QUIRKY HOUSES AND A GREEDY CAT UPDATE Quirky houses Rhodia designs and patterns book I have an A4-sized Rhodia notebook with squared paper, 80 gsm. Although it is thin, the quality is better than your average printer paper; it has quite a smooth surface and it is very good for drawing. I use…
ONLINE ART COURSE - BOAT ON A BEACH, AND A GREEDY CAT Boat on a Beach in pen and pastel pencil For the second project in the landscapes module, we were given a mixed media piece to do. It was the first time that Phil, our teacher, had combined pastel pencil with ink…
NEGATIVE PAINTING When I first came across this, I thought, "What...?" I was intrigued, and decided to investigate. The idea The idea of negative painting is that you don't paint the objects; you paint the negative space between the objects. Sounds counter-intuitive? Actually it's quite good training for looking at the spaces between…
ONLINE ART COURSE - CLOUDY SKY IN GRAPHITE I have now got half way through the course, and begun the first module where we concentrate on subject matter rather than medium, in this case, landscapes. Graphite We haven't worked in graphite pencil since the first module when we did the still life of…
OUR CEANOTHUS IN WATERCOLOUR Our ceanothus bush is in full bloom at the moment, and for several days I wanted to paint it. I took this photo from outside the back door, looking up towards the garage at the top of the garden. Creating the reference photo I thought the angle was quite…
Today is my 71st birthday (eek... I haven't even managed to get my head around being 70 yet!). The day started badly with my waking up at 7.00 a.m. so I thought I'd get up, but I'd only started to get ready when I felt so tired and in need of more sleep…
I am sad to see the end of the coloured pencils module. This has been one of my favourites to do, and I really enjoy working with this medium. After only a very few attempts, I think I have mastered it pretty well, and am looking forward to moving ahead and doing many…
ONLINE ART COURSE - ROBIN IN COLOURED PENCILS This was a very exciting project, requiring more skill than previous projects in the coloured pencils module, because it was a more detailed drawing, and it was also more photo-realistic than previous projects which were more sketchy. The drawing step by step As usual, we…
CATS IN COLOURED PENCILS Smudge is now framed On 25th April, I published a post about the coloured pencil drawing I did of Smudge, my hubby's friend's cat. I subsequently had this framed, and today we visited Tony and I was able to give him the picture. He was thrilled with it and…
ONLINE ART COURSE - SKETCHING HANDS WITH COLOURED PENCILS This is the second project in the coloured pencils module. We were given three pictures of hands to draw, and in the first instance we had to do this with a normal pencil. It was an exercise in getting the proportions correct. Phil, the…
