I’ve been waiting with baited breath for the final week of Beginnings, tutored by the amazing and totally whacky Tommy Kane – his videos, as expected, were full of great advice and wise words. Tommy can spend up to 10 hours on a single sketch – crazy! Our homework for the class was to draw our own kitchen – choose a really complex part of the room and go for it. Tommy Kane Illustration Tommy Kane’s Blog I took a couple of days over the drawing and the eventual painting with watercolours and a small addition (as per Tommy) of coloured pencil – probably a total of about 3 to 4 hours. I hadn’t expected to draw past the corner on the right hand side – my original plan was to draw from the oven to the corner. Once I turned the corner everything went to pot and my perspective was way out. My corner plate rack is not actually in the corner and it looks like an elephant trod on my toaster it’s so flat! But I was partly impressed with the final result, wonky and quirky as it is. Every single item is included, every bottle, every cup, every plate. It was very absorbing, even when I was adding the watercolour. So absorbing in fact that I took a swig of my brush-washing water that was in a mug next to my cup of coffee! Bleeuurrgh!! Tommy has a number of rules that he follows when doing detailed drawings like this that I will adopt:-

• Draw in slow motion and really look
• Once the pen hits the paper finish the drawing!

And what did the great man himself have to say about my kitchen drawing?

Yvonne, you have made a gorgeous little masterpiece. Your line work is so delicate and perfect. Your watercolor work is spot on. Your work has great personality to it. I even love the texture of the paper you use. You should be very proud of what you did.

Blushing!