New paintings and regular art updates.
Sleeping, resting
Eyes tight shut
Gentle snoring
Dreaming but
Soon the first
Dream twitching starts..
His eyebrows furl
His nostrils flare
What thoughts are running
Through his nightmare.
And then
And then
A single sigh
And peace and calm
Take over again.
Sleep
Rest
Relax…
Morphius returns.
I was talking about this last week and I suddenly found a drawing of it in an old sketchbook. This is a Mixte frame which basically has two top tubes that run diagonally down to the centre hub of the back wheel. Some ladies bikes have a single tube running down to the seat tube (where the seat pillar is inserted into the frame). I’m hoping I’ve got the terms right but its been a while since I used them and I may be wrong.
I was and still am in love with this bike. I could cycle really fast on it. I once came off on a lane in Cornwall. I was chasing my boyfriend (now hubby) and a friend, they had cycled off fast and left me behind. They had seen a pile of washed away gravel in the road and were trying to get back to warn me. I came round a corner too fast, hurtled onto the gravel, tried to brake, and ended up flying through the air over the handlebars. My hubby said I did a somersault! I was very badly bruised. Then wehe we got to the ferry to go back across the Tamar the ferryman would only let two of us on the ferry. We turned round and cycled several very painful miles to get to the Tamar Bridge and back to my friends house in Plymouth, Devon….
My favourite occupation at the moment is drawing with anything I can get my hands on. This is with an ink roller. I have drawn with boot polish in the past. I also like black quink ink that splits into blue and brown if you add a bit of water.
At the moment we are doing drawing exercises for college. Doing a single line drawing without looking at the page and we have to draw movement? It’s all about observation. I need to start but have been ill with vertigo…. Oh well, it will happen…
When you draw a face there are lots of tools to help. One I think of is using the width of the person’s eyes. It is not always right but it gives you an idea… All this is approximate…
One eye width between the eyes..
Two eye width for length of nose
Two eye widths for width of mouth
Three eye widths centre of eye to corner of mouth.
And one eye width from bottom of mouth to chin….
One eye width for bottom of nose.
Also if you draw a line down from the centre of the pupil it should hit the corner of the mouth.
Remember, this is just approximate. It depends on the face you are drawing, not measurements. Everyone is different! Also if you look closely faces are lopsided. One side of a face is often bigger than the other!
On my Facebook memories. One of our old cats plus a painting I did of him. I can’t help but notice the similarity between him and our outdoor cat.
Cats come and go, but most of the ones we have had have been black and white ‘tuxedo cats’.
Why? Most of our cats were strays or rescue cats when we got them. Perhaps there is a cat family in the area, maybe they have the same antecedents? Certainly this cat could be the father of our new cat, or related in some way. I’m glad they came to us and sad that we lost this one. He passed away about nine years ago and might have been poisoned by antifreeze. He went missing and when we found him he was already dead. Such a shock. I miss him.
I miss my Mom, its been around ten years since she died, but I often wish I could just phone her up for advice. I did a painting of her in 2008 and I just did this sketch from it. I can see so many mistakes. I need to set an easle up. Trying to draw while holding the painting… Tired arms…
The best thing are her eyes, they are right…
I was passing an antique shop one day when I saw the face of a woman looking back at me from an old cracked and crazed mirror. It’s bronze frame was chipped and pitted with age. The face looked like an old master painting, like a Jacobean lady, with a powdered wig and pale face.
I didn’t know how it was happening but I was drawn inside and paid far too much for it. Minutes later I was walking down the road with a brown paper package under my arm.
That was the beginning of the horror…..
Today’s #30daysketchbookchallenge is the number 7. What could I do? I couldn’t resist doing a quick sketch of the old head judge of Strictly Come Dancing. Len Goodman. His catch phrase was ‘I’ll give it Seven!’
I didn’t have much time to do this so it’s a quick sketch portrait, not forgetting his paddle with the famous 7 on it….
A bit skewiff but fun….
I don’t know how people add backgrounds on zoom calls, but I can’t seem to do it on my pc. But it does intrigue me as sometimes the person seems to melt into the background. I’m this case my friend ended up looking a bit like a green man! I decided to add texture so he was not identifiable and also to crop off his name.
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I do love drawing people, but there is less chance now of finding a subject. So when BBC 4 just showed a half hour interview with Diana Rigg in a programme called Face to Face from 1997? The image of her was full face far away, full face close to and profile images, so her face was fully in view was for approximately ten minutes. It’s a good bit of practice, as if you were drawing from life. The face never stops moving so you have to try and fix where the eyes are, how far apart, how long the nose? And the shape and size of the mouth. Plus the face shape. How long is her chin? How high her cheeks. Trying to see all of the face, not looking too closely at just one bit, so it fits?
Mallaband-Brown