Odosketch, and how not to do perspective

Odosketch is a very fun little online sketching program. You have to sign up (which takes about fifteen seconds) and then you can save your sketches and publish them on your blog or wherever. (It embeds it as a Flash thingy though so I've just taken a screenshot instead.)

I can't find the pen for my graphics tablet so I had a little doodle with my mouse. Have you ever tried drawing with a mouse? It's VERY difficult! Here's our beloved car, a 14 year old Fiat Punto. It's covered in scratches, but I think it gives it character :) In real life it's bright green.

Now I want to go out and draw it properly, with a pen/pencil/crayon/whatever that I can actually control! And when I find the pen for my Bamboo tablet I'll have another go at Odosketch and see what I can come up with.

A digital drawing (abandoned)

I have been dabbling with this for ages. It's a tutorial from Corel Painter magazine. It looks nothing like the version in the magazine. And now I'm bored of it. It's not exactly the most interesting subject matter. So now I'm posting it here, and that means I don't have to work on it anymore and can do something else instead.

(If only I had time to sit down and learn it properly... I have such a long list of arty stuff to do when our house move is finally over.)

Me, age 29

Here's the little doodle I did yesterday. I don't really look like this, but some days (particularly on birthdays and after a rotten day at work) this is definitely how I feel.

I'm not quite sure what I was doing with the arms, I've just realised they make absolutely no sense and the poor old lady would have to be some sort of contortionist or have fingers growing out of her forearm or something.

Sparkly is always good

Ages ago, I bought a bottle of Winsor & Newton iridescent medium. Like so many of my art supplies, it lay around unused till last night I finally dug it out to have a play around.

I was using pans, so rather than mix it with the paint, I waited till the washes had dried and then brushed the iridescent medium over the top, before painting the outline.

Here's some autumn leaves. (No idea why I got the idea to paint autumn leaves in June, but anyway...) if you click on the image to make it bigger, you can kind of see the glittery bits.

I did some butterflies too, but they didn't come out very well due to me not being able to remember what butterflies looked like. And it didn't even occur to me to look for butterfly pictures on the internet! I think the iridescent medium works really well for butterfly wings so I'm going to do more of these, and hopefully the next lot might look a bit more like butterflies!

Oh and I'm having scanner trouble again. The colours of the butterflies are a lot more muted in real life, somehow the scanner has done the opposite to what it usually does and saturated everything rather than washing it out. The colours of the leaves are pretty much spot-on though.

Some actual drawing - finally

(This one got accidentally trod on!)

I was having a complete drawing block. I couldn't think of anything I wanted to draw. So last night, despite being exhausted from a sleepless Sunday night (thanks Richard, and if you ever snore like that again I'm divorcing you) I dragged myself along to life drawing class. I was glad I went - I enjoyed it as much as I always do - but I can see that in the five weeks or so since I've been I've really taken a step backwards and I found it very difficult.

What made things harder was that the previous group to use the studio, a theatre group, had left a huge weird steel structure in the middle of the room. We couldn't move it so we had to work around it, and it obstructed the view of the model which was annoying.


This was a warmup sketch - we did lots of one minute poses but this was different because you had to use your "wrong" hand. So I drew this with my left hand in about a minute. I never tried to draw with my left hand before.

Some more drawings. I have to be honest and say I don't actually like any of them, but the important thing is I actually did some drawing and feel like the mental block has gone.

I like old cameras

We have an abundance of film cameras. They're somewhat addictive. They can be picked up for next to nothing nowadays and they somehow have more personality than your generic DSLR! Here's a couple of sketches of two of my favourites.

This is my Olympus Trip 35. It's rather an iconic little camera - it's fully automatic apart from setting the film speed, and was launched in 1967 and made famous by David Bailey in a 1970s ad campaign. My particular one is from 1979 and is in almost mint condition. I paid hardly anything for it on eBay, but it's my favourite of all my cameras. (Apologies to my D80, but it's true.)

This is a Werra 1. It's a bit of an oddity. It was made by Carl Zeiss, the lens manufacturer, somewhere around 1950 to 1960. It takes 35mm film and to advance the film and cock the shutter, you twist a ring at the base of the lens. I've never seen anything similar on any other camera. The lens hood turns backwards and screws back into the body, and the lens cap screws onto the lens as if it were a filter, rather than just clicking on like normal lens caps do (I imagine this would be a bit annoying after a while!). This is Richard's newish toy. He found it in a charity shop in Stoke Newington a couple of weeks ago for £10 - bargain. He just shot a roll of film with it and left it in today to be processed - if any of the shots are particularly nice I'll update this post tomorrow.

