New paintings and regular art updates.
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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Urban sketchers Stoke-on-Trent day 5, draw inside your shed or garage.
Where do I start. In my case our shed has had all the tools expelled to the outer darkness of our little shed. Instead some rickety pasting tables have been put up. The tops are covered with boxes, lengths of train track, bits of trains, engines, train trucks, stuff…. Plus he’s got different controllers to send power through the tracks. The pasting tables are so warped it’s like the trains are running through hills!
Then he’s got his bike bits, wheels, and a box that the stray cat sleeps in, which is surrounded with bags of straw… I’m allowed in as long as I don’t mess with anything… In the meantime he wants to upgrade things when the lockdown is over. We are going to buy some better tables. Exciting eh?
Today’s challenge was breakfast. Unfortunately I’m setting the challenges and I didn’t get up till almost noon! When I finally did break my fast it was two pm. Apologies to any vegetarians out there. But I’ve got to say bacon butties really taste nice when you are hungry.
My drawing was with a black felt pen, then coloured in with blue, red, brown, yellow, green and purple felt pens. The USK challenge is getting a few participants, its enjoyable to draw every day and having set themes makes you think!
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Try drawing a speedy cat, and include the background. Our challenge today was to draw something we love. In my case its one of our cats. She likes balancing with her front paws on the airer I use for washing, and her back paws on the cat tree. The result is a bit wibbly-wobbly.
I haven’t done an exact portrait, but that’s because she keeps moving, unless she’s curled up in a tight ball. Her brother is a bit quiet at the moment. He’s been enjoying sleeping on the windowledge upstairs in the sun.
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We all agreed after completing the thirty day challenge that London Urban Sketchers had put together that we would like to continue. We have a new list of about 37 challenges, which may well see us out of the lockdown.
Today’s challenge was ‘local to you’.
I was going to draw all the lovely terraces up the hill behind us. But I failed to realise how much next doors bushes have grown. So this is the cat and the 70’s houses behind us. Then someone walked into the bedroom opposite. It was like a scene from the film ‘rear window’ so I retreated!
I have the list somewhere. I’m setting the daily challenges. A few people have joined in so far.
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A sketch of the inside of the Liverpool metropolitan cathedral. This is the Catholic one. There is also an Anglican one. This was our Saturday ‘sketch out’ with urban sketchers Stoke-on-Trent.
We did this on Zoom again, although I couldn’t remember how to log on. So although I could see people talking and hear them I could not interact. I decided to sketch it quickly as I was late to the conversation. I tried using blocks of strong colour. The lighting in the cathedral is bright and colourful. This image was taken off Google maps as we are not allowed to visit these places yet.
The urban sketchers challenge (Stoke-on-Trent) has just finished. We had to do quick three minute sketches each hour to show how our day had gone. I didn’t see the days challenge until just after two, because I got up late. Its amazing how fast an hour goes when you have to document it. And my day was more varied than I thought it would be considering I didn’t do any gardening today. I finished at midnight. Tomorrow we are doing a sketch through Zoom, the meeting app, of Liverpool cathedral. I might try and do a drawing of it. If I get up in time!
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That was today’s USK challenge, draw something that adds flavour. Trouble was I’m getting low on tasty stocks, the strongest thing in the cupboard was English Mustard.
There was vinegar, soup, custard powder, a hot drink mix, pilchards, sardines and tuna in there together with the mustard. I think there were probably some lentils in there too.
Funny what you realise you’ve got. It should keep us going for a few more days.
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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!
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.
Mallaband-Brown