081129 This Week

What I have been drawing this week:

This Weeks EDM challenge
Wasn't going to bother drawing my toe - and then I thought of a reason to do so. This is life size!

Thanksgiving
As I e-hang-out with so many Americans I thought that I better have a token thanksgiving dinner. Hope everyone had a great thanksgiving and did not eat too much! Thinking about turkey... time for a little research. I only had a tiny drawing to copy from - wish it had been bigger so I could have made a better attempt to get the head right

Saturday visit from Friends

081124 A visit to the Zoo

A day off work and what better way to spend it than sketching... At the zoo!

I feel like this has been a bit of a break through... I have been scared of drawing people and animals but mentally was keen to give it a go today. Here are most of my pages  (about 5 of them were disasters! - the hardest thing for me is to get the eyes and mouth right the first time ...if I didn’t then the sketch seemed to go from bad to worse)

I tried a few different techniques – my usual ink with only minimal pencil outline wasn’t working for me – so tried french grey prismacolor pencil and 0.3 felt pen – both which were a little more forgiving than the ink from my fountain pen.

Have also included a sketch I did when I got home reviewing all the stuff I took and how little of it I used – this is mainly because I did most of my sketching standing up. Poor Borromini didn't make it out of the backpack for a photo today - I was just too focused on my drawing obviously!

The Real Me!

I am extremely excited to be soon a part of Gabi Campanario’s wonderful blog Urban Sketchers... It is such a privilege to be posting alongside so many very talented artists and a great incentive for me to get out and sketch more in my beautiful city!

Check it out...

www.urbansketchers.com

Joining Urban Sketchers has meant no more hiding behind a little bear!

So here is a picture of me using my daily kit (as posted earlier in the week) in the standing position – which I often find myself doing as the best views hardly ever have a seat nearby and often the perspective changes if sitting on my stool.(BTW I have got a replacement for the one that collapsed on me a few weeks back!)

My paint tin is secured to the unused page of my journal by a rubber band, a small water bottle is balancing on one of the mixing trays and my right hand along with supporting my book is holding other brush, pen and a tissue/napkin. I sometimes use a waterbrush if in a hurry or if I want to do a full spread.

Of course Borromini is still on the scene sketching whenever he can – or at least posing for pictures!

So stay tuned for more sketches from Sydney....

081119 November Virtual Sketch Date

My second month of participating in the Virtual Sketch Date – I found this photo quite hard and not sure what to do with all the shadows on the tree trunk. I am also just getting to know a completely new type of paper as well... Ah! Having fun as usual!

http://virtualsketchdate.blogspot.com

081118 EDM198 Noodles

Although I have drawn a lot of food this year, I did try to avoid drawing noodles- they are SO hard!

081115 Big Sketching day

A big sketching day today – I filled 14 pages (7 double spreads) of my sketchbook ...I was hoping to finish it soon but wasn’t sure if I would do it in one day.

Met up with a sketching group at the Chinese Gardens in the centre of the city.
A combination of trying to draw too much, too fast and then a few more successful details.

I then headed up to the Art Gallery...Trying to sketch impressionist paintings with a handful of watercolour pencils is a brand new challenge to me... fairly ordinary little sketches but I got so much out of doing them and was lots of fun. Nice to have an excuse to sit and sit in front of some Monets!

And finally finished the day and my book off with a super quick (under 2 minutes) sketch of the skyline as seen from the front of the Art Gallery

081111 Catching up of a few EDM Challenges

Haven’t done one for ages – so here are two. This week’s challenge and what I thought was last week’s - only to find out that last weeks was draw a rope not a fork! So this week and the week before last!

081108 Birthday Party

Another page made up of fragments... This one created from presents at my nephew’s birthday party – the all important chocolate cake, a book with its own railway track and wind-up train and some star wars lego!

081107 A great way to end a busy week

One of the classic views of Sydney is just 10 minutes drive from my work, without too much peak hour traffic, parking available (and not too expensive)... What a great place to come to sketch and wind down after a busy week at work....
Although a very dull, grey afternoon there was the excitement of a large ship going out. I put money in the parking meter to last me for an hour and 6 pages later it was time to go!

081105 Unite 3

Another two pages of the various elements that make up the amazing roofscape. I love trying to work out what is really going on from photos... How then to adequately record my exploration graphically?? And then a super quick sketch to finish off the exercise.

081103 Unite Roofscape_2

Ok, here we go... This roofscape is truly amazing – well I think so anyway. Please bear with me as I go into raptures about the work of Le Corbusier. But just for the record, I will admit that much of his work is not pretty (many would say plain ugly) but compositionally and spatially there is much to learn.

I got my squirrel brush out tonight(first time for a long time) so it is a rather watery watercolour job.

081101 Le Corbusier Masterpiece

This is going to be one of the 101 buildings when I get to more modern times (maybe building 60-something?) but I came across this plan in my recycle paper pile during the week at work and am now going to go on a little exploration of the roofscape of this amazing building.

I have been thinking about the page/pages for a number of days and tonight just decided to bash into it and get it done... A page is better attempted than never started.

Stay tuned for more sketches during next week.

081101 Drawing Mack

My friends little 3 year old boy spent the day playing with his lego Mack truck – so I decided to draw it. First attempt I totally ruined it with murky watercolour shadows, 2nd version I gave to my friends and then as I intended to remove my first attempt from sight did a 3rd version. I then tried to recover my first version with some watercolour pencilwork over the top... Overworked but here it is.
Nick also did 2 versions for me....