Sunday, November 8, 2009

Blast from the Past #250: Chickpeas and lentils

Here's another pen and ink stipple piece (with a little bit of white-out) from the late 1970's/early 1980's. It's one of a number of vegetable drawings I did back then for "Hampshire LIfe", some of which ended up being used on the menu of one of my favorite restaurants in Northampton, Paul and Elizabeth's.



This was drawn from life -- I bought some dried chickpeas and lentils for reference. I remember being amazed at how convoluted the surface shapes of the chickpeas were. -- PL

6 comments:

Padon said...

Maybe I'm not on! "But still .... Thank you very much Mr. Leird, for what you have created with Kevin turtles:) Good luck!I'm from Russia.

Brookslyn said...

Peter,

I know this picture was done awhile ago, but for stippling do you block out the "white" areas then tackle the darkest areas slowly filling in towards "white"? I've only attempted once before taking classes and I made the mistake of stippling an outline of the objects first... eek.

Also, have you seen Michael Dooney's moleskin sketchbooks? Have you started carrying around a sketch book?

Tyr Germanic said...

thats very detailed.


makes me remember when i was in art myself,good times.

PL said...

"Brookslyn said...

Peter,

I know this picture was done awhile ago, but for stippling do you block out the "white" areas then tackle the darkest areas slowly filling in towards "white"? I've only attempted once before taking classes and I made the mistake of stippling an outline of the objects first... eek."

Actually, I generally start by stippling a fairly loose outline of the basic shapes, then begin stippling broader tonal areas, shading from light to dark. I will tend to jump around from one area of the drawing to another during this process, as it gets pretty boring to work for a long time on just one area.

"Also, have you seen Michael Dooney's moleskin sketchbooks? Have you started carrying around a sketch book?"

I have, and yes, I have been carrying around a sketchbook -- I just haven't been inspired to draw anything in it. -- PL

Brookslyn said...

Pete,

Thanks for the response. Do you stipple with the same pen/nib size for the entire piece? I like the look, but it becomes so time consuming on piece that is just regular 8.5 x 11 in size.

Have the turtles ever been in 3-D (ie red/blue glasses) ?

Thanks!

PL said...

"Brookslyn said...

Pete,

Thanks for the response. Do you stipple with the same pen/nib size for the entire piece? I like the look, but it becomes so time consuming on piece that is just regular 8.5 x 11 in size."

Back in my stipple days, my favorite stipple tool was not, as you might think, a technical pen like a Rapidiograph or MarsGraphic, but a crow quill dipping pen. I had one particular crow quill nib which was just perfect for drawing, and I liked it for stippling because -- unlike the technical pens -- each dot was slightly different, adding a nice organic quality to the stippling.

You're right -- stippling can become very labor-intensive, especially when the size of the original becomes larger. That's probably one of the reasons I don't do it anymore!


"Have the turtles ever been in 3-D (ie red/blue glasses) ?"

I'm not sure, but there may have been a licensed product at some point during the twenty-two years of TMNT merchandising which incorporated that kind of 3-D stuff. -- PL