Tuesday again, inking away in class at my local municipal evening school.
Today, a study in still life. The goal to abstract step by step from graphical elements towards a more simplified approach.
(CLICK FOR LARGER PICS) (1st two are on Canson, 200g watercolour paper, 20x32cm, 3rd pic is on Hanemühle, Brittannia, 300g watercolour paper, 17x24cm. All pictures with a real hair paint brush and India ink)
Spent the morning just drawing what I could see from the couch.
Then in the afternoon a few sketches at the Italian restaurant, in my scrap book with a crappy roller-ball-pen. Also used a bit of spit for the rose, just rubbing over with my finger to smudge the ink. Perhaps I should have tried the Aperol Spritz for that.
In the evening, another 30+ minutes with 1 minute gesture drawings. Nothing to show really, but the daily exercise helps in the long term. 1 minute gestures can begin to get really stressy if I attempt drawing bigger sketches than just thumbnails.
Well, here’s what comes from sitting on a bench for 1 1/2 hours while joggers pant past me every 10 minutes. One jogger even stopped to sit by me. It turned out he was my figure drawing class instructor asking when he’d be seeing me again at classes.
When sitting down for this (A4, 100gr, 2B pencil), I just sketched most of the objects first and then began work from left to right (I can’t keep my hand from smudging the sketch otherwise). Always returning to the left to darken parts which looked pale after using much darker tones to the right. I must admit, I thought I had taken on too much here, it took 90 minutes and I’m glad I only sketched the tree branches in the foreground. My main focus was actually the tree line on the border to the background.
Poppies, daisies and corn-flowers to my feet and bumble bees flying around like crazy.
How did it come to this?
I’d picked up the book “Pen and Pencil Drawing Techniques” by Harry Borgman and had spent a day with it, doing some of the early exercises a few weeks back.
I would normally have just built up monotone tonal values, but Mr. Borgman has already introduced me to tonal values built up with different stroke techniques.
Also, I now have a German urban sketching journal “Ein Jahr Urban Sketching” by Jens Hübner. And he recommended a book called “Watercolour Tips” by Ian King. I’ve been trying a bit of watercolour out the last couple of days and here is my first miniature “Norwich School” painting I did just before leaving the house for the “plein air drawing” sketch above.
Back again from inking.
Today, 1 hour of experiencing how bright you can make a small area of your picture look, just by going mad with the black in other places.
So, just back from a few days away from it all. And this time, I not only took paper and drawing equipment with me, but I even managed to sit down about an hour each day to draw something.
By the way, this is a great idea to experience your holiday in an extremely concentrated fashion, but it has basically no social component to it, especially if your spouse is not an artist like you. So be warned, take your time, but don’t take too much of her time.
Anyhow, you will see here, a scene in a restaurant, some sketches of 17th and 19th century Flemish Masters’ paintings from the Groeninge museum in Brugge/Bruges and scene from a church bench (opposite an antique book shop which wasn’t open on any of the days we were in Brugge, unfortunately, as they had books on Raphael’s drawings and all types of other hilariously gorgeous exhibits, gahhh!). Furthermore, showing here are a few pages from the breakfast buffet and a view from the hotel room, testing my perspective skills.
Mary Magdalene, Ambrosius Benson, 16th Century:
Well, oh wonders of wonders. Here a one hour India ink “painting” with some wet in wet and only using the smallest amount of ink.
Again, … back from a Tuesday evening class, where our teacher gave us a 45 minute introduction to how he paints a very specific landscape, which we could use as a reference, or just do what we liked.
So, of course, I went for the do-as-you-like option. And here we are.
(This is all on really flimsy, calligraphy paper, my wife is going to kill me if she reads this. Using up all her paper …)
1st pic [CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGES], got some input during the course and adapted it here and there (got some pretty good advice, it’s this stuff you really need to memorize, so you can be objective about your pics during the making):
2nd pic (this was actually, what we may have been expected to be doing, as the paper is too thin, I couldn’t use any washes, or at least I didn’t dare use any):
3rd pic (Then back to the river bank scene with a stone and a butterfly now) (got some good advice here too):
4th (back to the waterscape, just a 2 minute sketch):
5th (trying something out you see all the time):
And the last one, 6th, basically had an idea, but I also needed to use up my ink:
Just back from my Tuesday inking course. Today, we were to learn how the darkness of a surrounding area, when contrasting with lighter elements, can bring the lighter objects (here trees) towards the viewer.
The first few drawings (chinese paint brush, India ink in differing states of dilution, on extremely thin calligraphy paper) are exemplary for this, but the others were drawn by me in the last 30 minutes, obviously just because I was having fun or I just needed to use up my ink. (The first drawing has a bit of Van Gogh and Bill Watterson.)
A weekend of traveling sketches and a Tuesday with ink!
The weekend was concentrated around 1, 2 and 3 point (can you believe it?) perspective. A “few” sketches of trees and that’s about it. The summer may offer more input, as I’ve asked to be notified when a group of sketchers gets out and about, drawing scenes around the town I live in.
The Tuesday (today) leads me into my weekly course of indulgence into ink again. The next Tuesdays will continue similar to this.
Paris, high ceilinged gallery/arcade, about 45 minutes, then a few in 5 minutes, with water and paintprush, after using fountain pen to draw these:
Trees and a bit of street scenery:
Prague:
Cairo:
Country side here in Germany:
Copies of some Masters, don’t ask me which:
Some practicing of perspective:
Now comes the Tuesday with ink.
Sepia, 1 hour:
And black Indian Ink, 5 minutes:
Tricking myself into drawing anytime, by using the cheapest materials I can get my hands on. Obviously trying to convince myself that the sketch is just a sketch and can be thrown away. No pressure. No need to be perfect, don’t even attempt it. Just draw.
So here goes for faces on used envelopes.
ho
Stuartdraws 