Pretty curly writing

Here's my new pen for learning copperplate. I've been trying it out a bit before I try to learn the actual letter forms, because I thought it would be easier if I was already sort of comfortable using the oblique pen. It's so cool! Such a pity it's totally impractical to have an inkwell on my desk at work and hand write all my letters, but I can't see the boss going for it...


And here's the Fight Club haiku, written with the new pen. It's not any particular script, but I think it's quite pretty anyway. My workmate's daughter is getting married next year, maybe if I've learned copperplate by then she'll let me write her invitations :)

Fashion Wheel update and my new pen

A few people suggested trying coloured pencils might be less smeary. Well I gave that a go, and it wasn't terribly successful, but then I found a 3B Caran d'Ache graphite stick I had lying around and tried that instead. It was much better and I got a lot more of the detail. Unfortunately 3B is really quite soft and I managed to smear it with my hand while colouring in, plus the coloured pencil ran into it a bit, but it's definitely better. Next time I'm at the art shop I'll look for a harder graphite stick, I bet that would be perfect. Or maybe I could use some charcoal fixative before colouring... hmm. Click to embiggen - it's definitely clearer than the previous ones.

Oh and side note - Richard bought me a nice new oblique pen holder and some pointy nibs because I want to learn copperplate writing. The writing on the Fashion Wheel drawing is me trying out the pen. I'm not claiming that this is anything like copperplate, of course, because it's most definitely not! I can do decent italics, but italics really aren't anything like handwriting (they're more like shapes and parallel lines that all look the same), and my own handwriting is dead upright and not even joined up. This is going to take a lot of effort I think :) Pretty handwriting is most definitely a lost art.

PS: I haven't cleaned this up in Photoshop at all, whereas the previous efforts were very very grubby indeed.

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

Leisure Painter WINNER!

There were twenty comments (actually there were twenty two but one was mine and one person left a second comment as she forgot to put her email address in the first comment). So I used random.org to pick a number between one and twenty. And the lucky number was... 2.

The winner is ALEX! Congratulations Alex, I'll send you an email to get your address.

I like this giving stuff away thing... I also have a subscription to Patrones - a fantastic Spanish magazine similar to Burda World of Fashion. Some of the magazines are for kid's clothes, which is no use to me. I wonder if people would like to win those... :D

I'm going to a calligraphy class this afternoon and life drawing tonight so hopefully I'll have something nice to post later on!

That time of year again.

I have a BIG essay due in tomorrow (it's roughly 3/4 of the way finished and it's now after 10pm). Next Thursday I have my first exam. Work is super busy and it's a struggle to get away on time. And on top of it all, I've enrolled in a calligraphy class that starts on Friday. I wonder if you can buy free time on ebay.

I am so spending this weekend drawing because I just haven't had time recently and it's quite depressing! Can't wait till my life drawing class on Friday evening.
Normal service will resume shortly. In the meantime, here's some Spirograph-style doodles I made on the computer.

Kingsmill Cat

We buy Kingsmill bread, mainly because it's the only edible brand that our local shop sells, but also partly because I want to save the tokens and send off for a Wallace and Gromit toast rack.

Lately the loaves of bread have been a bit holey, which is very annoying because you're only really getting half a piece of toast when you take into account all those air holes. But this was the most impressive holey slice of bread I've seen so far. I couldn't resist embellishing it a bit...