Lost lens and Masking tape….

Screaming for help from hubby this morning. I was just cleaning my glasses but with my shaking arm I wobbled and dropped them onto the kitchen floor. I picked them up, but a lens had come out. I tried to find it but having one focused and one unfocused eye didn’t help. Started shouting, but hubby was upstairs and is deaf. I looked all around, the eye with the missing lens closed so I was just looking out of the lens still in my glasses. I moved the fridge back a couple of inches very gingerly and moved the bin, no sign. I shouted some more and went upstairs and woke my hubby. Help! Please help! He came down and straight away found it! Half way down the kitchen under the overhanging base of the sink (how did it get there? Must have skittered across the floor). The lens wouldn’t fit in very well. So.. Tape? I found masking tape, and parcel tape, then a very broad roll of sellotape. I managed to cut a thin strip. The lens is just about in place. I’m going to get the opticians to fix it later…. So of course I decided to illustrate the glasses!

Sister Dora

Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was history. I drew Dorothy Wyndlow Pattison, better known as Sister Dora (16 January 1832 – 24 December 1878), she was a 19th-century Anglican nun and a nurse who worked in Walsall, Staffordshire. She nursed miners after mine disasters. She is known as Walsall’s Florence Nightingale. I remember this statue in the town centre in the 1970’s. One of a very few statues of women in the UK. She died of breast cancer aged 46.

Bluebell walk

We visited Betley Court and walked around the bluebell woods. It’s a private property so it only opens twelve times a year so we were really lucky to get in today. We will go back! It’s on the road from Keele in Newcastle under Lyme towards Nantwich I think. Its in Staffordshire I think (but its really near Cheshire). Its a lovely place. I really love this Spring abundance.

Process

Series of digital finger paintings and photo edit to show how I created the eye drawing in my last post. I used artrage oils to start, then a flood fill in rainbow colours and a black pen and black flood fill in my sketch app. Finally added the texture with a style then grime option in Photodirector.

Finished drawing?

I think this is done. I hope they like it. I’ve tried to get the tones right but it’s hard to get it right. I think I’ve got the features close to how they look on the photo.. I decided not to draw the whole figure as the little boys head would have to be a lot smaller and I’ve tried to simplify the background. Anyway it’s going to it’s new home soon. X

Looking out

I decided to play with a previous drawing. It’s fascinating how you can rotate and reposition images in Instagram filters. You can make parts of the image recede or come forward. And if I’d wanted to I could have blurred the edges of the image. It also allows you to change the colours and contrast, shadows and brightness. Other apps allow you to do other things. The world is your oyster.

Working on a drawing

Portrait of a friends nephew. I’ve just started it using a dark grey pencil crayon. It needs some more work and I will try and include some of the background to make it more cohesive. I need to work on the shading. If I squint my eyes I can work out the tonal range. Clearly the forehead needs darkening on the left hand side. I’ve only got today and tomorrow to finish it!

Blue doodle

Or is it turquoise? Drawn in ArtRage oils. Finger painting on my phone. One of the challenges with drawing on a phone is if you don’t use a stylus (I can’t find mine) and the tools on this app means the colours smear together. I do have ArtRage on my tablet. That’s the pro version with many more tools but my phone is easier to use as it’s not as heavy on my arm.