Quick sketches (life drawings)

Posted on July 2, 2022 Posted in Fine Art, Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Drawing, Fine Art, ink fine line pen, Life drawing, Model, Pencil crayons, Sketching4 Comments

Warning contains nudity.

A ten minute and fifteen minute sketch I recently completed at a life drawing group a few weeks ago. Looking at them now I can see that the details are not correct, but not too bad. The leg lengths on the second sketch are definitely too short. You can see how I tried to extend them a bit. When you draw a figure it’s a good idea to work out where to place the head. If you are too low on the page you run the risk of losing the lower half of the figure as in the first, ten minute sketch. But these were swift sketches, drawn on pale brown Ingres paper which is suitable for the mid tones then drawn in black ink fine line pen and shaded with pencil crayons.

One thing I hate with life studies is when artists leave the head off. Especially when it’s a female study. To me, they may not be able to draw facial features, but by leaving the head off it makes the figure look more like a slab of meat, disturbing and disrespectful of the female model.

Weight on the fence.

Posted on July 2, 2022July 2, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Colours, Fence, Fun, Gardening, Hanging baskets, Plant, Planting, pots, SummerLeave a comment

The trouble with attaching hanging baskets to the fence is that as they grow and get heavier with watering it starts to bend. It’s quite a strong trellis but I think it will need replacing in a couple of years.

The wall the fence is attached to is the same old bricks the house is made of with curved coping stones on the top to keep moisture out of the centre of the wall.

Each basket has many different plants crammed in them, then there are a series of smaller baskets with single species in them. There are individual pots balanced on the top of the wall and lots of them on the ground below. Planting up pots requires a balance of compost with crocks (broken pottery) in the bottom of the pots so they have drainage, but then I usually place a saucer or a bowl underneath to catch the water so that it doesn’t dry out. We have a hose pipe so we can water everything regularly.

Tour time

Posted on July 2, 2022 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Doodle, Drawing, endurance, Sketching, three weeks, Tour de France, TV coverage, Yellow JerseyLeave a comment

Over the next three weeks the Tour de France is taking place. Its an annual bike race like the Giro D’Italia or the Vuelta d’Espania and on a slightly smaller scale the Tour of Britain.

These bike races challenge cyclists of the world to race their way round mountains and plains, to fight their way through crowds and over gruelling roads. In heavy rain, even snow, or sweltering heat.

So many well known names in the cycling world have held the Malliot Jeun (yellow Jersey) such as Eddie Mercxx, Geraint Thomas and Chris Froome for example. I hope I’ve spelled their names properly. It’s certainly a spectacular sports event. There is a lot of expensive equipment and amazing feats of endurance (plus some drug scandals). I’m looking forward to the final day on the Champs Elyssais In Paris (pardon my spelling).

Cat coming in

Posted on July 2, 2022 Posted in Cat, UncategorizedTagged Black and white cat, Cat, Coming in, Friends, Happy cats, summer afternoon, three, Tuxedo catLeave a comment

Head up, he sees me. Murrup, purr, miaow he says in greeting. Coming in for a bit of food and a drink. Sometimes he sits next to me and reaches his paws out. Just touching my hand on the arm of the chair. He’s saying hello, I’m here. Sometimes he curls up between us and goes to sleep. Then another cat comes in, looks up lovingly. This one jumps up on my knee and starts kneading and poddling with sharp claws. He settles on my leg next to the big cat, he’s medium sized and slightly older than the first. Finally she comes in, claws up into my leg, stretching and yawning, a little nervous around my hubby, dodging his hand but then head butting mine. Three cats, love them all.

Back yard

Posted on July 2, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Back yard, Colours, Flowers, Fun, Gardening, Plants, sun trap, Sunshine, urban gardening, ViewLeave a comment

Looking back down the backyard. It was lovely to get out in the sunshine for a few minutes. I decided to take a photo from near our living room window towards the back of the yard which has an overgrown hedge and Russian vine growing through it. Our yard is a sun trap and the hanging baskets and plants are getting very blousy! I must admit we cram a lot in every year.

Growling!

Posted on July 2, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, Dragon, Fed up, Pottery, saucer, stomach, Tired, unwellLeave a comment

I’m trying to find a gentle way of explaining how I am feeling today. My stomach is growling like a dragon in a bowl!

I don’t know what caused it, but I did put some slightly ‘off’ milk on my porridge a couple of days ago because I thought it tasted OK. One of the problems of losing my sense of smell several years ago means my taste perception is not very good. For instance I can’t smell burnt toast. And I wish I could smell the scent of night scented stock. Its so long since I really smelt flowers properly….

Anyway, I’m babbling on, ignore me! Stomach cramps make me feel fed up (pun intended). Hope the dragon calms down soon, I think I will have a nap.

Window

Posted on July 1, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blackbird, Garden, Heart, Life, Photo, Poem, Poetry, Summer, Symmetry, WindowLeave a comment

I see all ways

Up, down, side to side

A window on the world

No where to hide.

Flying through space

Into the distance

Blackbird swoops

Sings and spirals

In joy and love.

Like my heart

In the summer

Like a butterfly

Fluttering.

Part of my book

Posted on July 1, 2022 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Book, final project, hope to publish?, Illustration, ma, picture book, swimming dragon4 Comments

I’m not going to share my whole story, but I thought I would show you a couple of pages of my Swimming Dragon book now I’ve passed my MA in illustration. I wanted to do a children’s book with the story pages looking like black and white lino cut prints and the opposite pages in full colour patterns that could represent dragon scales or other ideas. The idea was to give children a look at abstract, complex art and pattern, together with an adventurous storyline that would lead them through the book. I want to try and get a spark of creativity released through the book. I hope this makes sense. I hope I can work out a way of publishing it.

A pumpkin

Posted on June 30, 2022July 1, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Black and white, Black and white photo, files, optimisation, Photo, polka-dots, PumpkinLeave a comment

Just a black and white photo of a pumpkin on a polkadot tablecloth. It’s come up on my gallery because I decided to clear some of the older photos on my phone and to optimise them because the files are too big… Now I’ve got over a thousand pictures in my June 2022 file, and they are all mixed up! Ideally I need to go through ll my files and delete all the old unwanted ones, but I’m too attached to them. Plus I’m seeing images I haven’t seen for over two years!

It might rain

Posted on June 30, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Brown, Clouds, Cold, Grey, Hail, Rain, Sky, Summer, Sunset, Thunderstorms, Weather, WetLeave a comment

The skies gone a dirty grey brown colour and the forecast is for heavy rain showers or even thunderstorms. The sun won’t be setting for at least another hour, but as they say round here ‘its gone dark over Bill’s mums!’ in other words it’s going to rain soon! In fact as I write this I can hear raindrops drumming against the window. It did try and hail earlier on and there were little grains of ice on the car windscreen.