Courses & Sketch Hub

Third shoe on the final leg of my flight. I will blame the wonky perspective on the turbulence lol.

Second shoe drawn on the airplane. only a little shaky from turbulence lol

I am waiting to leave for the airport for a 14 hour flight… This is always a stressful waiting period for me so I saved the shoes. Hoping a little art will help me relax

Still not very loose or splashy, but I added some blooms for texture in the sky. I’m satisfied lol. And I really enjoyed the subject.

Vegitables in line and wash. Not completely satisfied with my composition, something I am working on in general. One of my radishes was too close to my broccoli so it ended up it no leaves and a short stem lol.

I feel like the area above the broccoli need something. Maybe a couple of mushrooms? Ther is already much green there that I didn’t want to put more little leaves.

I do not really use Pinterest, but in the Line and Wash class Irene refers to inspiration photos pinned to her Pinterest board. I searched for “makings and musings” and found something in Pinterest, but for example I am starting the Fruits and Vegitable page in the class and do not find and pinned photos of vegetables. Can someone please post the link here? Or tell me how to find the pics? Thank you

I like my loose tree, the perspective on my chair, and my glowing logs. My fire is too dense and once again I left not enough white. I’m having trouble loosening up and not just painting within the lines. Hopefully by the end of the class…

I am thinking of drawing in some pebbles and rocks in my “dirt” because I had trouble getting a texture with my paint and that is a lot of nothingness. Or should I add some dark

spots with paint when it is dry? esp closer to the front to give this area some interest? I do br feel the grass tufts are enough variety. What do you think?

Another fun and joyful piece from the Line and Wash class. I'm getting the hang of my Pentel brush pen now, although it seems to prefer paper that's smoother than my watercolour paper.

Going away for a few days now so this is my last for now. I have done the show sketches but I'm so unhappy with them I'm not ready to share. Will try again when I get home.

Not sure about the wind blowing the ears and hair, but I think I did pretty good getting the 3/4 perspective for the first time. I think the two eyes actually look like the match and they match the angle of the head.

My version has a slightly thinner face, but I am happy with it. And yes the practice of seeing and drawing the shapes in the head has been very helpful. Also I really like the blob technique used here and that we did during technique week. It helps me see the shapes.

I’m kind of happy with my blooms lol. Drawing the neck and a proportional head was quite a challenge. I’m very glad I started with pencil. Once I got the head and neck done when I found there was not room for as much of the legs I wanted, I just went with deeper water lol.

I found the bulldog fun but challenging perspective, esp with the pentel brush pen. So I tried it three times. I still never got the left (farthest) side of the face right, but I do think the other parts got better. But my favorite is the middle one on scratch paper even thoghbI totally messed up his left ear because of lack of control of my pen. lol.

Line and Wash daisy. Jane I’m catching up with you lol. Actually I decided to spread it out and only do one per day, so you are safe in your lead Jane 😉

Second dog - I think it is big improvement in proportions. And of course I love graphite and smudging.

I just couldn’t seem to do anything right with this one. My drawing is terrible, as if I was back where I started a year ago, and my painting crossed that delicate line between "loose" and "a total mess". Maybe it’s because we had people in the house so I wasn’t concentrating properly, or maybe it's the subject matter, because when I was a child our family had a totally disastrous caravan holiday and I have hated caravans ever since.

Oh well, onwards and upwards. I can see that the next lesson is a Highland Cow and I love those.

What a pity I put my hand in one of the brussels sprouts while it was still wet! And my pepper, well, I don’t know what it looks like but I wouldn’t eat one of whatever it is! But I love the beet and the broccoli!

I just got a brush pen so decided to try the French Bulldog again as a first play with it. Here it is, alongside the first one that I used a fineliner for. I think the brush pen gives it more personality but I'm not getting much ink to the tip yet, does it take a while to work through to the brush?

I’m very excited about dog week. There are a lot of people with dogs at the coffee shop I frequent and so have tried to draw the dogs before, but it was always a mess. I know 5 sketches will not make me an instant expert, but hopefully it will make the subject less intimidating. For some reason the dogs left ear got out of control lol. In purple ball point. so no

erasing.

I am very happy with this. Not sure why lol. I think because usually I get carried away with splattering and this time I think I managed to control myself lol. And I used my pentel brush pen more or less successfully (stilll need LOTS of practice with it). I managed to leave the tips of the flowers white. And I used my liner brush for the first time to make the veins on the petals. So overall successful painting for me because of the progress. And I’m not unhappy with the product either 😊

Last one until Irene creates the new class lol.

I only have one more part of Irene’s lives to inspire me 😪 It’s been a lot of fun playing with acrylic markers. I hope I can find my own inspiration to continue.

I thought it would be fun to work though the Line and Wash class at same time as Jane. I am using a sketchbook whose paper I have never tried before and this turned out a hot mess lol.

I never leave enough white space

More fun with acrylic markers. Very loosely inspired by the grass in Irene’s live.

