Here is a sketch of a young girl from one of the drawing challenges at Drawspace.

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.

Llamas and such.....

This past week we were in northern Michigan, spending time with family. We camped in the rain and had dinner and fires under a wild range of tarps and canopies. Luckily before we were ready to leave the weather cleared up. We went to my cousin, Jenny Rose's farm to help with chores and of course to see all the wonderful animals. She has llamas, alpacas, turkeys, a wild variety of hens, a peacock and an aging horse. I snapped as many pictures as I could and have now set up a drawing challenge over at Drawspace.


This guy I added after someone mentioned that all the pictures looked difficult. I used one of Brenda Hoddinott's lessons, Emma Emu, to see how easy it is to see shapes and start filling in detail. I started with a large circle and a triangle just like in the lesson and was surprised to see how easily the drawing started to come together.

Maple syrup......

I ran a weekly challenge at Drawspace this week. I based it on my trip to Northern Michigan, where I visited my Cousin. They were in the process of collecting sap to make syrup. My Cousin's Father in Law worked the evaporator, kept the fire going and watching the temperature on the syrup. He was able to explain to my younger boys and myself the whole process. The boys helped out with all the different jobs. Then we were able to bring home a jug of syrup.

April 2009 VSD......

I haven't done a virtual sketch date in a while. There is a whole new way of signing up, so if I can figure that out, I'll be doing good. Here is my sketch I am working from. The original photograph is from Jeanette. I am showing the sketch first because it goes down hill from here.

Here is my horribly overworked flower done in water colour. I figured I was done but got to thinking what would it look like with a background.


For all that I just swabbed in the background with no finesse, it does show that the background was needed to finish the picture. Good thing to know for next time.

Ballet Dancer Standing....

This is my copy of Ballet Dancer Standing by Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas. They say it is good to try to copy the Masters and I guess I would have to agree. Especially when you are trying to teach yourself.

I can see that my head is at the wrong angle and my torso is too long, which is why my dancer looks like she is standing up with her head turned. Rather than slightly bent over with her head turned and down. So many other things as well, but I guess that is what practicing and sketching is about.

Don't you love the suggestion of a male dancer behind her?

Robofest....

My son William was in a robotics competition last night, Robofest. His team won and made it to the world finals, which luckily for him is right next door in Michigan.
It made for a great place to do some sketching. While William never seemed to be in a good place to sketch, the one little boy on the team sat still for a while. My husband Jim, a coach, stood watching the kids so I was able to get him in in bits on the right.


The same little boy and one of the Moms from another team. The team was huddled around the playing field and I thought I would be able to sketch them but they moved around too much. I should have brought another sketch book or some blank paper. I didn't want to fill up my sketch journal but could have easily sketched for quite a bit longer and at different times during the day.

Boot camp......

Let's Make Art has started a Boot Camp.

Ten to twenty minutes of exercise a day - five days a week. That's what it takes to keep in shape!

Well I have the ten to twenty down, now to just get that 5 days a week in. The first week I did two days, the second I did one day, the third I did 4 days, and this week I have 2 so far.

Just before I got the invite to join Boot Camp, I found a great sale on some moleskin sketch books. That gave me the perfect opportunity to get started right away. It also allowed me to try out a journal of sorts. I love what Dee Farnsworth does with the weather report. There are some others that I love too, I'll find some to show next time I show my sketches.

November virtual sketch date....

My sketch this month is just that, a sketch. I saw this guy lurking on the right hand side and sketched him out with a bit of embellishment.
You can see the photo on the VSD site. Jeanette of Illustrated Life supplied the photo. The list of participants will be on the VSD site on Sunday.



Quick sketches have been the rule this week. This guy was done for the weekly challenge over at Drawspace, the host was Elena.

Jeanette also started a sketching from life thread at DS.

Sketching is likely THE most valuable exercise you can do to improve your drawing skills. Also drawing from life is another. If you sketch daily, you'll soon see your ability to render form and light grow by leaps and bounds.

Now I have to find time to get back to drawing Gracie and getting my newest set of trading cards started.

Twelve little jellyfish all floating in the sea....

Finally they are ready for the mail box!
I rephotographed all the jellyfish and the pears with some black paper behind them. Also I moved to a slightly darker space to do it in, less glare. This seems to have worked better so I re-posted all the pictures.


A quick drawing for a Let's Make Art challenge. I tried charcoal, then pencil, then just a line drawing that you can see here. It wasn't working for me, so I thought I would try the eye in coloured pencil. It is just on printer paper and doesn't look much like the cat, but I thought the page looked neat with the combo of line drawing and CP bit.

Blue jellies and a pumpkin....

This blue jellyfish was done from a photograph by TANAKA Juuyoh (田中十洋) in Mactan Cebu, Philippines .



This quick sketch was done for the Drawspace challenge this week. Our host is Ernest Friedman-hill.

Sad puppy....

This guy showed up on the weekly drawing challenge at Drawspace. The host this week is NancyB.

Virtual sketch date....

I decided at the last minute to jump in on the virtual sketch. I haven't felt like doing much lately (art wise), so when I got to thinking about the virtual sketch this morning, I jumped at doing a quick sketch. I had fun just getting the colours down and not worrying about any thing specific. It is sketchy, but I think I did okay getting across my impression of the photo.

You can go to the Virtual Sketch Date site to see this months photo. It was provided by Leslie Hawes. Thank you Jeanette for hosting!

Here is a list of this months participants:
Rose , Dougie, Melissa , Sherrie, Maggie, Michael
Leslie, Laura, Miki, Mary Ann, Kylie, Stacy,
Jennifer, Jeanne, Kay Susan, Jeanette, Kellie
Sharon, Paulette, Sydney

Come join us in August around the middle of the month.

Colour Challenge.....

Irmina (santaika )on Drawspace has been teaching us about colour. She put up some great pictures of her kids and their dogs to work with. I'm not so sure that I picked up the full meaning of her lesson, but I did have fun doing this guy with blue prisma colour pencils.

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.