Tag Archives: pencil drawing

Completed Drawing Challenge, 1-25

Composition/Drawing Challenge 1-25, March to April, 2022
Opus (plush), pencil
Kyle the piranha-dog from Despicable Me (plush), pencil

Originally it was a 30-day drawing challenge, but I finished it out at 25, which is still pretty great! It was particularly motivating seeing drawings from all the other class participants. (I can’t link it because it was on a closed teaching platform.) It’s always good to surround yourself with an art community if you are trying to do art, which is so often a solitary pursuit.

Next up is a continuation of the composition instruction, this time with paints, and I will be using oil paints for the first time, after 11-ish years of halting progress with acrylics. I am actually putting together a slideshow of my first 11 years of paintings, which I’ve been meaning to do for ages. I want to see it for myself, and I thought it might be interesting for others.

Thanks for dropping by!

The Majestic Unicorn, Drawing Challenge Progress

The Majestic Unicorn, 4.5″ x 4.5″ pencil

I really enjoy seeing all of these together.

I may have mentioned it before but it’s so interesting I took a drawing class from Ian Roberts when I follow him for his oil painting videos. It’s also interesting because I don’t have as much interest in painting the kind of landscapes he normally paints. But he has a lot of great insights and is a great teacher, and his YouTube channel is great!

I have signed up for Ian’s Brushwork course that comes after the drawing one (the prerequisite is the drawing class). I don’t often have art-related momentum so I’m not going to give it up just yet. I will be painting in oils for the first time, and trying out some of the non-toxic medium and cleaner options.

I can’t believe it’s April 2022. The pandemic has made time even more unreal than usual. Thanks for dropping in!

Week 2, 30 Day Challenge

Pencil drawings on smooth Bristol board, 30-day drawing-composition challenge Mar-April 2022.

The end of the second row has the only landscape (and out of order). Otherwise I’ve been on this crazy still life kick. Part of the reason, is that we are supposed to be taking and cropping our own photos for this challenge, and there’s not much outside where I am at the moment. (Of course, there is beauty in mundane things, etc, but it’s the end of winter and overcast, so no additional landscapes for me yet.)

I mentioned in the last post that I never thought I would be interested in, or any good at, still life drawing. But now I’ve done a whole lot of them, and they are going pretty well!

Ladle and lemons watching tennis on television. (I thought this one wanted a name.)

A Drawing Class & a Drawing Challenge, March 2022

6 days of 30-day drawing challenge using your own photographs. Approx 6″ each, pencil on smooth Bristol

These are the first 6 days of a 30-day drawing and composition challenge, which is the final (optional) part of Ian Robert’s recent Mastering Composition drawing course. Mainly Ian draws and teaches landscape, but for this challenge we are tasked with using our own photographs, so some of us are doing still life photographs.

Who knew, first of all, that I would enjoy drawing a still life? Or think I could actually do like, a decent one. And in pencil!

Red Onion and Paintbrush, 6″ x 4″, #2 and #4 Staedlter and Blackwing Matte pencils on smooth Bristol

This onion and paintbrush went well. It goes against the parameters of the challenge just a little bit, as the challenge is intended to highlight the main dark and light shapes in an image, and this one has just a few too many details. But that’s probably because I kept going after I got the main shapes in. And that was possible because I took this really excellent class.

Ian Roberts website. Ian Roberts on YouTube.

3 Apples and Goblet, 4″x6″, #2 and #4 Staedlter and Blackwing Matte pencils on smooth Bristol

Perhaps I’ll be back with seven more at the end of next week. Thanks for dropping in!