This was fun being very expressive and dabbing with my acrylic markers. Inspired by the last of Irene’s acrylic marker lives.

I didn’t have a highlighter so I just ended with colored pencil.

It’s just a few days over a year since I signed up to Irene's "Week of art and inspiration ". I was an absolute beginner, I didn’t even own any watercolours and had to create them by scribbling a watercolour crayon onto acetate and picking the colour up with a waterbrush. I couldn’t draw and I couldn’t paint.

Now, after a year of belonging to the community, doing the weekly sessions although I can’t join in live, so I usually do them at the weekend, and doing several of Irene's courses, I am developing my skills and loving all the ideas and inspiration I get here.

The photos are of the very first picture I made for the week of art and inspiration, and of a ducking I drew this week, which drew on the skills I have learned in the coloured pencil course and the pencil lessons we…

It’s been a busy week but I set aside an hour all to myself this morning and had fun doing all five of the dog pictures. They've confirmed that a soft pencil and blending stump are my new favourite sketching tools.

Hi Irene, I finally got time to complete all 7 projects from the Week of Art and Inspiration. I found the oil pastels difficult to work with and want to redo those 2 paintings. Maybe 1 of each in watercolour and pastel. I’d appreciate your comments on what I’ve done so far, or anyone else for that matter.

Thanks, Karen

Snowdrops negative drawing.

Sketchy blue bells

Another acrylic marker pattern with Irene. I really like how you can see the shadow of the fish underneath the lily pad.

Returned to Flower week with the tulips. Used ball point pen, not fine liner so not quite the same vibe as Irene’s…

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

Imaginary flowers in acrylic markers inspired by Irene’s live

Had great fun drawing and painting this flamingo from the line and wask course. None of the calm, meditative process of drawing the daisy, This was pure, joyous, splashy fun! Absolutely loved it, and I love that the course contains such a wide range of projects, something to suit every mood

Another acrylic marker pattern inspired

by Irene’s live

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

Inspired by another of Irene’s acrylic markers livestreams

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 Thank you for introducing this !

I am finally back! I have tried drawing with a grid before. I took an art class and we had to do a masters copy. We were told to make a grid of about 40 squares. It was very tedious and because I am not very precise, with that many squares my proportions got off and my lines did not end up connecting properly lol. We had to do a second one. The second time I just pretended to follow the grid and instead free-handed it. I (and the instructor) were happier with the result.

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It was easier with just 4 squares. I did have to do a screenshot and crop to completrky block the other squares. It was too distracting to see the things even at the edge of other squares.

I think it takes practice to do grid method in a very small format. I am drawing…

Another Line and Wash lesson. I really loved doing this. The repetitive movements drawing the centre and veins were so relaxing, almost hypnotic. The drawing looked complete to me without any colour, but once I started painting it, it really popped out from the page!

And here is my magnolia, again from the Line and Wash course

I've just started the Line and Wash course, this is my take on the first lesson, heavily influenced by the Wobbly House session that Irene provided for Sketchbook Revival.

The last of the flower sketches and my favourite one. I didn’t have a pink highlighter so used a pink pencil to give depth and texture to the flowers.

I know some of you have joined the Sketchbook Revival Challenge thanks to Irene telling us about it, and I have seen we have several new members this week who have probably joined because of the lovely wonky houses lesson that Irene gave for the challenge. I thought I would join in with Sandra and share my effort.

I've been pretty quiet for a few days, partly because we've been having some work done on the house and all the noise and crashing isn’t conducive to calm, mindful art, and partly because a small medical procedure earlier this week left me totally washed out for a couple of days. Thanks to Irene telling us about the Sketchbook Revival challenge, whenever I have felt able to, I've concentrated on that as I'm very aware that it is only available for a limited time.

Anyway, today I managed to do some of the flower sketches from this week's Sketch Hub sessions, so here they are.

Not as round and soothing as Irene’s but still fun to create. Less light blue and more orange - so more like a lava flow into the ocean than sparkling reflections of sunset on an ocean 🤣

From Irene’s wonky house in Sketchbook Revival. I couldn’t stop myself so not much white space…but it was fun. I loved creating the stylized “ocean”

A stylized hummingbird in acrylic marker from one of Irene’s livestreams. I highly recommend these streams they are so much fun and no push for realism, so really reduces perfectionism. You can get really inexpensive acrylic markers (I recommend as large a set as you can find/afford because even with a set of 90 I don’t always have the color I want and I don’t think it is that easy to mix them (but Irene may know a trick or two lol)

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 thought I posted this earlier but then couldn't find it again so maybe didn't hit post! 😂

Tried the first chicken/hen today!

Pleased with how it turned out but I feel like I don't know when to stop shading and ended up with far too much ink on the page! Happy with the shape though!

Tried the 2nd chicken/rooster this afternoon and I think I managed to put a little less ink on the page and stop shading sooner compared with the hen but still feel like I'm overdoing it! Definitely like the tail and head/neck area better this time 😊