Project: drawing animals

I don't currently have animals at home, so I spent an hour with a friend who has a black Scottie dog and a white West Highland terrier.
Fortunately, after their walk, they were happy to sit on a sofa and went to sleep, so I was able to study them without them moving too much. The Scottie slept with her head hanging over the edge of the sofa, which I captured, while the Westie snuggled into his paws.

I got these few quick sketches done as they settled down....

I also took a couple of photos of the dogs when they woke, and did this one of Ben the Westie.
On the whole, I prefer the quick sketches done from life, rather than this one from the photo - probably because you can get more detail when drawing from life.

Flowers in coloured pencil

This vase of flowers was past its best and some of the flowers were wilting and some of the leaves going brown. Since some of the flowers were white, I draped a blue curtain behind.

I used watercolour pencils (mainly because I have a good range or colours) but I didn't put any water on them.

I struggled to get real definition in the white flowers, using a grey pencil to do the shading. I thought about trying a different colour, such as blue or yellow, instead but my nerve failed me.

The picture took me quite a few hours and I'm not sure the results really reflect the effort that's gone into it.

Fruit in marker pen

This turned out to be a disaster. This was in part due to a limited range of marker pens (borrowed from my grand-daughter's collection) and the fact that I just had a bamboo dip-pen and just a couple of coloured inks to play with.

Therefore, I just found it impossible to get any subtlety of tone or shade. Also, once you've made a mark, you're stuck with it and can't rescue. Therefore, when I used brown ink to produce the harsh shadow on the pear, this ended up as a brown splodge.

So I've abandoned this piece, on the basis that it will only get worse if I add any more to it. So here is the picture, and a photo of what I was trying to depict.

I might try and come back to this once I've got some more markers and inks, but for the moment, this is the best I can produce.

The photo:

And now the drawing:

Fruit group in colour

I'm including two versions of this, because my first version went somewhat awry.

The big problem, I think, is that I tried to mix too many media. I started with coloured pencils and then realised I didn't have any orange to depict the two satsumas I'd placed in the group (satsumas are very hard to draw, I discovered!), so I went on to watercolour pencils and finally on to oil pastels.

The result is a bit of a mess, especially since I struggled to depict the darker shaded parts of the fruit. I didn't have dark orange (and anyway, the satsuma's dark patches looked grey, or even black), so I used black which really didn't work.

Anyway, here is is..

So I decided to give it another go, this time sticking with watercolour pencils from the beginning.

I'm slightly happier with this, especially as I was able to apply a little water to some of the colours to get the colour blocks. I built up from the lighter colours, such as the green of the apples, and then inserted the red blocks. Satsumas still present a challenge, although I think this one is marginally more recognisable than the earlier one.

Preparing for fruit group in colour

This was a bit of experimentation to see how different media worked in depicting fruit in colour.
I took an apple, and drew it first in coloured pencil, which worked quite well with fairly gentle colours.

Then on to pastel pencils, which weren't that different but did give slightly deeper colours.

Watercolour pencils worked in much the same way, but with a bit of water, it was possible to achieve different effects and brighter blocks of colour (as opposed to hatched areas).

Oil pastels provided much deeper colours, and allowed manipulation with fingertips to merge the different component colours. I was also able to scratch out colour to get the stripes of the apple's skin.
The only challenge with oil pastels is that they are less precise (no sharp point on the end), so it tends to end up somewhat more impressionistic than pencil. However, I teally like the medium.

I topped off this exercise with a rather nice shiny red pepper, which I did in oil pastels.

Conclusion: all these media have something to offer, and there tends to be a trade-off between detail and colour intensity. My current favourites, I think, are the oil pastels for their depth of colour, and the watercolour pencils.

Still life group in tone

At last a chance to use some colour, in this case watercolour pencils.

The instructions for this exercise were to build up from the dark tones and to "keep the drawing spontaneous and full of energy".  I'm not sure I managed that; once some of the dark tones had been filled in, I immediately got sucked into the detail of the picture.

One other problem was that I chose a white tray on which to place the items, which included a white jug and a glass coffee pot with silver top. This meant very littel colour in a lot of the composition, with me using black and grey pencils much as I would for a normal pencil drawing. I also meant that a lot of the highlights in the silver and around the top of the jug were impossible to achieve on white paper (maybe if I'd used a darker paper, I could have made better use of white pencil).

So on the whole, I'm not wild about the results, which look like a pencil drawing with a bit of colour added.

Exercise - still life group using line

I found this exercise very restricting, because I could not introduce shade or shadows to bring out the shape or position of the objects.
In my view the lettuce in the foreground is probably the most successful, but I'm not very happy with the overall picture at all.(Picture should be rotated by 90 degrees, but I couldn't manage it)

Exercise - still life

In this exercise I gathered some fruit (two apples, a large cooking apple and a pear), and put them on a decorative plate with a magnifying glass and a pair of scissors just to add interest. I then placed the plate on top of a wicker washing basket in order to "locate" it, rather than have it floating in space.

Although I have been experimenting recently with oil pastels, which I really like, I stuck to pencil here, using an HB to get the line, then a B and 4B to get different shading. Near the end I tried using a rubber to bring out some of the reflections and highlights (the magnifying glass and scissors picked up light along their edges making them stand out - I've tried to convey this with only partial success. I might try it again with charcoal).

Anyway, this is it.....

Research - detail v rough sketching

In this little piece of research, I looked at studies by Edward Burne-Jones, the Victorian pre-Raphaelite artist, and by Henri Matisse, who did most of his work in the first half of the 20th century.

In this study of two pillows by Burne Jones..

.. the artist captures the reality of the pillows with subtle shading using just pencil to achieve a fabulous and convincing effect. It is really indicative of the very accomplished craftsmanship of all the artists of the time, such as Millais.

By contrast, this still life study by Henri Matisse achieves its impression with a just a few pencil lines. It is by no means accurate - for example the vase merely suggests what the actual object might look like. But the sheer strength of line, and the flow of the lines (which I guess were done quite quickly) manage to convey the shape, position and substance of the individual objects, and show the confidence wih which the artist works.

Which do I prefer? I have to say I admire the technical mastery of the pre-Raphaelites, and I would love to be able to draw like Burne Jones or Millais. However, I would also like to achieve the self-confidence and sureness of line that Matisse displays here.