A bunch of artists I follow pointed to a charity auction they were work for. They were drawing and painting to support a pen-pal program between students in Brooklyn, NY and Freetown, Sierra Leone. I thought it was a pretty inspired idea to get children to think about and interact with other children far far away.

Brown Stones to Red Dirt is a documentary about the pen pal program and seems to have inspired many people to contribute to the cause and better still, inspired the wonderful artists to paint for charity.

When I was a little kid, my dad used to get me a Russian magazine called Misha. It is not easy to hunt down as it is with most things published in erstwhile USSR. But I managed to find out some links and online scans here.

What with reading Russian children’s magazine, Staring at a poster of Kremlin and St. Basil’s Cathedral and reading technical books published by MIR, it seems like my association with Russia goes a lot deeper then I thought. But that’s besides the point.

What was cool about Misha was that they used to publish address of children from USSR and Europe who are interested in making pen friends. I remember writing letters to some of the kids and my dad used to post it for me. I cannot remember whether I got a response or nor do I know if I kept in touch with any of the children from the other end of the globe. But I remember that the idea of penning some thoughts about myself and asking questions about the other person was a mind opening experience. I don’t know how many letters I wrote (may be 1 or may be a few) but I never kept up with it and when I think back, it is a pity I did not continue writing to unknown people around the world. It might have something to do with the fact that Misha stopped circulating (after the collapse of the Soviet) and I could not get more contacts. Such was the times before the internet.

My point is that the idea of writing to another kid half way around the world makes one aware of ones own existence. There is a lot of urge to communicate your story to them and that opens up ones mind. I guess it is best done when you are a kid (no harm pursuing your hobby into adulthood either). So, you see I can understand the enthusiasm shown by the various artists for the Brown Stones to Red Dirt initiative.

The theme of the artwork was pretty original, where every artist was given a veneer of birch-wood the size of a postcard to paint on. You can see some of the impressive work here.

I enjoy beautiful artwork and I also have a reason to support an initiative that helps communities (especially children) to come together and that is a good cause. Further, some of my favorite artists have showcased their work and I guess I cannot help myself from, ahem, participating in the auction. The long and short of the story is that I have a few really cool artwork heading my way as I write this.

The gear wheels actually work. And I love the cyclist in the sky idea. Like ET.

I missed my Cory Godbey artwork in the Terrible Yellow Eyes project. I love the way he draws dino-monsters with a very gentle side.

The colors and the Jewelery. Pretty impressive.

Simple yet sweet. Looks like the robot is not a good artist (the pencil is enormous) but the smile says he seems to enjoy sketching.

The trouble is that I don’t think I have enough wall space in my house. But I guess if it is for a good cause, I don’t mind lending a helping hand especially when I am treated to such amazing work in the bargain.

I have been learning a bit about different techniques for drawing and have figured that one of the fundamental techniques for pencil art is hashing. That’s a very effective technique to create shades. When using charcoal, the technique is primarily smudging (and it is messy). Hashing is interesting because one you can get the idea right, you can work out detailed shading with 1 or maybe 2 pencils. This is also a useful when sketching with ball point pens too.

Here is a take on a nice image I found on the Internet. I found hashing shapes a bit tricky but I suppose the idea is to blend various micro hashes to show subtle gradations and shapes. I have not got the highlights too and lost the 3D’ness of the image. More practice is in order.

Landscapes are tricky, as I mentioned earlier. The trick I am employing is to isolate individual elements and try to practice drawing them. I looked through the list of images and managed to narrow down to a few with very harsh lighting. The nice thing about harsh lighting is that there is very little gradation in the shades  you have very deep blacks and very bright whites. The image I chose to draw at the end was a early dry tree (more like a shrub) titled San Rafael Reef. This is also from the set of excellent images in the Ancient shape of man.

I have isolated the plant from the slightly more complex background. I guess I could have worked a bit more to showing some of the environment but decided I would keep it for future projects. The sun seems right overhead, The photographer has employed much skill in determinng the right exposure and developing / printing the image. It is usually very difficult to bring suble shades with harsh afternoon light but the image manages to do that. Was a nice challenge to see if I can get anywhere close to the actual print.