Both drawn with Faber Castell Pitt pen, Caran d'Ache water soluble graphite pencils and a water brush.

Do you still have a film camera?

100 posts! Let's celebrate with lots of cats!

Well I never thought I would have stuck with my blog long enough to make a hundred posts, but here I am! And I still love my little blog. It keeps me motivated to draw and paint and make stuff, and all your comments make me very happy and even more motivated, so hopefully there'll be another hundred posts to come.

(Click to make bigger.)

There is no better way to celebrate something than to draw lots and lots of different coloured cats. So here's lots of cats. (It was too big for my scanner so I had to stitch the pieces together in Photoshop, so if you can see any joins, just pretend you can't.) Faber Castell pen and watercolour.

Work in progress

Not much time for arty stuff or crafty stuff as I've been busy panicking over tonight's exam, but I did decide I wanted some Fashion Wheel art for my walls, and that a pop art style might be quite cool. Here's what I worked on for a while last night while watching Ashes to Ashes (series 2 is much better than series 1, by the way).

Click to enlarge.

There's still quite a bit to do, and I also can't decide if I prefer a white or a coloured background. Any thoughts?

PS: This is compressed to make it load quickly - the 'real' one is better quality.

My exams: two opposing views.

I hate exams. This is how I feel during exam time.

Richard thinks this is how it will all turn out. Nice to know my husband has faith in me (no matter how unrealistic!).

(Click to enlarge.)

Actually this evening I had the exam I was dreading the most (Portuguese oral exam - I was talking about childhood obesity, of all things) and it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought. One of the examiners gave me a chocolate at the end of it! I was actually saying to my workmates that at the start of every exam, students should be supplied with chocolate and coffee. This was at the end of the exam, and I had to bring my own coffee, but it's definitely a step in the right direction :)

Sleepy catdog

Elvis is worn out from chasing The Nothing* round the house all day and is now having a full-on slob across the back of the sofa. I grabbed the nearest pen (a fine nibbed calligraphy marker) and did a couple of very quick sketches of him.

Number one. This is on the back of some paper I had been using to try and break in a new very scratchy nib, which is what all the funny shapes are.



Number two. He kept moving in his sleep.

Here's what he looks like right now. Bad webcam photo but just look how huge he is. I measured him and he's about 24 inches long. All the better for cuddling.



*The Nothing is Elvis' nemesis. He likes to chase it round the house at 3am.

EDM #221 and a new footballer

Here's EDM number 221 - draw a handheld game. What else could I draw but my DS Lite? I love this thing. When the DS was first released, I was wary of it. I thought the touch screen was gimmicky. Eventually I got one and I grew to love it, especially as games like Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and Professor Layton came out. When my exams are over, I'm going to finish Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars. (If I had a pound for every time I said "when my exams are over" I would have the deposit for a house by now.)



Also here's a footballer. He plays for Chelsea and I think he's called Ricardo Cavalho. So he's probably Brazilian, in which case maybe he can help me revise for my exams... I was in a charity shop the other day and spotted Shoot 2009 annual for £1 and snapped it up. Lots of lovely footballers to draw! And it's tidier than all the sports pages from newspapers that I had been hoarding up till I got around to drawing them.


Both of these were coloured with horrible coloured pencils from WH Smith because I have misplaced the pencil case with my Derwent pencils in. I tidied up the other day and put them away somewhere safe and now I forget where the safe place is :( The colour from these pencils is really quite weak. I never really noticed the difference before but I haven't used these pencils in a long time and now I realise why they were so cheap.

Tomorrow my Unravelling e-course starts. I'm so looking forward to it. Everything for the past few weeks has been assignments, exams, work, exams, exams, exams. Hardly even any drawing. It's about time I took a bit of time for myself when I wasn't allowed to feel guilty for not studying. Also it will force me to take photos, and that's a good thing. There will be writing assignments too. I'm not a writer at all, as I'm sure anyone who reads the ramblings on my blog has already noticed! But again maybe it will force me to sit back and think about things a bit instead of always rushing through stuff to get to the next thing on the list.

If I had a blog when I was 9, this is what I would have posted.

When I was a kid, my very favourite toy was Fashion Wheel. Readers in the US might not know what this is, but I'm sure they'll remember Fashion Plates which was very similar. You set the plastic head, body and legs of your choice, rubbed the black crayon over it (similar to brass rubbings), then coloured it in. And you could even use the plates to create a texture for the fabric. It was genius. Never mind that the crayon always made the faces look all smeary!

