Edinburgh Castle by zoom.

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Urban sketchers Stoke-on-Trent are holding weekly virtual visits to places we cannot go to at the moment. This week it was Edinburgh Castle.

About fifteen of us joined a zoom meeting to draw scenes from the castle and its grounds. We use Google to find the images to draw.

In my case I was late joining, and there was only a short time for me to draw before our throw down, that’s where we all get together to show our art, and to take pictures for a joint photograph of the results.

I’m not sure where we are going next week. But I’m enjoying these virtual visits.

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Another drawing

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Today’s #uskstoke challenge, day 13, Friday, back gate / door. As I don’t have a back gate these  are  reflections and distortions in the window of my back door. I hope you can see my hands and the black sketchbook reflected in the frosted glass. (it it frosted or patterned?). Anyway it’s quite difficult to draw your hands while you are drawing. They tend to move about, so this is more of an impression.

Some of the colour is outside, some inside. I think the patch of red and orange above my hands might be my face? I know the sketchbook is too small, bit it was difficult to see where the book ended and my cardigan started….

The oak tree in the kitchen.

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The oak tree in the kitchen… Hubby planted an acorn in with a Christmas cactus plant on the kitchen windowsill. The cat in the drawing is a big doorstop that we have put on the window sill.. Must find somewhere to plant the tree before it gets too big…. I have a friend who owns some land in the countryside. When this is all over I’m going to give her this little sapling together with some baby walnut trees.

This was for day 12 of the Stoke-on-Trent Urban sketchers new challenge. Lots more to go!

Bread making, USK S-O-T challenge.

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Making not made! I found some rye flour and half a pack of yeast in the cupboard. Hubby and I both worked on it. Really tough to knead. We added porridge oats because it was too squidgy and I’d run out of flour. It’s taking time to rise but hopefully it will be OK… X

Update, cooked OK its a bit doughy in the middle. Not bad. Had some hot with butter.

I did the drawing as today’s challenge was something you’ve made for the urban sketchers new challenge. It’s black ink pen in my A5 cartridge paper sketchbook.

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A task I love

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Urban sketchers Stoke-on-Trent new challenge, a task you love.

I am trying to plant up hanging baskets, but I only have a few plug plants, and a bit of compost to put them in.

Luckily some of my plants overwintered and are regrowing, so I have a few fushia plants, a lobelia, and some trailing plants with pale purple flowers that is in this basket. I’ve put a few begonias in the pot hanging below it.

I put one basket under another to get a tiered effect. Usually these are full of plants, now I’ve done two with tumbler tomatoes which you put in baskets and as they grow they hang down for picking.

Yes these are tasks I love. X

Trafalgar Square

Today for our virtual sketching visit we drew Trafalgar square in London.

Every weekend Stoke-on-Trent Urban Sketchers chooses a venue to draw from and this week was a view of Trafalgar Square with the National gallery and one of the famous lions in the foreground. The image was taken from Google maps and each sketcher drew it or another view of it. There were about ten artists drawing and sketching or using ink pens, some of them were using watercolours too. At the end we had a throw down (a digital view of all the drawings). An enjoyable couple of hours.

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Digital urban sketch

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Today’s challenge for usk Stoke was to draw my favourite footwear.

I don’t own many pairs of shoes. I’ve got these banana yellow ones, but I haven’t worn them in yet.

This drawing was done on an app called ArtRage. I got the pro version last year as a birthday present.

The drawing is difficult because the colours mix on screen and it’s a bit like painting in liquid butter with a stick, as I was using a stylus. I found getting the size of pens, pencils, or brushes hard, as the size goes from very small, to smallish!

Anyway after faffing about for a while I managed to get a reasonable representation.

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Cupboard, USK S-O-T challenge day 6.

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DAY 6 in the new Urban sketchers Stoke-on-Trent challenge. I used gold glitter and purple pen to cheers this up. I should have let the glitter paint dry. It clogged up my 0.5 ink pen. I used permanent black and purple pens to draw and add shade…. Noticed I’ve got a lot of egg cups and extra mugs tucked away in there.

“Cupboard” isn’t the most inspiring subject, so instead of drawing cans I decided to draw crockery, pots, glasses and egg  cups.
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