Weekly Theme: Tools

 

We thank Margaret Casagrande for suggesting this week's theme, and Jennifer Ransom for her historical research.

What do you do when you're stuck at home due to inclement weather and looking for something to draw? You need only to look around your house, your basement or tool box. For this week's theme, we will draw tools. Start with one tool, then add another, and another. Soon you'll have a group. There are all kinds of tools used to make tasks easier: for art work, crafts, hobbies, carpentry, home repairs, gardening, and even cooking. Try drawing your favorite tools. Or, the tools you use most often. Are they separate or in a pile or box? 

Sketches by Margaret Casagrande

Another fun option might be to draw people using tools. How about someone cooking a meal, shoveling the sidewalk, hammering a nail, etc.?

Goldsmith Marin Marino in the Studio, by Marc Taro Holmes

The above sketch is from the book: The Urban Sketching Art Pack: A Guide Book and Sketch Pad for Drawing on Location Around the World by Gabriel Campanario, Veronica Lawlor, and Stephanie Bower.

For more information, these books can be accessed, at least in part, on the Web at no cost:

Ancient Carpenters' Tools: Illustrated and Explained, Together with the Implements of the Lumberman, Joiner and Cabinet-Maker in Use in the Eighteenth Century by Henry C. Mercer

         

The Tool Book: A Tool-Lover's Guide to Over 200 Hand Tools by Phil Davy, et al.

A Museum of Early American Tools by Eric Sloane

Hand Tools: Their Ways and Workings by Aldren A. Watson