Teddy bear......

This adorable guy came up on the weekly challenge at Drawspace.  Siks did a great job photographing him, beautiful shadows and highlights. 

I have been doing sketches in charcoal lately.  It is a great medium to work with.  It lays out really fast and mistakes can be corrected on the fly.  I finally stopped trying to work small and have taken out a big 11x14 inch sketch book to draw in.

I tried to give the bear some texture by dotting on some charcoal and then using my figure to tap in more texture.

Now I have to figure out how to preserve my pictures so they don't just disappear.  I suppose a spray finish.

Jeanette's Apple Challenge......

This apple was inspired last night by Jeanette's apple challenge on Drawspace and her blog.

Jeanette was looking for inspiration and found it on her counter in the form of an apple. She decided to put out an apple challenge to us to join her in finding the beauty of apples. The lovely highlights, colours and shapes of our fall harvest.

Lonely boat.....

Charcoal is a lot of fun for sketching. It goes down so easily, you can change direction without a second thought and you get wonderful dark blacks. I am having a good time seeing what it can do. I have some charcoal pencils to try out next time.

This quick sketch was for the July challenge at Let's Make Art.

Baby.....

I gave Barbara's grandbaby a try. The baby was one of the pictures she put up for this week's challenge at Drawspace. This was actually my second try. I don't think either one did the cutie justice, but it was fun trying.

The one to the left, I started with the dark background and filled in as I went. The one at the top I started with the eyes and filled in from there.

June Virtual Sketch Date....

When we got the virtual sketch date picture I had charcoal in hand, so I went straight to sketching. I never did get back to it and yesterday when I should have posted, I had a trojan horse and a wonderful impromptu party.

This morning I woke up early and decide to give the flower one more quick try before I posted. This is ATC sized, colour pencil on drafting film.
You can check out the rest of the virtual sketch date participants on the new blog that Rose set up. The reference photo was provided by Jennifer.

Kordistan Man....

One of the members at Drawspace, barmakalikhani takes the most amazing photographs and has been very generous in sharing them with us to draw. I am still working with charcoal. I must admit I am amazed at what you can do with them. Thick lines, thin lines, dark, light and it picks up easily so you can use your kneaded eraser.


This picture is also from one of Barmakalikhani's photos. I was just trying to do an impression of the tones in the river scene. I was fascinated by the stripes of light and dark in the composition of the photograph.

More Charcoal.....

I tried my charcoal out on one of this weeks challenge at Drawspace. Elena has been a great host, getting many new comers to join in on the fun.

Charcoal.....

I was sitting at my desk watching Lethal Weapon with Mel Gibson and Danny Glover, when I found some charcoal that I had bought my husband ages ago. So I decided to give charcoal a try. Of coarse, the only paper nearby was from my sons project and the thing to draw was the two of them from the DVD cover. It doesn't look a lot like them, but it was fun to see what charcoal could do.