Sand Dollar, version 2.0

(click to enlarge)

As mentioned in my last post, after playing around in that looser style, I had to do a tighter, more realistic version of one sand dollar. It's a quiet little drawing, but it played right into my obsession with radial symmetry in nature. The image is about 6" in diameter, twice the size of the actual sand dollar. I used what I think is a piece of Fabriano Artistico paper that I found in my drawer; its beautiful surface just loves the graphite. I remembered to take this one WIP shot, for what it's worth :

I hope you're enjoying the first few days of summer!

Beach treasures: Reductive drawing

I know that this doesn't look like my usual drawings, but here's the backstory:

I was down in Ventura a few weekends ago, and had a very successful morning beachcombing. My husband and I found four sand dollars in perfect condition! We went to a spot where all of the birds were hanging out, thinking that might indicate lots of goodies washing in, and it worked!

In my life-drawing meet-up, I've been doing some "reductive" drawings: basically smearing charcoal all over the paper and then "drawing" with a kneaded eraser. Since this was clearly going to be a rather monochromatic drawing, the method seemed to fit.

 Uh-oh....I knew right away that I'd made a big mistake not giving more thought to the size and placement of the sand dollars on the page. Clearly, the final piece would have to be cropped from this one, which was a disappointment, as I really like the rough edges of the charcoal-toned area.

But I had such fun, working quickly and loosely. And I love the texture of the charcoal on the paper:

But if you prefer my tighter, more detailed drawings—fear not! Here's what's on my drawing board at the moment: one of the sand dollars drawn at 2x life-size (I've cranked up the contrast to make it easier to see the lighter parts.) :

Happy Summer!!

Happy 27th birthday to my son, who brought me this sea urchin shell—packed in his backpack—all the way home from his recent trip to New Zealand! He knows that I have a fascination with drawing examples of radial symmetry in nature (often based upon multiples of 5), which I've previously posted about here.

Before I sat down to draw this "test" (which, I learned, is the proper terminology for a sea urchin shell), I was curious whether or not it was as perfectly round as it appeared to my eye. So, I printed out a little template of a circle the same diameter as the shell. I laid the shell over it on my lightbox, and...wow! Mother Nature never ceases to amaze.

Since the shell is composed of a beautiful almost monochromatic blue-grey-green palette, I ended up using a toned Strathmore charcoal paper (the smooth side) and only graphite and 2 Prismacolor pencils: Jade Green, and White Verithin. (Sorry for the uneven lighting; I was too lazy to scan, so I just shot this at my desk with my iPhone.)

As I examined the shell closely, I was curious about the texture of the surface, and did a little research—they're fascinating creatures! The raised bumps are where the spines had been attached with an ingenious ball-and-socket mechanism, and all of the tiny holes are where the soft tube feet once extended. What an amazing little structure!