Inktober 2020 week 3

11 bird on a quince branch

Hi there, how are you?

Here are my of Inktober drawings for Week 3.

I’m Still keeping up so far, very much liking the colour of the blue ink and having lots of fun experimenting.

Day11 – bird. (above) I had no ideas today so after a quick look through my sketchbook found something that might look good together. It’s nice when the sketchbook becomes useful for not only practising but generating ideas and too.

Day 12 – bat. A little bat fluttering around some bindweed although in some countries the internet says they are called moon flowers(though I’m not sure its the same plant?)

I drew the bat and flowers and thought it looked a bit disjointed so I put the black circle as an after thought. It seems to pull everything together better.

12 bat and bindweed flowers

Day 13 – poppy. I love the colour of blue poppies (although you cant tell the colour from this drawing). I really enjoy drawing the curly petals.

13 blue poppies

Day 14 – blossom. A little bird sitting amongst the spring blossoms. This was drawn on watercolour paper, bockingford I think, and was a very different experience from the printer and cartridge papers I’ve been using.

14 bird amongst the blossom

Day 15 – Chameleon. Two baby chameleons sitting on hibiscus flowers also drawn on watercolour paper. I’m testing this ink on as may papers as I can. The texture of the paper really shows through on this one

15 chameleon on hibiscus flowers

Day 16 – butterfly. I’ve seen these flowers many times in the butterfly house at the zoo, I didn’t realise they were another type of hibiscus. (learning and growing hehehe) They look so beautiful and delicate; the butterflies are always fluttering around them.This one is sort of stylised as I’m still trying to work all the frilly petals out.

16 butterfly on hibiscus flower

Day 17 – snail. I’m not a lover of the slimy hoards but they are fun to draw. The tiny mushrooms were drawn from a shaky photo I took at the zoo last year. This one turned out much better than I thought it would.

16 snail

We are over half way through now, some were a little rushed but it was a fun week of drawing.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by. Till next time, have fun x

Inktober 2020 week 2

Day 05 camellia

Hi there, how are you?

Week two of Inktober done already, this month is going by fast!

I’m still using the same pens and ink; so far everything is looking OK.

I’ve drawn lots of flowers with a few other things thrown in to make it more interesting. I try to keep it simple so I can finish a drawing each day, of course sometimes they get away from me.

Day5 – camellia. (above) I love to see the camellias flowering, it always reminds me that the sun is on its way.

Day 6 – crab. This little guy was very cute but I wanted to draw some kind of beachy flowers to cheer him up. After a quick search I found sea daffodils. I didn’t even know there was such a thing! They were so pretty I decided to draw some just behind him.

Day 06 crab & sea daffodils

Day 7 – bee. A little bee and what I’m calling a cosmos flower. I had taken the photo last year and forgotten to write the name down.

Day 07 bee

Day 8 – peonies. I can’t help myself they are so pretty. These peonies are from several photos I’d taken, I was trying to fit them together into some sort of composition.

Day 09 peony

Day 9 – frog. I had already drawn a lotus flower on day 1 but wanted to draw another one so I fitted a little frog inside it to change it up a bit. I have plans for this little guy.

Day 08 lotus & frog

Day 10 – sunflower. I love sunflowers but can’t grow them in my garden. (that’s only partially true, they get to about three inches tall and are eaten to a stump!) so I take photos whenever I see them. I took these photos last year.

Day 10 sunflowers

So there we go, another week over. More to do next week, hoping I can come up with a few good ideas.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by. Till next time, have fun x

Inktober 2020 week 1

01 lotus & betta fish

Hi there, how are you?

Is it October already? Yes, it’s that time of year again “Inktober”

To be honest I wasn’t really feeling it this year. There is so much going on and lockdown fatigue is taking it’s toll. I manage to draw more days than not but sometimes I have to push myself. I won’t learn to draw if I don’t actually do any drawing.

That’s the good thing about being here on my little blog, I need something to post. So being here and seeing all of you lovely people keeps me accountable, one of the many things I’m thankful for right now.

