shortly thereafter. It's a great metaphor, because the friendship broke too. It's too bad, she was a great person, one I admired a lot. I don't think I ever told her that. I'll just think it at her, really hard, and hope she picks that up. From her non-friend, that she hasn't seen since the early 90's. Yep, it'll happen.

Burn 13 (extra, extra!)

Just because I didn't know which I'd want to post, so I scanned them both. This one's in Spectracolor purple pencil, but the purple didn't scan well. Too bad I really don't like pink.

They're items on my writing desk, and it probably took more than four minutes for this one. Though I didn't time it. If you'd like to make sure that I keep accurate time, you're more than welcome to come over and hold the stopwatch for me. ;)

Burn 12

Burn 12, items in a basket in my bathroom. Spectracolor sepia pencil.
I did some shorthand strokes for the basket instead of using strict observation, mostly so I wouldn't be working on it until next year.

Burn 11

Burn 11. Sometimes when I did the burn with my students, I'd tell them to draw their hand or their foot. If no objects seem interesting, you've always got your appendages.

Spectracolor colored pencil, my hand.

Burn 10

Here's the burn for today. It's some bottles that I keep in my kitchen. They're hard to draw, so this is actually my second attempt.
Design Spectracolor colored pencil, in purple.

Burn 09

This one I did just a few minutes ago. I seem to have a problem with my grocery produce trying to grow after a few days in my kitchen. I've had a sweet potato sprout purple stems and leaves which looked really cool, so I planted it. Now I've got this onion. The top of it looks like several scallions. It was fun to draw. Once again, colored pencil. This color's called Indigo Blue.

Four-Minute Burn Rules

There are some rules to this, self-imposed of course. The drawing must take four minutes. It must be of actual objects in front of you. No erasing allowed. Most of the time they're monochrome, but that's not a rule, really, just that it's hard to make multi-colored four-minute drawing.

I have a hard time not using "undo" when I do these in Painter on my tablet, so I'm glad that I'm using colored pencil for most of them.

Burn 08

This is my lunch from yesterday. I drew it yesterday, but I'd brought some files home to work on so I forgot to post it. It's colored pencil again, this time burnt ochre maybe. Or sienna, or umber. I get those all mixed up and I don't have the pencil in front of me. It looks really red on my monitor. But I'm almost completely sure that it was ochre. Of some kind.

Burn 07

My computer speaker and monitor. Painter IX with Wacom tablet. Gouache brush, size 05. I forgot to post this one too. Man, I'm going to have to work on that remembering thing.

Burn 06

This one turned out a weird color from the scanner. I used a raw umber colored pencil in my burn journal, but when scanned it looked too yellow. I adjusted the colors a little but it still doesn't look right.

Burn 04 and Burn 05

Here are the two burns that I did today to catch up. Both done on paper in my newly made journal, with Design Spectracolor colored pencils.



This is my mother's camera, and yes, the perspective's a bit off.



















Stuff on the kitchen counter.

Burn Journal

I found that I lacked motivation for the four-minute burns. I pondered why, as they only take four minutes. It seemed to be lack of things to draw in the small area around my computer. I don't really want to move a still life on and off my computer desk every day, so I decided to try drawing on paper and adding the middleman scanner back to the mix.

I made a journal this morning, and then made two burn drawings to catch up.
Here's the journal, and you can see the two burns above.

Burn 03

I went to bed early last night, tired from who knows what. Here's the drawing for yesterday, and I'll post one later today for today.

Again, Painter IX, 2b pencil at 50% gray, four minutes. Doesn't look very good. Next one will be a different brush. Maybe I can get better effects with that. I'll try colored pencil or marker.