ONLINE ART COURSE - PASTEL PENCILS - AVOCADO Now that my pastel pencils have finally arrived, and I had a nice quiet day on my own today, I was able to settle down and work on the first project in the fourth module of the course, which is pastel pencils. I had thought…
NEW PASTEL PENCILS, AND COLOURING SOME OLD DRAWINGS Faber Castell pastel pencils My new pastel pencils arrived today, a day earlier than scheduled, which is excellent. Tomorrow I am hoping to settle down and begin the Pastel Pencils module on the art course, which I have had to delay because my existing set…
ONLINE ART COURSE - BEGINNING A NEW MODULE - PASTEL PENCILS, AND MORE WONKY VEG Colour at last! It seems really strange to be embarking on colour, after the first three modules which were all monochrome - graphite, charcoal and ink pens with black watercolour. I really love working in monochrome and shall…
REMAKING A BEAUTIFUL PIECE OF KNITTING A beautiful and generous gift A couple of years ago an artist friend gave me a beautiful knitted stole she had made. I was absolutely thrilled to receive this as it was so brightly coloured and very much her style. However, a stole is not something I…
COMPLETING THE INK PENS SELF-DIRECTED CHALLENGE, A COUPLE OF DRAWINGS IN MY SKETCHBOOK, AND A NEW EASEL I have now completed the final project in the Ink Pens module - three small drawings. I did the third one first (the teddy) and then the first one (the padlock) and have now done the…
ONLINE ART COURSE - MODULE C - INK PENS Yesterday I started on the next module on the drawing course. I have done a lot of work with my fineliner black archival marker pens in the past but never for "realistic" drawing of the kind we are being taught on this course. Having…
MORE SKETCHBOOK DABBLING, PENS AND DIGRESSIONS, CATARACT NEWS AND SEEING PATTERN EVERYWHERE ...in fact, a bit of a waffle, this blog post! Read on if you're interested in some idle chat about the kind of things that fascinate me. Sketchbook My (almost) daily sketchbook is filling up with some eclectic stuff - experiments,…
2023 - END OF YEAR REVIEW As usual, it has been a pretty eventful year, both personally and generally. See the end of this post for the most important aspects of changing world events and what they mean for us all. During the year, I have had various health issues to deal with…
ONLINE ART COURSE - MODULE B: CHARCOAL - WARM-UP EXERCISES, AND BEGINNING THE FIRST PROJECT Very exciting to be moving on to the second module of the Draw Awesome course. I really wasn't sure about charcoal - messy, imprecise... not me at all! - but I am determined to work through every stage…
ONLINE ART COURSE I am not normally someone who takes any notice of ads on YouTube, apart from getting profoundly irritated by them, but occasionally something comes up which stands out from the rest and sparks my interest. This time it was an online art course called Draw Awesome. Phil, the teacher, has…
