Tag: practice

Sketching and Sktchy

Posted on by YvonneB

The weather has been atrocious all over the Christmas period – sometimes the wind was gusting to over 70mph and the rain was torrential. This all meant that I didn’t want to leave the house but was a bit fed up with practising my drawing by sketching the teapot or the pepper grinder for the umteenth time. I have a friend that has been doing a 365 day challenge during 2016 – and she was drawing/sketching a face every day on a post-it note and used the Sktchy app for continous inspiration.

The idea of the app is that people upload photos (of themselves or their friends or families) and the artists in the Sktchy community use the photo for inspiration for a drawing or painting (using real not virtual media, though some do use drawing apps). There are some amazing artists on there! Also a whole variety of experiences from raw beginners just starting out to professional artists/illustrators with years of experience.

Everyone is really friendly and encouraging so I plucked up courage to add a few that i’d done (I first downloaded the Sktchy app back in July 2016).

I have to say i’m not the best at faces – I have terrible trouble getting the eyes right, in one of the following pictures I made such a hash of it that I ended up collaging an eye in… Anyway, I’ve had fun and hopefully as time goes by my portraits will improve!

 

75 Day Ink sketch Challenge

Posted on by YvonneB

Finally got around to compiling the results of my attempt at the 75 Day Ink sketch Challenge.

This is a challenge that was started by artist Brenda Swenson who was one of the amazing teachers at Sketchbook Skool during 2014.

The rules are simple: No preliminary pencil sketch just dive straight in with ink, no erasing, just do it!

I believe I have pushed the rules somewhat as most times I added colour after i’d completed the ink drawing. Colour was added using a variety of media – most often watercolour but at other times Inktense pencils, coloured pencils, spray inks and a little glitter every now and then…

My personal challenge started, very tentatively, on the 19th July 2014 and ended on the 1st October 2014. I really enjoyed the challenge and although didn’t have much confidence when I started but the time the end came around, although I don’t feel that my drawing improved much, I was much more likely to tackle subjects that I never would have dreamed of tackling when I started.

Sketchbook Skool – Beginnings – Week 4

Posted on by YvonneB

The teacher this week for Beginnings was Jane LaFazio and in her demo she showed us the process that she goes through – how she selects what she wanted to draw, doing a rough pencil sketch then adding pen and finally watercolour. Jane loves to work in mixed media, including stitchwork and she talked us through some of her sketchbooks. Our homework was to create a grid drawing. Jane suggested fruit or vegetables but we’d had a beautiful sunny day and there were a lot of butterflies in the garden, especially on the Buddleia which is fully in flower (and unlikely to stay that way here – the wind and the salty air soon knocks the blooms down).

Sketchbook skool jane la fazio

I drew the 9 x 9 grid first then pencilled in the basic shapes of what I wanted to draw. Once i’d done that I used a fine line pen and added colour using Inktense Pencils. Jane had suggested using black for the grid but I thought that would be too harsh and detract from the flower and butterflies so I used some diluted watercolour. I used this drawing for the #DrawingAugust Challenge too. My mum has already asked me if she can have it to put on her wall…