Courses & Sketch Hub

I enjoyed this technique. It did make it easier to draw a complicated “object” In general I enjoyed technique week. Thank you Irene for introducing some new drawing

techniques to

Blind contour (with two little cheats lol). I have done blind contour several times and I really like it even though it is usually extremely wonky. I even did a blind contour self portrait that funny enough captures my look better than self portraits I have really worked on.

but I just went with it lol. I decided to leave it a negative space sketch so I did not fill in the bike. It was intereting experience but once afain it was hard to keep my eyes onnthe negative space and not draw the object instead. Need to practice this technique also

All I can say is -

HAHAHA . This poor girl. If she only knew what we were doing with her image!

I’ve never tried this before although I have seen artists doing this on Insta. And it is as hard as it looks but super fun. Irene Thanknyiu fir introducing this !

Has anyone started 'technique week' yet? This week I share five different sketch techniques - from the super messy scribble technique (see the face) to the grit technique (in red pencil)

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to share a little glimpse into what I’ve been working on lately.

In the creative community, we’ve been playing with patterns over the past couple of weeks. We explored ocean-inspired designs, and last night we created some beautiful peacock feather pieces. It has been such a joy to see how differently everyone approaches the same idea.

Over in the Sketch Hub, we’ve been taking a slightly different direction. Rather than focusing on a specific subject like an animal or a plant, we are exploring a range of sketching techniques next week. Each day we practise a different approach, which has been really refreshing and, I think, quite freeing. The bicycle study using negative space will be available from Monday.

I truly love seeing all your creations. It has also been wonderful to see what many of you are making as part of Sketchbook Revival. Please…

I felt like some color so I drew on a background of scribbles with my Tombow markers and drew with a colored fineliner. Not sure I am satisfied with the result, but here it is.

I stuck with pencil because I was afraid lol. But it really did help to just think of this as shapes, not a child. When I realized that the think by her head was a hood, I really struggled with it.

I was totally lost about trying to make the beak look 3D and my eyes are too big and too far apart. I found this week’s fluffy baby animals very difficult lol. I hope next week is flower or some inanimate still life lol. Something without mouth and eyes.

My table spread is not quite as busy as the reference photo, but I really enjoyed the bouquet (yes to Flower Week lol) . Like Jane, my candle is a a precarious angle, ready to topple over onto the bouquet. Maybe because it is at the far left of the page so I subconsciously drew it leaning toward the center?

I wanted to add the folds in the tablecloth, but I could not think of how to do it with hatching and not have it just looking like scribbles

Hmm I am struggling with the Easter prompts. It may be a combo of drawing animals I have never drawn before plus the stress of preparing for a big overseas

trip later this week. As with the lamb, I drew twice. First real loose with pencil then in ballpoint over the main shapes (square for head and circle for body) drawn in pencil. Not very satisfied with either, but here they are.

My first lamb in ink was a mess lol, so I

tried again in pencil with blending stump. The pencil version looks more like a fawn or doe than a lamb. Maybe the placement of the eyes is off for a lamb? I can get the overall body shape, but I am still struggling with the shading….

I was doing okay until I tried to add shading to the neck. Looks like this horse has some massive main like a lion or something lol. But I enjoyed trying to capture the gesture of the rearing horse. I also am happy with the head .

Maybe I am getting a little more confident in my proportions of a horse head lol.

Hello everyone,

A little extra treat for you this week. As it is a long weekend, I have made next week’s sketches available today rather than waiting until Monday.

Find the Sketch Hub Videos here

I thought some of you might enjoy getting started over the weekend and having a bit of creative time with the Easter theme.

So if you are in the mood to draw, you can dive straight in.

Enjoy, and I cannot wait to see what you create

Ran out of space so the neck is too short, but okay for a quick sketch.

Foal - i used water soluble graphite pencil, but honestly I did not enjoy it, not on this paper (royal talens sketchbook). Then I tried to “fix” it with regular pencil did not work well on the semi wet paper. But I like the drawing itself well enough.

