Zoo Pen Sketches

Sketches at the Birmingham Sealife Centre

Like a good dad, I took my little girl for a day out in half term. Life a good art nerd I did some sketches whilst I was there. We went to Birmingham Sea Life Centre. It was rather good, also it turns out fish are really cool to draw! (who knew)

Sketchbook - Now with added paint!

I have a new moleskin sketchbook and I've taken to drawing buildings recently.  I also stole my daughters watercolours to give them a wash.  I must get on to Santa about getting her some better quality art material

Gettin' ma' Zoo 'Orn

Some of the sketches I did at the Zoo at the weekend.  With and without a colour treatment.

Nothing to see here

not been 'feeling it' this week but carried on regardless. I may give these a treatment at some point. I have nothing else to add..

Beach Sketches

So not content with stalking people in the park, I've taken to the beach. I took my sketch book with me on holiday, not sure if that is sad or committed!

More sketches on the move

Just so as you know, each sketch is only 10 seconds or so in the making.

Sketch-ercise

So, some of my friends may know I'm 'training' for a London to Brighton Bike ride. So I've been cycling around a nearby lake at lunchtimes.

I've begun to encorporate some sketching it too. Essentially, I do a lap, then stop do some quick sketches of people and swans or geese and bugger off and do another lap. I must say I've been loving it. Its very cool trying to sketch people without them noticing. I used to cringe at this sort of thing but in my old age Im relishing it :) Plus a good friend of mine wanted me to carry on with traditional media as well as the digital stuff.

Life Drawing week 10/10

So, the final week of life drawing. I thought I'd play it reasonably safe and do a charcoal number. Apparently my sketching technique altered (for the better) after dabbling with paints. I wont have this weekly commitment of life drawing now so my posts may not be quite as numerous but they still will be regular, you'll just have to try and be a little patient with me :) it's not easy finding the time when you have a toddler running around!!

Life Drawing week 9/10

Some warm up sketches done using oil bars and a half finished (if that) painting that I need to get around to finishing. It was going well but takes so long just to lay down the first colours before you can do any clever or interesting things. My fault for using a palette knife I guess.

So, we are nearly done with the life drawing. I am working on a character illustration in my own time which I'll post when its done ( lucky you ) . The life drawing has really helped as you'd imagine.

Life Drawing week 8/10

These are some colour sketches with oils. I was a bit cheesed off I could get them to a more 'complete' state but 2 hours isnt really enough to do one painting let alone, studies, test piece and final piece. Still though, got me thinking of doing a more final piece for myself at some point

IN YOUR FACE 2009!!

Wow so that goes to show what a dry year 2009 was. Its only March and I've beat the total of posts in the whole of last year. Hopefully it will continue.

This was the first time I ever used acryilics and a palette knife. It wont be the last as I enjoyed both.

Life Drawing week 5/10

Only two this time. I must admit I wasnt a big fan of this model. She took herself way too seriously and her poses were rather pedestrian.

Life Drawing week 4/10

First off a big thank you to those who are now following and those who take the time to comment it is very flattering. I've been a little quiet of late due to laptop failure but hopefully now normal service will resume.

Here are my most recent life drawing pics. As you can see two of them are white on black and I've also included a warm up sketch that I liked. The proviso for that one was that we were not allowed to take the pencil off the paper. This gave some interesting results.

Life Drawing - Week 3/10

More on negative space, and this time with a female model yay! On a side note I was apalled to observe I only posted 11 times last year, and most of those was at the end of the year. Its the beginning of Feb and I've done nearly half of what I did last year. Here's to a more productive year.

Life Drawing - Week 1/10

So here are a few choice cuts from the life drawing course I've just started. Plus my own creation, showing me her creation, yeah it's self indulgant but hey, it's my blog deal with it :)