Recently I saw a post on Apartment Therapy about Fashion Plates and it made me start hankering after my Fashion Wheel, so a quick trip to Ebay later and I was the proud owner of an early 1990s model. The clothes (and heads) are slightly different to mine, which was more 70s style even though I had it in the late 80s. The special crayon had long since disappeared so I tried out a Conté crayon and a normal wax crayon and both were very smeary, I'll have to work out how to do it so it doesn't smear so much. Some of my ladies' faces look like they have been kicked! I cleaned up the outlines a bit in Photoshop so they looked a bit tidier.

Here's Richard's Fashion Wheel drawing (below). This version comes with a plate with a cat and a dalmation on it which is quite cool :-) Somehow his was less smeary than mine, maybe he didn't press so hard.
Did anyone else have Fashion Wheel or Fashion Plates? What creative toys did you like when you were a kid?

"Hand night" at life drawing class

Every week, we study a different aspect of the body or a particular method of drawing. This week's class was about drawing hands - something a lot of people find very difficult (but bizarrely, something I really like doing). We talked a lot about the anatomy of the hand and wrist (for example, the wrist and knuckles are always on the same plane, no matter which way the hand is turned). We did lots of very quick one minute sketches of the model's hands, and then a few longer drawings. It was a fantastic class.

Next week is the last class in the ten week course, and will be dealing with feet and foreshortening. Then I'll have to join the Monday class for seasoned pros. Not sure how I feel about moving away from the beginner class!

Quick warm-up sketch of my own hand

Pretty quick drawing of my classmate Anya's hand (about 5 minutes)

Final drawing of the night of the model Steve's hand - about 20 minutes

EDM #186 - something I have always wanted. A long and rambling post about typewriters and coincidences.

Oh dear - drew the keys far too small!

There's a little story behind this one. Not that interesting or exciting a story, but a story nonetheless.

I have always loved typewriters. Not the writing part of things - I've never had the aspirations to be a writer that a lot of people have, not even when I was younger - but the machines themselves. Just like I obsess over old sewing machines and cameras, although I do actually like sewing and taking photos.

When I started secondary school, I was excited when I saw a whole room full of typewriters and found out that when you reached sixth year (which would probably be junior year of high school in the US) you were given typing lessons. I couldn't wait. Unfortunately, they phased out the typewriters before I was old enough, in favour of a room full of computers (RM Nimbus) which we were never allowed to use.

I always wanted a typewriter of my own, but we didn't have a lot of money, so instead my aunt gave me hers on long-term loan. I loved it. It was a Silver Reed portable and the ink was all but dried up, but I taught myself to type on it, and did a lot of my GCSE coursework on it.

Recently I've started wishing for a typewriter again, and even went so far as to research (on ebay mostly) which one I wanted. The machine of choice was a Smith Corona Calypso, because it was tiny, cute, a pretty colour, and looked like it might actually be usable. I managed to find an auction for one today, but got outbid at the last minute. I was so disappointed. But my disappointment was short-lived.

I had to go on a little trip to Islington for some calligraphy ink this afternoon (more on that later), and accidentally got off the bus a stop too early. On the way to the art shop, I walked past a junk shop I'd never seen before, and there, sitting outside on a knackered old table was a royal blue Smith Corona Calypso! Couldn't believe my eyes - what a huge coincidence. Sure it wouldn't be working, I fished an envelope out of my bag, stuck it in the typewriter and hit a few keys, and it was almost perfect. The price tag said £14, but I managed to get the seller to let me have it for £10. Less than half what the ebay one would have cost me if you take into account the postage costs. The A key is sticky and the shift lock doesn't work. I love it. Almost as much as my Olympus Trip 35.

If you're still reading after all that, here are some photos of the newest addition to our household.

Need to clean those keys a bit!

I haven't been drawing much over the past few days because I've been so busy with my last assignments for the year, which are due in next week, and also because I've been practicing my calligraphy. I haven't done it for ages and I'm so rusty it's depressing. But it's something I'm determined to get better at. No point posting my pages and pages of the same letter groups over and over - I don't think anyone would be interested in that! But I might show off my new coloured inks at some point. I've just discovered the joys of filling a fountain pen with ink instead of using a cartridge - the difference is amazing.

Oh and here's a bookmark I crocheted while watching TV last night. Bonus points if you recognise the book - even more bonus points if you recognise the artist.

Leisure Painter Magazine Giveaway

I ended up with two copies of this month's Leisure Painter magazine, due to my subscription starting on the wrong date. I don't have any real life friends who like painting, so I would like to pass it on to one of my online friends who will enjoy it.