Final shell. I was a little intimidated by the complexity.

In the sketch Hub tomorrow

Final eye I enjoyed this week. I think my favorite was the reptile eye.

I think I keep doing something incorrectly. Many of my posts just seem to disappear I apologize if this already posted somewhere. But here is my cat’s eye.

This was fun. Once again I really enjoyed

creating texture lol.

This really was abstract for me. I have seen a horse in real life maybe 4 times and never looked at the eye that up close. So I had no reference for what I was drawing.

That was more difficult than it seemed with a looong ugly stage lol. I kept working on my proportions so it didn’t look bulging. And I will admit I did use my eraser to remove lines to get better roundness. Overall I’m happy with it .

Quick sketch of the jade plant on my terrace to round out the week of cacti and succulents. It looks like a plant, but I’m not sure it looks like a jade plant lol,

This was harder than it seems. I think part of the problem is that my ballpoint pen has too big of a point for those skinny “branches”. I do like the texture on my “trunk” though. I am really looking forward to the eyes. I struggle with eyes but a week of eyes should help me improve lol.

I bought a blending stump. It really does make smudging easier. Over these past few weeks I realized I really enjoy creating patterns/texture. The repetition really is soothing.The fourth succulent

I started to shade in the leaves, but ai preferred them with less shading and my pen kept making blobs. So I stopped at this stage.

Second cactus

First cactus

Good morning everyone, I hope you had a lovely weekend.

These are my sketches for this weeks sketch hub:

and I’m also working on a new course: colourful pencil portraits. This is a sneak peek:

The perspective is a bit off, and I am struggling with random ink blobs, but I an enjoying shading with ball point.

It’s fun to try to make everyday objects look special with shading. Of course this is only working because the subjects themselves are simple shapes, relatively speaking.

Interesting experiment. I love the color of this fountain pen ink but only for writing because it is not waterproof So it was fun to exploit its one “fault” lol. definitely need to work on my waterbrish control. Water kind of dripped so the top of my wheelbarrow look like it was eaten by rust!

I had a lot of fun trying to shade these with my ballpoint pen. I changed pens because I read that it is easier to control ink flow (and therefore get lighter lines) with a stick ballpoint instead of the click ball point I had been using. To me the shading on the left side of my shovel is not quite right. it doesn’t seem to go in on that side. Maybe my shadow is not quite dark enough? Ideas? Or is it just me being critical?

I’ve had a Pentel brush pen for years but have never used it because it is so hard to control. So I dusted it off and tried again. Still hard to control lol.

Not my best, but okay for a first try/quick sketch. Definitely a subject I would not have attempted before. The negative space approach helped though I still ended up with wonky proportions 🤪

Still loving drawing tigers. No idea why lol. But I do know that I enjoy outlining the stripes. Go figure. I will be sorry to see the tigers finished. I think a good follow up would be giraffes - spots and long necks, what’s not to like? 🤣

Tigers are really hard! I ran out of room on the page for his chin and neck, but since they were hard to see in the reference photo, that’s okay.

Glad I came back to tiger week. Hard but fun.

I like how the eye turned out on this one.

Hmmm looks a bit crazed lol

I always find pencil (and charcoal) easier with smudging because I really struggle with creating volume with hatching. So this tree in pencil was easier for me than the previous tree in ball point pen. Also I found it easier to not get totally lost in all the branches . Maybe I am (finally) getting better at handling complex items.

I like my acorn better. 😆

I enjoyed drawing the buds at different angles, but it just doesn’t have the glow of the leaf in the photo.

I really struggled with this, but I promised myself I would share the good, the bad, and the ugly lol. So here it is. I think my least favorite so far. I got really lost when ai tried to add foliage, so I stopped lol.

Not sure it looks like bark but I enjoyed creating the textures

Something not quite right in the perspective . it looks like it is face toward us, other than the feet which are moving away from us. A contortionist chicken lol

I’m ready for my close-up Mr. DeMille lol.

I’ve discovered I enjoy drawing chickens

A hairy short neck chicken lol