Draw a Little Every Day: Days 28, 29 and 30

My last day of this challenge was actually a couple of days ago, but I just haven't been able to get around to posting the photos until today.

I decided to take out one of my calligraphy markers and stand it up so that the chiseled edge was horizontal. I liked how the ink sort of "dried out" as I drew strokes down the page. I thought I would just play around with those strokes, and ended up with a city skyline.

One of my friends told me she liked Gouldian Finches. When I looked them up, I was delighted by their rainbow-coloured plumage. I knew I could easily do it with pencil crayons, but I decided to challenge myself and do it in chalk pastel instead. The photo isn't great, but it was actually quite a lot of fun to try to draw one, even if it was super messy!

Lastly, I decided to just sit down and examine my hands, since it's my hands that are making this challenge possible. I took a medium charcoal pencil and looked down at my hand in my lap. Hands are funny, wrinkly things, but I found out that it doesn't take much to give the impression that you have drawn a hand.

I found this challenge a lot of fun, but MAN is it time-consuming to draw! I think that if I were truly drawn to drawing (get it?) I would find it much easier, but it was hard to make myself sit down and draw. I did learn a bunch of things though, mainly how to control light and shadow a bit better and how to draw with soft charcoals. Perhaps now, when I sit down to my computer to work on a graphic, I'll have a better sense of how to make it match the image in my head.

And now, off to vacuum up all the pastel dust!

Draw a Little Every Day: Days 24 to 27

I've been idly doodling for the last few days, playing around with Zentangle-style patterns. There's something very soothing about the repetitive nature of the patterns and the smooth flow of the ink.

The other day, I read a quote on the label of some yarn a friend of mine purchased recently, and it was so beautiful that I couldn't get it out of my head. Last night, I wrote it out with a calligraphy pen and started decorating it with as many pretty things as I could think of. I put the finishing touches on it this morning. I think it's one I might keep for a long, long time...

Draw a Little Every Day: Day 20, 21, 22 and 23

I've had a few days of droopy drawings... not much inspiration, but I still soldiered on. Even when I sat there staring at a blank page, I kept a drawing implement in my hand.

I played around with some colours that have been rolling around in my head recently. I've got some balls of yarn in black, white and green that I think would be fun to play with together. I thought I'd just use some markers and put them on the page together to try them out:

The next two days, I sat down with some pencil crayons and did some idle doodling:

And today, I sat down and played more with negative space. I've been more and more attracted to pink these days. Perhaps I'm pining for a bit of spring!

I like the immediacy of the markers, but not how sloppy they look when I use them. Perhaps there is something to be said for multi-day drawings...

Draw a Little Every Day: Day 19

I decided to take a break from this challenge because I caught a bad cold and needed the time to recover. In hindsight, maybe that was a bad thing, because I'm sure I would have created some really interesting images in my tired, befuddled state... ah well... Anyway, after my last post, +Jo Owens on Google+ asked me if I was any good at drawing finches, and since I'd never drawn one before, I thought I see if I was. I decided to draw the head from a zebra finch. Zebra finches are one of my favourite birds, because they're not only pretty, but they make a delightful noise:
 

 So, here's my zebra finch, done in pencil crayon.

Draw a Little Every Day: Days 16, 17 and 18

On Sunday, I decided that I would face the kind of drawing I've been avoiding since I started this: charcoal. I didn't really like charcoal. I didn't like the mess, the smudges, and the soft texture. I wasn't really looking forward to tackling this.

Wow, it's amazing how things change.

I think the fact that I've been thinking about shadows, hatching, cross-hatching, and highlights, drawing with charcoal was a lot less challenging than it used to be for me. It still wasn't "easy," but I enjoyed it a lot more than I imagined I would.

The first drawing is from Sunday, when I was basically copying from a picture from the box I got the charcoals in. 

Then, I missed drawing on Monday altogether (life just got in the way), but I went ahead and picked up my pad and played around some more.

I'm so glad I took the time to play with these. I'm thinking I'm going to do some more charcoal drawing before the end of this challenge, but I'm going to have to move away from just drawing trees. Maybe faces next...

Draw a Little Every Day: Days 13, 14 and 15

I was lucky enough a few years ago to take a class at my local clay studio to learn how to make mosaics. Here is one that I've shared before at my other blog.

What I love about it is the way you take complex shapes and break them down into simpler polygons. When I was learning how to mosaic, I was reminded of Haida art.

I spent a couple of days playing with shapes and came up with this image, which is based on a painting we got as a wedding present. It looks kind of... kindergarten... but I still enjoy looking at it.

Today, I decided I'd pull out my ink pen and just have another go at a Zentangle-like drawing. I finished this in about 25 minutes.

What I'm realizing as I'm doing this challenge is that drawing does seem to quiet my soul. Unlike knitting or spinning, the pen or pencil or charcoal seems to do its own bidding, without consulting me, without me holding it back, no matter what I plan to draw. The lines seem to do what they want. I used to think this was my lack of artistic talent (and there are plenty who are much more talented than I), but now I'm starting to think that this is just the way my hands work. It's an interesting thing to contemplate.

