Courses & Sketch Hub

So I decided to paint the people and now it feels finished.

I think I posted this in wrong place so I am posting here too. My first time drawing in public and using fine liner directly, no pencil sketch first 😳. Hence the wonky window lol. I am not sure about painting the people or leaving as is. Does it look purposeful or does it look unfinished? This is La Central de Raval, a bookstore/cafe/garden courtyard.

I'm not happy with this duck yet I'm not quite sure why. All the positions of the wings and head and their angles seem to match the reference photo, yet it still doesn’t look right. I think maybe the duck is at a slightly unexpected angle and I needed to think more about the shading, as with the flying duck. And maybe the head is too small and the beak too big.

Despite all that I have really enjoyed duck week. Thank you Irene for all the inspiration and helpful comments.

I enjoyed the reference pic so much that I drew it two ways

So even after giving Jane the unsolicited advice about her shorter front wing, my front wing is not even as good as hers 🙃But with the Pentel brush pen control of angles is not really possible.

I enjoyed doing this, couldn’t get over how quick it was despite all that drawing! I decided it would be a lovely place to drink tea so there are two cups of tea on the table.

Looks as if it's frowning down its beak at me!

I am really struggling with duck proportions (something I could never before imagine myself even thinking about lol ). I am guilty of erasing 3 or 4 attempts before settling for this.

The wings don’t look quite right to me, the one in the foreground looks too small or perhaps at the wrong angle. I think this duck would fly around in circles

I haven’t drawn for almost 72 hours (since the plane) and for some reason I felt very shaky and I really did not like my sketch. Also I think I am not accustomed to drawing in fineliner, which has much harsher lines imo than ballpoint or pencils So since I felt there was nothing good to ruin, I decided to add color with the ecoline markers I brought with me on vacatiiin. And I feel the color really saved the drawing.

I really love using a soft pencil and blending stump

Done on the plan on the way to Lisbon. No turbulence so any irregularity is all me lol

I had fun painting this, love the effect of spattering the red onto a mixture of dry white paper and wet yellow paint. It’s like the cake is having a party!

Home from a very rainy and windy holiday, so today I have had time to do all the sketches from this week.

I love iced tea when I am in the USA but it is not very common in Europe. So instead I get iced latte. I got a little confused with the iced cubes, but they are kind of confused in the reference pic too, so I think it works lol

I really enjoyed putting down the color blobs. I’m starting to enjoy that technique of color first, lines later. I used this opportunity to test the color palette of ecoline markers I bought for my upcoming trip. The colors are very vibrant but I like them together. I also got a pastel rose and beige for my light colors in my limited palette.

Maybe a little over board with the hatching lol.

Not my first sketch of the day but still wonky lol.

My first (lady) and second (man) portrait from the colourful portrait course.

I feel like I'm making progress both at drawing the faces and also the colour layering. I felt much braver layering colours on my second attempt and filled more of the space. I was a little scared to use the green, but wow it works so well! Loving the lessons! 😀 Thank you.

I almost got the perspective right lol. I wish I had just stuck with the leg cast shadows, I don’t know what that square mess is under the chair lol. Maybe a week spent in cast shadows?

Here's my line and wash door. It’s a bit wonky but that makes it look even more ancient. It reminds me of a holiday to Portugal where the back streets of the town were a treasure trove of interesting doors.

I didn’t do a pencil sketch first, and I started with the neck a little too long in pen so I moved the face down but ended up with a particularly fluffy and long top of the head lol.

I think these sketches show that you don’t need to be good at doing something to enjoy it! I don’t think I would risk sitting in any of my chairs but I had a lot of fun drawing them. I found some old coloured ballpoint pens in my stash, which I used for the first and last sketches. The green one has gone a bit blobby which added some unexpected texture!

I thought I already posted this chair, but I don’t see it. My appolgies if it is a duplicate. As I struggled with perspective my chair grew and grew until it barely fit on my page lol.

