Today’s draw, something old, something new.

Posted on April 15, 2020April 15, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged #uskstoke, Art, Cherry blossom, Drawing, Garden, Ivy, Old and New, Plants, Sketching, Spring View, Urban sketchers Stoke on trent2 Comments

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Sketch of new cherry blossom and old Ivy. It was black and white, drawn in uni pin 0.1,0.5, and 0.8 fine line black ink pens ( made by mitsubishi). On A4 paper. USK Stoke-on-Trent 30 day challenge. Day 27…. ! Really? Where has that gone?

Once I’d finished I decided to use a couple of green permanent markers to define where the ivy and other vegetation was. This had the effect of making the blossom more visible.

I’m pleased with the result. I hope the blossom all turns into cherries. We get them from the bottom half of the tree, the birds get the top half!

Close-up

Posted on April 14, 2020April 14, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged #uskstoke, Apple, Art, Cartridge paper, Charcoal, Colours, Crayon, Design, Drawing, Illustration, Ink pen, Permanent markers, Sketch, Sketch book, Urban sketchers Stoke on trent2 Comments

I just thought I would show you a close-up of the apple I drew today, so you can see the effect of layering up pencil crayon and permanent marker, black ink pen, and charcoal pencil. I enjoyed using fine lines to define the shadows. I was going to leave a patch if white paper as a highlight on the apple, but when I looked at it, it was to white. So I used orange, red and pink permanent markers to try and make the apple stand out. Using different colours and textures is really exciting, it makes the image less flat. But I’m not trying to make it 3d either.

Setting up a still life.

Posted on April 14, 2020April 14, 2020 Posted in Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Art, College, Looking, Melamine?, Metallic plastic, Oil on board, Painting, Setting up, Still life, Tin cansLeave a comment

These are a few pictures I took when I was at college. They are pictures of objects I considered to turn into still lives. I finally did a painting based on the shiny plastic melanin? These pictures were taken almost forty years ago in my studio. The final one is oil paint on board. In one corner if you look closely is the painting of a hill covered in terraced houses that I did a copy of recently.

It’s good finding an old sketchbook with old hotis. It reminds me of what I was doing then. I also found pictures of old friends. I might post a couple of photos of them.

Stay safe and do Art!

Keeping up

Posted on April 14, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Calm, Email, Life, Old picture, Photo, Relax, Stress, Thought, Time, VirusLeave a comment

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A forty year old photo of a river I took when I was young.

It reminded me to calm down, try and relax, maybe ignore the news for a couple of days and get some rest.

I’ve also had to leave some of the emails I get. I can’t keep up with all the notifications of news. I want to read everyone’s posts, but I have responsibilities that I need to take care of. Even in this mad situation you still have to cope.

So anyway. I hope everyone is doing OK. It’s hard to think of people stuck in their homes. Not allowed out. In lockdown. I imagined that the world was linked and that people would feel each others pain or loneliness. But of course that isn’t true. Otherwise when people in different countries went through famine or disease we would know and help them… But sadly it doesn’t work like that.

An apple a day

Posted on April 14, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged #uskstoke, Apple, Art, Challenge, Drawing, Food, Fruit, Fun, Life, Urban sketchers Stoke on trent, Usk Stoke-on-Trent12 Comments

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USK Stoke day 26 challenge. Eating fruit. So I drew this wrinkly apple, balanced on my easel, then ate it… Not the easel, but the apple.

Drawn with coloured pencil crayons, charcoal stick, black ink pen and permanent marker pens.

I’m now hungry….

Digital galaxy

Posted on April 13, 2020April 13, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Astronomy, Digital drawing, Drawing, Galaxy, Nebula, Past, Sketch Fu, Space, Spiral galaxy, Stars10 Comments

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Another one of my digital drawings on sketchfu. Probably drawn in 2013 before the site closed down. A lot of this is done by using opacity and transparency. There were about seven sizes of pens on the website and a large colour palette and a colour picker and erasers that I think had a varied transparency.

When you do something like this you have to build up from a basic background, layering details, adding more and smaller detail as I go along.

Observation is important. I can excuse slight mistakes, but I try and be as accurate as possible.

I’m interested in astronomy so being able to draw from beautiful images is a real pleasure. I think this either came from a stock image, or somewhere like NASA or ESA, but it’s so long ago…

Black and red sketches..

Posted on April 13, 2020April 13, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Black and red, Blogging, Design, Drawing, Fun, Graphic art, Ideas, Ink, Pattern, Random, Two inch squares8 Comments

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I might be submitting some little black and red drawings to a group exhibition. It’s not something I’ve done before. The work is meant to be two inches square with it being in ink and on white paper.

After drawing the two images on the left side of the paper, I realised there was not enough white and I had used too dark a red in the first one.

I tried to draw the two patterns again, but they didn’t come out as well as I’m still quite tired from staying up too late last night. What do you think? Are they interesting enough?

Day 26 usk challenge

Posted on April 13, 2020April 13, 2020 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #uskstoke, Art, Biro, Daily challenge, Drawing, Ink, Pen, Sketch, Sketching, Urban sketchers Stoke on trent, View through a window12 Comments

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Quick sketch in biro, looking out of our back living room window into the yard. You might be able to see a dream catcher in the window. There’s a lot of brambles out there growing through from next door. But in the summer it’s full of colourful flowers. I usually cut the brambles so only bits with flower buds re left, then I pick the crop when the fruit is ripe sometimes a squirrel comes along and harvests them before I get there!

I had already ordered hanging baskets that generally arrive in June. I hope they still come. Its something to look forward to.

Waiting for it to warm up a bit, then I’ll go outside and do a bit more.

Easter egg photo

Posted on April 13, 2020April 13, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art apps, Easter, Easter egg, Experiment, Flipped, Garden, Helibores, Layout app, Multiple images, Photo, PlantLeave a comment

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My friend made a beautiful picture of some tree branches, she mirrored them (flipped one side to mirror the other) then somehow surrounded the image with a black egg shape which was fuzzy at the edges. It’s beautiful and complicated.

I asked if I could use the idea. But didn’t want to copy. She said yes. So I put two photos of helibores through layout, an app where you can add different pictures together. I had to crop the image in my editing app, I then opened it in another sketching one. I drew an elipse round one side of the image, and freehand filled the background in with black. I used a spray tool so the edges were softened. I made sure to narrow the top half to give it more of an egg shape. Finally I cropped the image so that only half an egg shape was in the image. I went back to layout and duplicated the image. Then I flipped one side over so that there was finally an Easter egg shape on a black background. I don’t know how my friend did hers, but I respect the effort she must have put into it, and I thought I would describe what I had done in case anyone else wants to have a go.

Old digital drawing

Posted on April 12, 2020April 12, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Astronomy, Design, Digital drawing, Drawing, Expressing myself, Fun, SketchfuLeave a comment

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Ten years ago or so I drew this at sketchfu. It’s an astronomer and a sort of face. I wonder sometimes where I get my ideas from. I enjoy astronomy programmes but I guess this started out as a doodle and then I embellished it. This was what I was talking about when I said about being experimental in a previous post, this isn’t controlled. I didn’t have to use ellipses or straight lines. I was not constrained by any rules.

I have a deviant art account and I used to draw in photoshop and post the results there. I might go back to doing that. Using a phone is simple, but it’s limited.

I have drawn so much in my life. I want to continue….

Mallaband-Brown

Author: artbychristinemallabandbrown