I had no parameters set but had recently bought a new bottle of ink, a pale purple/grey colour. I’ll play and experiment with the new ink, a pentel pocket brush pen, a white jell pen and probably some fine liners with various white papers. I want to find out what this ink will do and how best to use it.

I’m not using prompts unless I see something that appeals and generally they don’t.

Day 1 – fish. (see above) Did I say no prompts? Well I like fish so OK I did the first one. I tried to combine it with lotus flowers. It’s the first time using this ink, it’s really pale and at its palest doesn’t scan well. (Learning and growing hehehe) . Antique printer paper (the kind that had the perforated holes down the side, (using it up slowly)

Day 2 – cyclamen. I have a cyclamen plant that is stubborn and fights my terribly un-green fingers. I used it as a model for the leaves and photos I’d taken last year for the flowers. I like the shading on this one. New printer paper.

02 cyclamen

Day 3 – beetle. A half decent idea that almost works. Maybe I’ll come back to it, I can think more about this now it’s on paper and out of my head. I like this colour a lot. 200Gsm coated card

03 beetle

Day 04 – chrysanthemum. Normally I paint chrysanths free hand but I thought it would be fun to draw some, it was. Then I decided to make the background black! Ran all the ink out of my brush pen. It does look sort of cool though so worth it. 200Gsm coated card.

04 chrysanthemum

I posted the first one on the 2^nd October so I’m a day late, I may make it up or not, I’ll see how I feel. Getting started is the hard part so now I’ve started it shouldn’t be to difficult to keep the momentum. The hardest thing is deciding what to draw.

I’m looking forward to seeing everyone’s Inktober’s this year, I think that’s the most fun part.

Take care of yourselves and thanks so much for taking the time to stop by. Till next time, have fun x

Hydrangea Paintings And Flower Drawings

White hydrangea painted with gouache

Hi there, how are you?

I’m still sitting in the garden drawing and painting flowers, only now I’m wearing a coat because it’s starting to get a bit chilly.

We had hoped by now to be able to have a day out here or there but there is more spikage and things are closing down again!

The hydrangea is starting to droop and the flowers are changing colour. They turn from a green/white to lovely shades of rusty pink.

I have tried drawing and painting them before but never seem to capture the real beauty of them.

Since I have a blue sketch book I thought gouache would work for the whiter petals.

I found it hard to keep the white mixed with the other colours very easily and it doesn’t stand out from the page as much as I thought it would.

For this next one I painted the pink first to try to make the petals stand out more which sort of worked although I lost the brightness altogether this time.

Maybe a darker paper would work; another experiment for another time.

Hydrangea painted with gouache

Mum gave us some fuchsia cuttings in August, I planted them into a pot thinking it was the last I would see of them but the are growing quite nicely.

The flowers and leaves are bigger than the other fuchsia I have (I now have three types of fuchsia all with no slug bites at all!) I drew them in my sketch book so if they don’t last the winter I’ll have something to remember them by.

I’ve also taken a few photos so I can paint them later.

Fuchsia sketch

During our visit to mums we took a wander around her garden (she likes to show off all the beautiful flowers) she has a gorgeous clematis growing through some trellis. I took one or two photos to draw at home.

Clematis sketch

Fingers crossed we wont be stuck in the house for six months like they’re predicting because pretty soon I will be reduced to drawing lots of brown leaves!

Take care of yourselves and thanks so much for taking the time to stop by. Till next time, have fun x

Peonies On Toned Paper

Peony drawn with a brush pen

Hello, how are you?

I’m drawing in my sketch book and now I have worked out which media works best on this paper I’m really enjoying it.

I have taken loads of photos of peonies over the years so I thought I would make some use of the photos and use them as reference.

Normally for peonies I would paint the shapes of the petals with watercolour as I seem to work much better with shapes than I do lines so this is a bit of a switch for me. I’ve picked simpler flowers with out too many petals so I don’t get lost in the details.

An ink drawing of two peonies

They were all blocked out in pencil then drawn with a brush pen, a grey tombow marker was used for the shading and a white gel pen for the high lights.

I don’t always get the highlights in the right places but It’s all good practice.

Peony ink drawing

Once drawn I made the peonies into a pattern.