If you would like this magazine, just leave me a comment on this post, and next Friday 24 April I will use a random number generator to pick a winner. Make sure you leave some way for me to get in contact with you - a link to your blog profile or email address or whatever.

If you're in the US you might not have heard of Leisure Painter. It's a lovely magazine, with articles and how-to projects largely dealing with watercolour but also soft and oil pastels, drawing and other mediums as well as book reviews and other goodies.

UPDATE: the contest is closed! Thanks for entering!

My husband's masterpiece

This was painted by Richard, age 29.

In his defence, he is very very good at making complicated spreadsheets in Excel, and he is also a very good photographer, and he makes fantastic cups of tea, and the paints were not very good quality.

In case you can't tell, this is a seaside scene with cliffs. (Although that should be obvious, right?)

Love you, husband x

Very bright butterflies

When I first bought my watercolour set, I had no idea what I was looking for, so I bought the biggest Cotman set in Cass Art. There are half pans of about thirty colours, maybe more. Turns out I only ever use about ten of them regularly and some I had never used at all and in fact never even seen on paper, so I sat down last night to have a bit of a play around with these poor forgotten colours. Here's the result! I like painting wet into wet, because you never really know what you're going to end up with till it dries. I'm going to paint more of these, but next time I'll try and make them a bit neater round the edges!

I have really been neglecting my poor camera lately. I have a Nikon D80 and it's a great camera, but recently it's only been used for taking photos of stuff I've made or received in swaps. So I've signed up for Susannah Conway's Unravelling e-course, which starts on 4 May. I have exams at the end of May and always tend to fret and worry around exam time, so this will force me to take a bit of time out and stop fretting for long enough to take a few photos! I can't wait for this to start. I love Susannah's blog - if you haven't visited it, you should. She's a lovely and very talented lady who takes beautiful photographs.

Tree practice, again.

I wasted three pieces of watercolour paper tonight before I managed to paint something I didn't hate! I couldn't paint on the backs, as they were postcards and had some printing on the back, so I'll just use them for testing out colours. I didn't even get past the sky for one of them.

For this tree, I was only actually interested in painting the tree itself so didn't make much effort with the sky or foreground, but I don't think it turned out too badly. Hopefully this one looks less like a lollipop than my previous efforts!

We ordered my birthday present tonight - Jacksons have a 10% off sale on Maimeri paint until 12 May, so it made sense to order it now. But I'm not allowed it till my birthday which is 24 June so I'll just have to contain my excitement for another while :-)

Back to work tomorrow... sigh.

I wish I painted this (but I didn't).

A while ago, I was contacted by a guy called Chris Chalk, who liked one of my photos on Flickr and wanted to know if it was ok to use it as the basis for an oil painting. Of course I said yes - I was pleased as punch to be asked. So then last Thursday I received another email from him, attaching a photo of the final painting. Well! I fell in love with it immediately. I love fresians, and if we weren't on such a strict spending ban I'd be buying this for myself. But unfortunately I can't, so I'm doing the next best thing and blogging about it instead.

Here's the photo from my Flickr account.

Isn't it fantastic? (The painting, I mean, not the photo.)

Oh and on Chris' website, he has a section where he shows the work in progress, which is very interesting.

He's now working on a second one (of the same groovy cows) - I can't wait to see the result.

Free watercolour painting lessons!

No, not from me (I'm the last person to be giving watercolour tips when I barely know one end of the brush from another) but some that I have bookmarked that I thought might be interesting and helpful to other people. If you know if a good site with tutorials or lessons, leave a comment or email me and I'll add it to the list.

1. Frank Clarke at Simply Painting - the lovely Irish man who started me off with watercolours. He has some good free lessons on his site that teach you how to do an easy but lovely painting from start to finish.
   


2. Bob Davies' Watercolour Secrets - he has an eight DVD course (which is very high on my list of things to try and justify forking out for), but also offers some free video lessons that are really excellent. You have to sign up and have the links emailed to you, but you don't get any spam emails and it's definitely worth it.


3. Cathy Johnson - a lovely lady, and her site is absolutely full of very useful tips and tutorials and interesting stuff.


4. watercolorpainting.com - lots and lots of step by step tutorials that you can print out if you like. Everything from how to do a simple flat wash to a step by step painting of a lighthouse.


5. Terry Harrison - just the one lesson from the author of one of my favourite watercolour books, but it's a good one - a step by step lesson on painting a country style scene.


6. Mary Ann Boysen - I've just discovered this site. Lots of free lessons.


7. Susie Short - tutorials including a nice one on painting trees.


8. artistsnetwork.com - the site for Watercolor Artist and other magazines; there are lots of downloadable tutorials and interesting articles.