Didn’t have the time on Friday night to sketch for long, nor post, so it’s a day late. So this is the not-so-great result. That said, it’s still practice, albeit under the influence of a couple of cocktails and being very sleepy. The real merit of this sketch is that it was done one handed b/c this is my actual left hand as the model. Might come back to this one some day soon to see how it can be improved. Its ugly, but it was fun to do.
Always fun to try and sketch something white using black graphite. This white magnolia flower is from my backyard last summer. The bees were having a field day. I decided to add them into the sketch last minute and I’m glad they did. I just wanted to see how hard it would be to include a few bees, but they ended up adding improved depth to the sketch. After sketching this flower I’ve decided to add it to my painting lineup, probably using a painting knife to add cool texture.
The darker shading was done using a 2B with light pressure. Everything else is an HB.
Today’s sketch is one of my dogs, Boom, curled into his comfy dream ball position. Always amazes me that a 60 pound dog can curl up like this. This is a 20 minute sketch done from the couch. I had to go fast because despite how soundly he sleeps, mind you he’s deaf, he has a creepy sixth sense that tells him when he’s being stared at. Invariably, when I try to draw him, he always moves before I have enough on he paper to improvise. Tonight, however, he waited long enough for me to get the outline down, after which he only moved his head a few times.
Boom is all black, so the use of hair direction and basic values was important to make this work. I’m happy with it as a quick sketch b/c it really captures the essence of Boom curled in a ball. I tried this a year ago and it didn’t go well, which reminded me that it can be rewarding to go back to an old subject and see if it’s easier the second time around.
The outline was done with an HB pencil; everything else was 2B.
The use of “SAD” for Sketch-A-Day is, well, sad. Therefore, renaming this quest for 30 days of consecutive drawings to “Daily Sketch”.
Had more time today to tackle a slightly complicated sketch. Still not worrying about completing a final composition, working quickly, and focusing on the skills development that daily discipline can bring.
The storm clouds is another painting subject for later this year. It’s going to be a great exercise in the impact of value scales. I’ve included a reference photo this time so you can see how much further this has to go, but despite the incompleteness, the gist is already apparent. I spent about 90 minutes on this today, which is a little disheartening b/c it doesn’t look like much was done, but a lot happened in that time. Used all my pencils – HB, 2B, 4B, and 8B. Also used blending sticks and the gummy eraser to get some cloud effects.
While I didn’t get this sketch to the point of realism, I feel confident that I can get it there eventually. I love sketching b/c it can move so fast, but it can be unforgiving in a piece like this as the incessant shading and value blending can do a number on the paper and smooth it out too much to allow for fixing mistakes.
Apologies for the poor photo quality. Sketch time was short today. This is a future painting project, so wanted to use SAD as a way to start gauging the composition. There is a very light reflection in the water, but nowhere near the time commit today to do anything more than a squiggly outline of the carousel in the water.