Vulture in Ballpoint. I am enjoying these. In this heat it is easy to go to the air conditioned coffeeshop, get an iced

latte and with just ballpoint and sketchbook with photo and tutorial on my phone create something satisfying

Well this time I didn’t focus on perspective and the chair actually looks more stable lol. Draw what you see not what you think you know 😊

Only after I was trying to finish did I realize that orange ballpoint was not a good choice because I couldn’t get the nose and eyes as dark I would have liked. I am very happy with the chest and the “ruffles”. I’m really enjoying working in ballpoint in general.

I would not trust to sit on this chair. The back right leg seems misaligned lol. But I’m practicing with ballpoint so not much I could do to correct it.

My random blobs suggested rndom things to me, so here's everything from a goldfish to a block of flats! Please don’t try to psychoanalyse me from it!

This was fun and quick. I still struggle with leaving white but I did manage a variety of tones in my background. And I feel I controlled the amount of splatters lol.

I took a pic beforecI painted the door blue. I thinknmatbecI liked it better with the white door. Live and learn lol.

Perspective is always a work in progress lol. There is something wrong with perspective on my seat cushion, it doesn’t seem like it lays flat and recedes into the back of the chair . Maybe it needed to narrow more quickly to the back? Maybe it is too deep? The left side seems better than the right side.

I kind of got lost in the fur and shadows. Sometimes it is hard for me to stay focused But for my first try at ballpoint animal I am satisfied.

I loved drawing this, but the paints in the background didn’t flow into each other as much as I wanted them to. I think maybe it’s because it's a very, VERY hot day and the blue was drying too fast before I had chance to add the other colours. Anyway, it still looks like the out of focus trees and plants around the lake where the swan is swimming, so I'm happy with that.

I really enjoyed the week of noses. It was great practice looking for the subtle variations in shading to create shapes and depth.

That was a good exercise even if I am not a fan of the results. I can copy a reference photo, but my imagination needs practice lol. Also if my painting was looser, I would have more interesting shapes to create from. I will definitely try this again later. But for now, this is what Ai created.

Fourth nose. I like the nostrils and the perspective on the bottom part of the nose, but I think i got the bridge too thin.

Good thing I’m not a perfectionist 😉It took me many attempts to get proportions I was satisfied with, and I’m still not 100% convinced. And I got a little carried away with the squiggles for the feathers and gray for the shadows. I think in this case less would have better. But I am happy with my background and the contrast between the muted orange in the background and the vibrant orange of the beak.

I love creating doodle patterns. It's so therapeutic and I could spend hours.

I was very happy with this until mum got very confused about the sheep was....not so happy now 😂

I went with a 8 colored pencil lead pencil I got last year. It’s a novelty item but actually works good for sketching on the go. But too hard for doing a whole pic is colored pencil. But it has pink and red so I went with that combo. I’m not sure about the nose but I do like the way the far eye peaks out beyond the nose.

This was nice and relaxing to draw and paint. I love using the Pentel brush pen

I had never noticed how different noses can look until this week, I always think of a nose as just something to sit your glasses on! When I did the final one, I immediately pictured one of my grandmothers, it's almost 60 years since she died yet this nose brought her whole face back to me

I love the scribbly ballpoint pen approach. And who knew I enjoyed drawing noses lol.

Re do of the water lilies line and wash. I like this one better. I used thin fineliner on the water lilies and it made them look. lighter and more delicate imo.

First nose and actually first time I drew a nose in detail.

I really enjoyed painting this. Doing the background first made the image seem to pop out of it.

I went a bit outside the box with this one. I zoomed in on the photo and chose abstract sections of the plants and leaves. I used Winsor & Newton Promarkers. My plan is to use the thumbnails to do some abstract still-lifes on canvas with acrylics.

I used HB pencil and a blending stump for this. I love the way I am starting to see shapes in things now, it makes it so much easier to understand how to draw them.