Virtual sketchcrawl - new media

I'd bought a cheap kid's set of watercolor pencils, months ago, at Freddy's, but had never tried them.  So, with today's theme of trying a different media than you usually use, I dragged them out.


Obviously, I couldn't sketch the pencils themselves, not in their true colors at least, so I let other pencils stand in.  And the highlights didn't work very well.  There was a white pencil in the box, but, wet or dry, it didn't seem to end up in the drawing.

For my second sketch, I dragged everything outside, and huddled under my eaves to do one of the dogwood blossoms.  To make the white stand out, I cut apart one of the multitude of paper grocery sacks that I've brought home during the pandemic.

And, again, the white was pretty pathetic.

Virtual Sketchcrawl 3 alternative drawing materials

For today’s challenge of using alternative drawing materials, I decided to use those old discarded school supplies, the crayola markers I’ve saved up year after year. I have a lot of these since I have 3 kids. The nearly dried out ones created a lighter tone and different texture. This is a view from my deck. Our chairs are all mismatched. Nothing but last years twig in the clay planter.

Sketching with Trevor

For this sketchcrawl's theme of using a material we haven't worked with much before, I chose my ArtGraf watercolor graphite. 

My subject, Trevor, might look peaceful but he changed position several times and was a bit complicated! I did find the watercolor graphite an interesting match to try to show the shape of him while also somewhat capturing his black and white patches. It's a good material for focusing on doing brush strokes without getting distracted by color, and that's an area where I could use a lot of practice.  Fun experiment.

Last sketchcrawl we did continuous line drawings, but I had to stop early for a personal event and never posted.  So, belatedly, here's what I did that morning... it's Trevor again, this time in his bed with his favorite giraffe stuffie.

 

Looking forward to seeing what everyone else did today!

--Kalina

Virtual Sketchcrawl Challenge #3- Change it up- Use a different medium.

Our regular sketchcrawls are once a month, but why not sketch together more often while we're sketching from home?

Please join us for our third virtual sketchcrawl on Saturday, May16th
Encouraged by the very good turnout from our second challenge- Continuous Line we are offering another in the form of using a different medium than the one you usually use.

That is; perhaps using graphite instead of ink or maybe gouache or colored pencil instead of watercolor. You know you have those materials sitting somewhere in your stash that you may have tried sometime but for some reason or another went back to your usual medium. We all  have done that, right?

So we invite you to experiment and try that other meduim but still be limited to sketching in and around our homes during our stay safe isolation.

Kay's stash

As always, this challenge is optional, and you can be as strict or as loose as you like. Your participation is welcome whether you choose to take on this challenge -- just make sure to work from life and to include contextual information, so it stays in the realm of "urban sketching"!



We will start at 10am.  At noon, which is when we would normally be meeting up for lunch to share sketchbooks, we'd love to see your sketches online in whichever forum feels comfortable for you:

(1) posting to this blog
(2) emailing to our mailing list
(3) posting in our Facebook group

See you there!

Continuous Line: My Garden

 A day late and lifted the pen a few times, but not many.  I used water-soluble ink and I added a few swipes with the water brush.
The background texture was done beforehand.

This is a good exercise.  Thank you for the suggestion!

Continuous line

OK, I tried a continuous line drawing. Actually, I tried it twice, and then reverted to standard (virtual) brush strokes.

And I decided to document activities that I used to do often, but have let slip of late, and have now taken up again during the pandemic.

Firstly, sewing.  Specifically, sewing face-masks.

I found the continuous line business difficult to do on a tablet, because I couldn't zoom in.  Which meant that I couldn't see exactly where the line was going down under my finger.

But I tried it again to show that I've started baking bread again.

This one was difficult too, because that bread was right out of the oven and just smelled so good. So, as soon as the sketch was finished, I cut it open to eat a quarter of it.  And then another quarter, with butter.

Continuous Line: ink pens, brush pens and rain

It wasn't raining when I started drawing the plum tree from my front porch but it was at the end. Big fat raindrops that came in handy. After getting my drawing in the weeds with my various pens I just held it out and let the rain fall on it. I think it made it better.

Continuous line challenge

Here are my two sketches from today's pdxusk challenge.

Still learning about this technique. One lesson so far has been pretty evident though, My use of water soluble ink has pretty well removed the continuous line in the first sketch. Two possible solutions; the use permanent ink or as I did in the second  sketch (living room- south view) use less watercolor!
Thanks for this idea, Kalina, this was fun.

Added some white gel pen

have to admit....not much less watercolor but better.

Fresh sketch - still drying - continuous line + wet splashes

Something different from my normal - standing up to draw/paint my kitchen.  I'm looking forward to other sketchings.  Thanks for the prompt for a super fun way to draw!
 

Correcting Errors Completed

I made an error that was published in the article about our group in the May issue of Drawing Attention and gave the wrong person credit for this drawing. Patricia Chow, editor of the magazine, worked tirelessly and fast to correct it and now the drawing has the right credit. This is the beautiful drawing by Anne McKinney. Thanks so much to Patricia and all the other people around the world who keep us drawing with their efforts!