Life drawing and two announcements

The announcements first I think Dave and I are now engaged to be married! Actually he asked me two weeks ago but I now have my ring back from the jewellers (it was resized) so it feels more real. We are so happy. And happy with the ring too – it’s an antique, Victorian, which means we avoided the blood diamonds issue and it came from a charity so the money we spent went to a hospice. Good all round, I say.

And the second announcement is that I am setting up a website – I’m using wordpress as my content manager so the front page will be a blog and drawing diary will be moving over to the new site. It will be renamed though. I’ll leave this blog up however, as I wont be transferring all the content. This means that updates here will be a little sporadic until the new site is live.

Pierre Bonnard

Pierre Bonnard

This was an interesting exercise – it’s based on one I found in Charles Reid’s book The Natural Way to Paint.

Firstly I did a continuous line drawing (which CR, confusingly, refers to as a contour drawing) of Pierre Bonnard from the photo in the book. Then, as Reid instructs, I squinted at the photo to see where tonal boundaries are strong, and where they are almost indistinguishable – I then erased the lines which divided the areas of the same or similar tone. Then I mapped out the areas of tone and added hatching.

Because I was working on brown paper I then finished with some white. Because the photo had little tonal variation, but I was working on brown paper, I found it almost impossible to give an accurate rendering of the tones, nevertheless I like the overall effect – despite the inaccuracies in the original drawing (I didn’t make any corrections when I was erasing lines).

Reid’s book is interesting – I like his approach – I also like the fact that he spends some time talking about brush handling and delivering paint to the paper – which he seems to do rather differently to many others. If you like loose watercolours with plenty of wet-in-wet techniques and would like to explore painting figures I recommend it.

Shaky lines

Drawing on the bus is hard, so I thought I’d make it even more difficult and do a continuous line drawing…

Another Wet Bus Ride

I also added the colour using watercolour pencils on the bus.

Since I had to take a photo of the sketchbook I used above, as it’s too big for my scanner, I also took photos of these too.

Trouble with ears

Sketching both of these people I initially put their ears too far back on their heads – they looked very odd! Strange to make the same mistake twice.

Whilst I was sketching them I realised it’s not people I’m fed up with sketching, it’s being in noisy cafes to do it. Everywhere is just so loud and I find it stressful. I look forward to more warm weather so I can be outside.

I've got my shopping

The perspective on these seats is all skewiff, but I like how the chap on the left came out – there is a real sense of solidity and weight. I think the years of drawing people are finally paying off!

I read somewhere about the 10,000 hours rule. There were no deatails, just this rule mentioned in conjunction with drawing practise so I assumed it was just an arbitary figure meant to suggest the length of practise time you could expect to do before really getting anywhere with drawing*. I have no idea how many hours I’ve spent drawing over the last few years – not nearly enough most likely – but lately it has felt different, like I’m beginning to be ‘at home’ with drawing. If you are someone who never stopped drawing you may not know what I’m talking about, but for me, who stopped for 20 years, it was challenging to start again. I think what I’m saying is that drawing now feels like part of me, whereas it hasn’t in the past. It’s a good feeling and I’m really glad I have learned, and continue to learn, how to draw. It’s the most challenging, enjoyable, annoying and frustrating and stimulating and exciting thing I’ve ever done.

Everyone should do it

*If you know anything about it, please share.

Three Pears

Three Pears

Just doodling in my sketchbook. there’s something pleasing about the shapes of pears.

Keep the faith

Keep the Faith

Gun toting Christians demonstrate admirably how you can reconcile two completely opposed belief systems, if you want something enough.

Done somewhat idly last night, continuous line, based on a photo in Saturday’s Guardian mag. The couple really do have shiny too-black hair.

I hate drawing from photos – I know some people prefer it, but I’ve always preferred drawing from life, photos are just too small. And of course, with other people’s photos there are copyright issues too.

I’d like to make some illustrations on this topic – but I need some people to pose with (fake) guns! And to have their hair dyed black…

Please Don’t Go

Please Don’t Go

Colored pencil and watercolour on HP paper, 20 x 28cm.

The drawing is a continuous line drawing.

Wet bus ride

Wet Bus Ride

I drew the original drawing last summer, but I’ve been playing around with it, re-drawing in different media and adding colour. I quite like this version – though unfortunately the scanner hasn’t picked up all the variations in tone.

I apologise for the chaos on the Continuous Line Drawings page – I tried to sort it yesterday but failed – tomorrow, I’ll get it organised!

Raining Again

Raining Again

Mixed media, continuous line drawing

Unfortunately this is a little grey as it’s a photo, but you get the idea.

Continuous Line Drawings

Because I like them, and with touches of colour.

Yellow Bowls

The Umbrella Plant

Reading The Omnivore's Dilemma

Portrait

Apprehension

Hooray – I’ve got my frames back!

This one’s a continuous line drawing – and a wonky scan.