Drawing baggage

Here's the beginning of my baggage drawings. There will be more yet.

 



 

 

My next theme for drawing is:
"Write twenty nouns on paper scraps and put them in a cup. Drawn one out and draw it; pull out another and put it in the same drawing. Repeat with at least five items."

Okaay... sounds interesting. Five things chosen semi-randomly in the same drawing.

Drawing marginalia

I've been sick, I've been travelling and then I was enormously busy. So much for drawing every week! But these things always happen, with this kind of project.

I did manage to draw some marginalia, though, in between all that stuff. I found I couldn't draw in a book - some things are just too ingrained. So I chose an old copy of a magazine called sturgeon from 2015. It contained an article about The Telepathy Project, a Melbourne-based duo of Sean Peoples and Veronica Kent. They are interested in the possibility of alternative kinds of communication, like telepathy and dreams and they carried out a dream project with Julie Rrap, a Sydney artist.

I found this quirky and interesting, and my marginalia reflects some of the elements of the dream diaries that Sean and Veronica kept during the project.

  

 






















What did I discover from this exercise? Well, marginalia is hard. The scale is tiny, of course. The magazine has a wider margin than I'd have found in most books, but it was still quite small to draw something in. I think something abstract, pattern-related, would be much easier than trying to draw little images.

Next time, I'm not using the random generator. I need to do some drawings for a project I'm working on, so my theme is going to be baggage. Not mystical emotional baggage but drawings of the bags people all over the world use to transport their essentials of life.

Drawing left-handed

I was struck down by an evil lurgy, so I've done nothing creative for a fortnight. Sigh.

But I have drawn some animals with my left hand, the last drawing challenge before it all went south.

First, a Hairy Eary Thing, as a warm up exercise:

Every part of this was with the left hand, including the shade-and erase on the creature's back. Using an eraser with the left hand is harder than using a pencil!

Then I drew a frog-like creature, as inspired by a frog drawing from my god-daughter many years ago. (She'd be surprised at what I keep!)

I suspect her five-year-old drawing of a frog was more frog-like than mine! Pen drawing is scary. I tend to go for simple outlines, because I'm scared of doing texture with pen lines. Something new to overcome.

Then I decided to stop fooling around and try to draw a frog left-handed from a photo (not having any pet frogs, I couldn't draw from life).

I'm actually quite pleased with that. I'm not sure I could draw it any better with my right hand! Though you'll notice I didn't draw it in ink...

Next week's challenge?

Draw marginalia in an old book

 

OK, this is going to be a real challenge.

I don't draw in books.

I don't do altered books.

I just don't.

Waah!



Imaginary creatures

The next theme generated in my personal drawing challenge was

Draw an imaginary creature

 

Themes like this always feel  such a doddle to me. It's just doodling, isn't  it? Which is just as well, because I didn't have a lot of drawing time or the energy for it this week. But I want a mix of quick, don't think too much drawings

 

In the end, I made three drawings. I deliberately kept them quick, because last week's one  was so careful and trying to be accurate.

 

I thought, what if rocks came to life, coalesced and walked away? So here is my rock monster.

 

He's a bit tidier than I wanted and not quite as massive. But distinctly rock-like.

 

Then I just doodled a sea monster. I've done a lot of sea monster drawings and doodles so this was a bit of a cop-out.

 

I really like my last one, because, in drawing really quickly, I seem to have captured a mood.  It was a left handed drawing too - sometimes that gives really interesting results.

 He looks terribly pleased with himself, doesn't he?

I thought I'd share my themes ahead of time, so anyone can jump in and draw along with me. Just send me a link in the comments, so I can come and look. My theme for next week is: -

Draw any animal with your left hand

(Darn, could have saved up my third one for a rainy day...)

Drawing

I really struggle with drawing, so I've decided to try to do it more often in the hope I'll get a bit better. If I want to keep working in the way I am, I need better drawing skills.

The most difficult issue is always deciding what to draw. I'm bored with still life drawings - I've been around long enough to have drawn a full dinner set of cups and plates and the entire fruit bowl several times over! I checked out some of those websites that suggest topics for you and most left me uninspired. So I decided to compile my own personal list, though there might be some overlap). I'm using my random number generator app to decide which one to draw, so I don't just stay with safe options.

Today's theme was Draw a statue. So I did.

This statue is on the tomb of Harry Houdini. I must admit I tried to make her more like a human being than a statue, because this pose interests me for a work I want to make one day. I may not end up using it that way but that's why I even know what the statue on Harry Houdini's tomb looks like!