This weekend marks the second anniversary of Nan and Tom's move to Abbeydale, their home in the nearby hamlet of Carlisle. Each occasion has been celebrated with a large party and last year Nan requested I paint a portrait of their house to use for the invitation.
Because I did not trust that my drawing skills were up to the task, I printed out an outline of the house using a photoediting program, reinforced some of the lines and then painted it in watercolour. The flowers were quite lost so I repainted them in acrylic for a bit of added punch. All in all I was quite happy with it.
This time around, Kate had found a pretty card showing a bird's eye view of a street in Stratford and requested that I try and replicate something similar for this year.
It was a bit of a struggle at first, I can't deny it. Trying to morph a satellite view of the property with my own photo references to get the desired perspective (streetview is not available for Carlise on google maps as of yet LOL). After trying to get it right for a few hours and not succeeding I did the smart thing and stepped away for a few hours. Had lunch, had a nap and came back to my drawing with renewed enthusiasm. Always a good idea.
This is done in a more illustrative style, with less attention to detail and accuracy than the picture above. Of course, this is not the final version of the painting as is typical for me once I felt it was done I signed it, matted it and wrapped it before I remembered to scan it! Duh. Oh well. The changes made were minimal so no one will know that but me and I can live with that.
The land was such a blank canvas when Tom and Nan bought the property that it will be fun to document the changes they make over time. It'll also be interesting to see what style and potentially what medium I might render it in as well. This year's was definitely influenced by my time spent at Sketchbook Skool. Who knows what might be influencing me next year.
Our instructor this week was Tommy Kane, a New York artist new to me. Tommy's philosophy is slooooooow down and draw lots of detail. And no starting over - once you've committed to a drawing keep pushing through, even if you feel you've screwed up. It really is amazing how what seem like huge mistakes in the beginning just don't really matter much in the end. Yes, they're still there but so what. Our assignment was to draw our kitchens and plan to spend anywhere from 5-8 hrs doing it.
When I first read about Sketchbook Skool a few months back on some of the art blogs I follow this was the assignment that they were all talking about LOL. I must admit, I wasn't looking forward to it in the beginning because it just seemed so overwhelming. BUT, now, having completed it, it proved to be very interesting. It was fun, frustrating, daunting and overall well worth every minute spent on it. I have a new appreciation for those skilled in crosshatching as a drawing technique. It required much more thought and attention to line than I originally thought. This assignment wraps up the first semester of SBS. I'm hoping they'll be rerunning the second term in October because I'll be there!
ETA: I've tinkered a bit more with my sketch - I noticed that the white bowl in the glass doored cupboard on the right looked as if it was going to fall out, so I hit it with a bit of shadow to push it back behind the doorknob and it looks better to me now. I added my signature as well, to truly finish it off.
Mission accomplished. Last week I got my haircut and while I was waiting for Kate to finish up I took out my sketchbook and started drawing one of the shelves. It actually combines this week's focus, which is all about the details, as well as taking the plunge and sketching in front of other people. And guess what - as per the instructors, no one noticed.
The big takeaway for me though is how quickly the waiting time goes. I only had time to do the line work, first in lavender wc pencil and then ink. the bit of colour I put on was done from memory. It's not finished but I'm putting it aside because the point of the exercise was the act of doing it in the first place.
I also did a quick sketch while waiting for my car to undergo it's emissions testing and there again, the car was ready before the sketch was done. This time, the man across the waiting room as well as the guy behind the counter both were watching me but it didn't bother me at all. I haven't scanned it yet.
Another sketch I do want to post was done in pencil from the car while waiting for Kate's plane to get in. I had to shorten the wings to get them onto the page but I'm really happy with the perspective of the tail section.
Another week, another instructor and focus. Roz does a lot of animal sketching so is used to working with moving targets. To start us off though she had us sketching toys or figurines. Hmm, not a lot of toys around here and animal figurines have pretty much been decluttered over the years so what to do. Google of course!
So I went to a toy figurine website and picked out a hyena, a dinosaur (with a really tiny head but it was the angled scales I wanted to challenge myself with) and a stuffed but floppy moose.
These were gesture drawings done on smooth paper that does not accept water media so no colouring added which is too bad because it was also the colour of he dinosaur that drew me to him. He seems a little lacking here in cream and black because of that but I do like the moose and hyena. My hyena clearly is a good hunter though because his belly is a bit fuller than I intended now that I look at him here.
This month's Virtual Paint Out is set for Kinmen Island, part of a small archipelago of islands just off the southeast coast of China, near Taiwan.
The idea is you go to google maps and start looking around for someplace interesting to sketch. Once you've picked your spot you have to capture the link so the blog owner can verify the location.
This can take some time as it's literally as if you've plunked yourself down in the middle of this country to wander the streets at will LOL. Definitely a cheap way to travel and you can be there and back in an afternoon! Here's the link to the original location if you want to see where I was working.
My initial sketch was done with a lavender watercolour pencil to get shapes and proportions right. I then dropped in very loose watercolour and then added ink work with a water soluble pen. The challenge for me was to simplify what I was seeing and to capture the very specific roof lines of the building on the left. While not perfect, I was quite pleased with the results.
Now to see if I can figure out how to submit it to the VPO blog.
