Tag: drawing

What happens when a painting doesn’t work?

The 63 skies project is going well! I’m still not sure what to name it, but I’ve landed on how the paintings will look and feel. Here’s how it’s going:

Sky paintings in artist studio

This morning I repainted 3 of the first 4 paintings I’d made because they didn’t feel right. The last one to re-paint is on the lower right. You can see the initial stages of the work in this piece.

For those of you who are curious, here’s what the group of paintings looked like before I re-worked the first four:

sky paintings in studio

I ended up painting them again because I found them over-worked and heavy feeling. Because there will be so many of these extending 19 feet up and 17 feet out, I think they’d feel oppressive on that scale, so instead I opted for a more loose and airy approach.

Happily I’ve already raised almost 50% of the cost of these materials so far! You can contribute to this project on my project page at Buy Me a Coffee. Thank you to all those who’ve already contributed! It means a lot that you believe in my work.

Thanks and have a good week!

Botanical drawings to be featured in a wildflower guide!

I’m excited to announce that some of my botanical drawings have been licensed for use in a soon-to-be-published wildflower guide!

I got the news last week after a publisher found my drawings and contacted me about making some others for a new guide they are working on.

When the project is completed, I’ll share images and links to the finished guide here. In the meantime, you can find some of my original botanical drawings here, and if you’re looking for a gift for the writer in your life, my greeting cards are back in stock! These feature ten of my botanical watercolors of flowers, seeds and leaves found in North Carolina. Find the cards here.

Botanical Drawing Greeting Cards for pre-order this week!

violet botanical drawing

Due to popular request I’m doing a print run of my Botanical Drawing Greeting Cards this spring!

Pre-order your cards here until Thursday April 15th. ⁣

This is a pack of 10 greeting cards with my botanical drawings on the front. Each card features a different plant and is ready to be personalized on the inside. They come with envelopes.

The plants featured are all found in North Carolina and according to a good friend, the cards are a perfect gift for a teacher, neighbor, friend, family, minister – particularly if they love nature.⁣

Cards will ship in May and are only available direct from me.⁣

See them all and get the details HERE.

Make a botanical watercolor drawing with me

This morning I went exploring in the neighborhood with my son. We walked through a stream and through bramble and over fallen trees and on a hillside of kudzu… we found animal tracks and bones and all sorts of adventurous stuff. We also found beautiful flowering weeds!

I always get excited in that transition from winter to spring, when the dandelion, violets, clover, and nettle and all sorts of tiny tender leaves and flowers start to appear. I picked one of my favorite (it was in a spot filled with many others), some purple dead nettle, so I could make a drawing.

I thought you might like to see the process and maybe even join along. So here we go back in the studio…

In case you do want to join me, I’m using pencil, Pigma micron ink pen, watercolor and a 140lb watercolor paper.

Want to learn how to use watercolors? Check out my watercolor course.

Make a watercolor botanical drawing with me

Hi everyone! Join me as I add watercolor to a botanical drawing. Here I’ll show you how to layer transparent watercolor in a loose relaxed way to add color to your drawings. This is the follow up to my Step-by-step botanical drawing video.

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If you are looking to dive deeper into watercolor, check out my new watercolor class HERE. It’s for all levels and features video lessons you can do at your own pace. See you in class!

Mindful Monday with Elder Gallery of Contemporary Art & AUCTION!

Some cool things happening next week!

AUCTION ON WEDNESDAY

On Wednesday May 13th, I’ll be hosting an auction right from my studio!

You’ll need to be on the Insider’s List to join in on the fun so if you’re not already, email me to sign up by the end of this week because my email with all the info goes out Monday.

MINDFUL MONDAY WITH ELDER GALLERY

I’m pleased to share with you that Elder Gallery of Contemporary Art invited me to host an Instagram Live event on Monday May 11th. Here’s the post about the event on their Instagram.

Mindful Monday with Jessica Singerman
Monday, May 11, 2020 | 10 am

Join us and gallery artist Jessica Singerman for a special “Mindful Monday” on Instagram. In addition to guiding us through a hands-on art exercise, she’ll discuss her current “new normal” during the pandemic as an artist, a teacher and a mother, and tips for staying grounded during these uncertain times. A great mid-morning art break for anyone working, teaching or learning at home!

Monday, May 11, 2020 at 10 am
Instagram: @elder_gallery_clt | @jessicasingermanfineart
Based in Winston-Salem, NC and inspired by a deep passion for the outdoors, cycling and traveling, Jessica’s work was first featured at the gallery in the 2018 March Invitational. In the 2019 exhibition Beyond the Mountain, Jessica’s paintings surrounded her impressive Paper Mountain installation composed of 1,000 hand-folded origami cranes.

Meditative Drawing – Contour Drawing

Hi everyone! Here’s your little meditative break – today with contour drawing! We can practice mindfulness through simple drawing. Here’s how.
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How I Started

I’ve been making things since I was a kid – I remember a lot of time making stuff with my mom at the dining room table – and I always drew.

Fast forward a few years… My dad signed me up for figure drawing sessions at the École des Beaux Arts in Tours, France when we lived there during my tenth grade year of high school. That was my first time drawing from the nude figure and in a room full of other adult artists.

I continued studying art in college and in grad school, I even taught art, but it wasn’t until after we had our son that I really began to understand what it means to be a professional artist. After he was born, I had to make art a priority – to be ruthless about it – if I was going to keep making things along with being a mom, a wife, and holding down a day job. I also wanted to demonstrate strong work ethic to my son, to show him that part of the process of doing things is to experiment, to fail, to start again… and I wanted him to be proud of his mom.

If you want to read more about how motherhood has impacted my art practice, check out my post “On Motherhood an Being an Artist.”

Making Thank You Drawings

Around the holiday season, I make a series of small works on paper to send to collectors of my paintings as a way of saying thank you. This time-lapse film documents the process of making the mixed media drawings I sent this year. If you look carefully, you’ll notice that I started working on light blue paper, but eventually switched to a white paper. The blue paper felt too flimsy, so I used a heavier-weight watercolor paper instead. You’ll also notice in the upper left corner when I cut the new watercolor paper. I think my favorite part of the video is seeing all the tools move around as I used them.
This was shot over the course of two days, with a photo once every 10 seconds. I used watercolor, graphite, ink, wax pastels, colored pencil, and gouache (opaque watercolor). Enjoy!

Discovering drawings and paintings from Australia

In this video I share a box of drawings and paintings I made while living in Australia in the time after I had a baby. I talk about how making drawings and paintings daily helped me get back on my feet at the start of motherhood. I also talk about continuing to make work with limited time, space, and materials.

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