Lemon
Colored pencils again today.
I used yellow and the complementary color purple to give the lemon structure and highlights. With the light coming from above, the highlights are strong on the top and cast a strong shadow.
Progressing
I was hesitant to draw today. I had the pressure and negative energy of failure. I was procrastinating because my drawing wouldn’t be good and would frustrate me. The opposite happened; I am one drawing closer to improving my skills. 1% improvement daily. I will improve my drawing by drawing.
What do you want to improve, but you are generating friction and procrastination?
Blind Contour by Feel
Today’s exercise was a blind contour by feel selfie. You place your finger on your nose, move around your face, and have your hand follow along. I like how my eyes are aligned and feel confident with my lines.
Another interesting exercise to develop confidence in my lines.
Blind Contour Drawing
Back to basics today.
I’m starting the Six-week Art Bootcamp class at Sketchbook Skool. This course is exciting. We start with pen and pencil on paper and work with colored pencils and watercolors.
Fun and exciting. I am looking forward to it. Today we completed a blind contour drawing. This technique is where you look at the subject only and let your hand follow your eyes.
I heard an excellent comment from author Neil Gaiman about writing in a new book, which is equally relevant to a new sketchbook. Remember, everything can be fixed except for a blank page. Draw on!
Eyes Have It
After a break for health reasons, I am back working on and enjoying drawing. The next chapter of my Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain book course is portraits. The first section deals with proportions and precisely where the eyes fall o the skull.
Interestingly the eyes fall equidistant from the top of the head to the bottom of the chin. So even though our eyes (left brain) challenge this thought, it is accurate.
Today’s sketch is a basic shell with the axis and horizon drawn in on both the front and profile views of the head. I was getting comfortable with the placement of the eyes.
The Office Corner
Today’s sketch focuses again on the perspective skill. Using the picture plane, I drew my Basic Unit (the Formula One photography on the left of the corner) on my picture plane and then transferred that to my shaded paper.
From there, I drew the remaining elements. I’m happy with how I could draw the view to scale and didn’t run out of space on the page. Most everything in the view was captured to scale.
1% improvement!
Inked Up
Today’s sketch is my recent fountain pen ink bottle and box. I wanted a subject to work on perspective and depth with both the square and round shapes. Still working on that bottle top shape – still too round.
The good news is that my images are not leaning as much as earlier as I focus on the landmarks and perspective. Making progress.
The Office Printer
Today I was working on straight lines and the depth of my subject and trying to get consistent lines to show the three dimensions of my printer.
This is harder than it looks. I’m generally happy with my progress, but something I will continue to work on.
My morning coffee mug
I am starting to get consistent overall balance and perspective and don’t see the lean I did in my other drawings. I will try and capture review notes right on the drawing in the future. Not to be too critical but to provide learning points as I move forward.
Self Portrait
So I have some work to do on my realistic sketching skills. Interesting how this benchmark sketch, along with my hand and person from memory, indicates where my drawing skills currently are.
This self-portrait is a data point, not a criticism of where my skills are currently. I am only concerned with improving against myself, not comparing myself to others.
I’m the only one on my journey.
Takeaway Coffee Cup
Today is a different take on the coffee cup – the takeaway coffee cup. My focus was on capturing the roughness of the sleeve and the overall shape. So why do my drawings lean to the right?
Any ideas or thoughts?
I’m enjoying the process and seeing improvements in my drawings over the past month.