Sometimes my patterns are a bit samey so I thought having only three flowers and keeping them quite large would be interesting; maybe it’s a little busy I’m not sure yet.

A pattern of peonies

So many thoughts, so little time hehehe.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by. Till next time, have fun x

Drawings Flowers With A Brush pen

Garden rose ink drawing

Hi there, how are you?

This week I have been drawing drawing flowers with my brush pen again.

Some from the garden and some from my limited travels.

The drawing above is of the lovely red rose that grows in the garden.

I think it’s the third time it has flowered this year. It never fails to cheer me up, the other half barely notices anything flower related and even he mentioned how beautiful it is.

This second rose was growing in a local park, it was white with deep pink edges. I snapped a photo and drew it later, at home.

Ink drawing of a rose

On a shopping trip I spotted an orange lily in a pot outside the door, I bought it of course, I couldn’t resist hehehe.

The flowers are so pretty and to date they haven’t suffered much slug damage (always a good sign). I’ve planted it into a bigger pot and hopefully, if it lasts the winter we will have more lovely lilies next year.

lily

I noticed the local botanical garden is open to visitors now and I took myself off for a day out.

Most of the flowers are finished now, there are still some things like hydrangeas and autumn crocus but at this time of year it’s nice to see the seed heads.

The sea holly is so beautiful and is usually a rich blue bit right now they are fading greens and golden browns.

I took a few photos to draw at home. I find their shapes fascinating.

Spiky sea holly

I think I would like to try painting some of these flowers these and play around with the colours

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by. Till next time, have fun x

Pigeons

Pigeon sketch 1

Hi there, how are you?

This week I noticed the camera was getting a little full so decided to transfer the photos to the pc. I found one or two photos of pigeons and thought they would be fun to draw.

I like pigeons, they’re kind of kooky, very nosy and they don’t fly off at the first little noise. They are incredibly clumsy, always crashing into the trees making a huge commotion.

They are also very pretty and can be any colour from blue grey with iridescent bands around the neck to lovely shades of brown.

Pigeon sketch 2

I started off in the sketch book with a black and grey brush pen, just using the things I had in my pencil case really.

Then I wanted something a little more colourful and broke out the watercolour paper and paints.

Pigeons in a row. The same pigeon in ink then waterclour.

These were painted from a photo of pigeons eating, they looked like they were having a bit of a natter so that’s how I drew them. They made me smile so why not.

Pigeons having a little chat.

I think I would like to try them again sometime on different paper, painting layers on this paper is not brilliant as the paint lifts too easily but it was fun and an interesting way to spend a little time.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by. Till next time, have fun x

Value Studies

Orchid plant

Hi there, how are you?

This week I have drawn a few flowers from around the house and garden, plus octopus. (left over thoughts from last week maybe) They were simple line drawings drawn with a brush pen; they looked OK but a little boring so I found a grey brush pen and a white gel pen to make some value studies.

I’m not sure why I haven’t done this earlier to be honest, it is toned paper after all. So at almost a hundred pages into my blue sketch book I’m making value sketches.

My little pink orchid is flowering again, it flowers about two or three times a year and it is always fun to draw or paint. I really like the way the flower stalk is curling around the plant at the moment.

Mum gave us a piece off her agapanthus plant this spring and I dutifully planted it thinking it would be next year before we had flowers. Surprise they grew this year and they are stunning although every day I go out to admire it some of the flowers are missing (rotten slugs!) got to draw it before they all disappear.

Agapanthus flowers

The petals on these flowers are based loosely on the st. johns wort. I am trying to work out how to make small compositions of flowers.

Usually I just draw what I see and end up with a page of disjointed looking flowers.

This is two little groups and I quite like how they turned out. Some flowers are harder than others though so it’s going to take a lot more practice.

Some flowers loosely based on st, johns wort

I also drew octopus. I had painted a lot of octopuses in gouache last week, this week I drew two with a brush pen, (they must still be in my head). Again they were simple line drawings so I decided to jazz them up a little.

octopuses

I think the extra tones have defined the flowers a little and brightened them up.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by. Till next time, have fun x