Michael Shannon

A sketch just to stick a toe in the water of my second big project
while the imprimatura on the first project is drying. I found this
mummified mouse behind the wall of a house we lived in once years ago.
No, it doesn't stink.

I began the preparation for the painting of the Starling for my larger
project. Yesterday I created the cartoon and transfered the image to a
prepared panel using india ink. Today I laid in the imprimatura using
burnt sienna. In a few days I'll be able to finally begin painting
this starling. I didn't really want to do a work in progress type of
post but thats what I've ended up doing. I'll wait until I have the
painting finished before posting it again rather than continuing with
these WIP postings.

I'll begin posting some pieces that will become a part of my second
project tomorrow. That means TAD is slowly taking over my life.

I took a diversion from my usual project today to make something I've
always wanted to make--a quill pen. The winter 2010 issue of American
Artist Drawing magazine had an article called "The Quill Pen - How to
Draw with the Tool of the Masters" and a part of the article was a
how-to on making your own quill pen. John Parks gives a very detailed
description and I found it to be a fairly simple task. Immediately
after I finished I did a ten minute sketch of a starling. The pen felt
rather awkward at first but by the time I was nearly finished with the
sketch I was really getting the hang of it and started to understand
the appeal of a natural quill over a steel nib. I has its drawbacks
but it is softer and the lines, once you get the hang of it, are much
more fluid. Below, I have included an abridged version of the
instructions. Complete enough that if you follow along you can make
one yourself. Steps that have an accompanying picture have "[pic]"
next to it.

1. [pic] Get a flight feather. The article said goose feathers are
considered to be the best but all I had was a turkey feather.
2. [pic] Strip the feathers but leave enough so that when you're
drawing or writing in your journal and someone walks by they will know
you're an anachronism.
3. [pic] Cut off the end of the feather. About an inch.
4. [pic] Use a piece of thin wire or paper clip bent as shown to pull
out the filaments inside the shaft.
5. Pick up the feather and hold it in your hand like you're going to
use it to write with. What you're doing is finding the position that
it will feel most comfortable. Make a mental note or place a dot on
the top side of the shaft.
6. [pic] Flip the feather over so you are looking at the bottom side
(the opposite side of the dot if you placed one). Starting about an
inch from the end you just cut off, make a shallow diagonal cut and
trim to the end of the shaft. You want to remove about half of the
diameter.
7. [pic] Now make another cut about 3/8" (9.5mm) from the end and cut
about half the material yet again.
8. [pic] Place the nib on a hard surface and make a nick in the center
of the blunt end. Push a brush handle up the shaft while pushing your
forefinger down at the point where you want the split to stop (about
3/8"/9.5mm). This didn't really work for me as the turkey feather was
really tough and I couldn't get the brush handle far enough into the
shaft to make it split. So I just scored the nib while holding it down
on my drawing table until I eventually cut through and made a split
with the xacto blade.
9. [pic] Now cut the sides of the nib into a nice long taper. This is
the delicate work. You have to work it slowly and carefully so you
don't gank up the end of it like I did.
10. [pic] Place the nib down on your hard surface again and cut
horizontally across the end to trim it up nice an neat.
11. You can fine tune the nib by shaving the sides more. I did this a
couple of times as I was sketching so I could figure out what type of
tip I liked best. What I found is you can change it over the course of
a drawing to fit the need at hand. Of course you can only get away
with the as long as you have shaft to work with.
12. [pic] This was my first sketch with the pen I just made. I used a
black walnut ink I made last fall. A crappy sketch, but it was the act
I was after, not the result. Better results will come with more use
and familiarity with its idiosyncrasies.

Time for a hike to pick up some more turkey feathers...

(download)

Click here to download:

Day_seven_Quill_Pen.zip (864 KB)

Another piece that will become a part of my larger Starling Project.
Created in Photoshop.

Someone asked me "why a starling?" Well, I found a mummified starling
in a barn several years ago. While it has held a lowly place in my
skull collection, I've often thought it had a higher purpose. Well the
purpose came to me recently in the in-between (the state of
consciousnesses between waking and dreaming) in the form of a piece of
artwork. Inspiration comes in many forms, this time it came in the
form of a dead starling.

You can see the rest of the pieces that will become the final project
here: http://michaelshannon.posterous.com/

Again, this is my first TAD so I know I'm working outside of the rules
a little bit posting two days in one. Let's not even discuss the 30
minute rule. But I must say, I'm really enjoying this. And catching up
on everyone's posts each night is one of the highlights of my day.
There are some really creative people out there.

So I began this "sketch" on day two and it took way too long. I had
intended it to be a true sketch but I got carried away and turned it
into a drawing. Wish I had known I was gonna do that since I used
paper out of a spiral sketch book which doesn't handle the demands the
pencils made on it that this drawing required. Oh well.

So this is a preliminary study for an oil panel I plan to finish
before the end of the month. I left out the body markings as I didn't
need them for my purposes (they'll be in the painting).

Sorry, the scan isn't so great.

I spent some time today working on a preliminary drawing for this
project but as the hour of midnight drew closer I realized the drawing
wasn't going to make it for day three. Shifting gears I finished
gluing some bone parts back onto this mummified starling and sealing
the flesh parts. A coat of Acrylic sealer comes next but I won't post
that one until this project is complete.

Oh, and I'm sorry if this grosses some people out but I find it quite sublime.

I'm really trying to keep from making this a WIP (work in progress),
keeping each step an individual "thing" in keeping with the spirit of
TAD. We'll see how that goes as the month progresses.

My first post didn't go through due to a human error, mine.

It's harder to create a flock than it looks. Photoshop creation for
the second installment of my project. I included a closeup so you get a
sense of what this really is.

If you've never seen starlings flocking it really is a sight to
behold. I think there are some videos on YouTube.

(download)

Click here to download:

Day_two_A_flock_of_starlings.zip (113 KB)

My first year on TAD. I wasn't really sure how to proceed with this
challenge as I learned of it for the first time just a few days before
the first of February. So, I decided that I really needed to work on
some projects that have been swimming around in my head for quite a
while. Since I only have one day to post a new Thing, and my projects
will take many days to complete, I thought I would break each project
down into smaller day-size projects and assemble them when all pieces
are finished. That's the plan anyway.

My first project will include painting, ink work, and assemblage of
found and bought objects. This sketch is a warmup to the actual
project but will serve me well in getting this off the ground. Gotta
start somewhere.