Draw a Little Every Day: Days 11 and 12

This time, Rascal was my model. Here is a picture of him with one of his typical, "I'm not impressed with you" looks. Note the lazy indignation of his moustache:

Rascal's nose and moustache are two of his features I really love. Here are two sketches I did of Rascal's nose and moustache, one in blue pencil crayon, eyes included:

One in green pencil crayon, nose only:

I played with different hatching techniques to create dark areas, and I think I might be getting the hang of it!

Draw a Little Every Day: Days 3 to 10

It's interesting how these daily challenges pile up on one another. I had also signed up to do the 21-day Yoga Challenge at yogajournal.com, but I'm so far behind on that that is seems like that one is a total failure... at least for now.

In the meantime, I've been steadily trying to make time each day to pick up a drawing implement of some kind and draw. Last week, I was getting ready to leave for vacation, but I did accomplish a few things:

Day 3: Try out cross-hatching
This is a technique for shading that I'd learned about when I was keeping my sketchbook in university. I'd never actually tried it before, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I started out with simple shapes, but then I thought I'd try using it to shade in some sketches of eyes...

Day 4, 5 and 6: More eyes
The problem with me drawing eyes is that it rapidly becomes an addiction for me. I loved drawing eyes as a teenager, and I'm still obsessed by eyes now. I think it's because I have Asian eyes... I've always been interested in how the shape of your eyes changes how people perceive your ethnicity.

Day 7, 8, 9 and 10: Vacation sketching
We left for a vacation to California on Day 7, and I decided that I would just bring a little notebook and a pen with me. Drawing with a pen is quite a challenge for me, because I have no idea how to draw with a ballpoint pen in such a way that does not appear messy and scribbled. I think that the immediacy of the ink makes me lazy. I drew some doodles after having a cranberry with soda with my dinner:

Then I became interested in these plants after a walk in Griffith Park, so I drew a few with some hummingbirds I saw flitting around the park. It occurred to me then that I have no idea what a hummingbird tail looks like!

Then, it was an obsession with a pattern in some of the fabric on the furniture in our hotel room:

Then, it was this use of white on black to create almost Grecian-style drawings.  (I can't find the sketch right now, but I'll post it when I do).

Now that I've caught up with posting, let's see if I can keep it up!

Draw a Little Every Day: Day 2

Worked on two things I have difficulty with today:  chalk pastels and negative space. I thought I did pretty well, despite the fact that I had two attention-seeking doggies sitting with me. That big thing in the red is supposed to be the back of one of my chairs, which I thought looked pretty good until I realized that I forgot all about the other two legs. Ah well...

Draw a Little Every Day: Day 1

Most people who do not draw very much have quite a fear of drawing. I would like to say I'm not one of those people, but there is still some trepidation inside of me when I'm asked to draw. Draw what? With what? Who will see it? What if I make a mistake?

On the other hand, I think most people have doodled at least in one point of their lives. I'm not a constant doodler, but once I get started, it's hard for me to start. Doodling is a funny thing (and a funny word, by the way) because, for some reason, when I doodle, I'm not afraid of using permanent ink. I never feel the need to erase or correct. I just keep going and work with what I end up with.

Not long ago, on my G+ feed, someone posted a link to this video, which is about a drawing technique called Zentangle. When I watched it, I was entranced. I love trying to cram in a bunch of lines in my doodling, and it was interesting to watch the pens flowing around on the page.

Zentangle is a whole technique that you're "supposed" to take classes to do, but I just used it as an inspiration to play today.

The people-pleaser in me had to really resist going back to watch the videos again so that I could do it "right." Once I got to the third attempt, it felt much more natural, and way more fun!

I think dividing up the paper into sections and creating borders for my doodles really forced me to keep going and to fill up space. So far, so fun!

Draw a Little Every Day

One of the most important times in my life was when I felt really free to explore my creative side, and it happened to be at a time of intense stress. It was my final year of my bachelor of education, and I was doing really, really poorly. My cooperating teachers were being entirely uncooperative, and I was in danger of wasting all the work I'd done in the three previous years. I was questioning every single decision I made and every single word I uttered.

I happened to be in a program that required its pre-service teachers to put themselves in the same position as the children in their classes. You want them to read? You read. You want them to write? Then write. You want them to dance, sing, play? Well, get out your dance shoes, warm up your voice and play a little tag. I had a notebook in which I recorded all my ramblings, practiced my words, and worked out problems. I also had a sketchbook that held all my forays into paint, charcoal and ink.

It was a really interesting experience, because my days of failure were being tempered by moments of success:  a successful pencil sketch, a page of beautiful, saturated colour, achieving the perfect shadow, watching watercolours spread across the page. I firmly believe that these moments of success were what made the difference for me... that I could get through all of this and come out on top.

I graduated with distinction, if not with a whole lot of confidence. I spent the next few years finding my path as an educator, and eventually, I found it.

I've never forgotten the joy of discovering the power of that sketchbook, and I want to spend some time in that world again. Each day, I'll explore a little bit of life on the page, and learn to play around again with pencils, pastels and charcoals.

Here's to a month of colour and healing.