Life Class - Week 12

I decided to approach this week's life class in ink, and set my own time limitations for the poses. This resulted in lots of sketches based on poses with 3-10 minute allocations, where the model posed for longer intervals I simply changed my position and started another sketch.

I also took my sketchbook into the kitchen for our coffee break, where I made a couple of quick sketches of group members sipping hot drinks and washing up.

I enjoyed this casual approach to life class and felt I learned alot from being able to move about freely changing angles and perspective, focusing on difficult view points.

There was another reason for behind my cunning plan though. Do you remember back in October I started a new Seawhite sketchbook? It is almost six inches square and has 95 pages. I started this book on October 13th and today, just four weeks later, I finished it!
PHEW!

This was supposed to be the last of our sessions for this batch but because last week was cancelled the organiser is going to try and arrange a session for next Tuesday.

Fingers crossed!

One Of A Kind

This is my very special cup, gifted to me by my two boys and purchased on a trip to The Butterfly Park at Long Sutton some years ago. The cup is just the perfect size to fit into my Tassimo machine and holds each shot perfectly. It has flowers running all the way around it designed and signed by Nel Whatmore. The design is titled 'One of a Kind'
...I love it for so many reasons.

Below is a recent purchase from Kala on Etsy. It's a small accordion sketchbook made of Bockingford watercolour paper covered in Indian embroidered cotton fabric.
IT IS SERIOUSLY BEAUTIFUL!
Kala took the care to pack it in printed tissue paper, tied with a ribbon and lots of loving care. I was most impressed and felt apprehensive about opening it and ruining her beautiful work. However, I was soon to discover that the real beauty lie within.
I'm waiting for a special occasion to use it, it deserves special treatment, it is most definitely 'One of a Kind'.
My photos are a little dark, you can view Kala's much better photographs HERE.

As you know, I've been trying to find the perfect sketchbook and my purchase from Kala got me playing around with some old left over gift wrap and tags. I too used Bockingford and attempted an accordion style network that turned into more of a maze. The thought of stitching puts me off of making my own sketchbooks but this folding malarkey looked like a fairly easy alternative.

Don't be fooled!

It looked easy but with only small sheets of paper cut from a block to work with, it was far from easy. There is a skill to lining up the back and the front too which I think wouldn't be such a problem if the pages inside all opened the same way like Kala's version. Mine opens in every direction and in one of those directions the back cover interferes with the front a little.

Still, for a first attempt using leftovers I think it went ok and with it's maze style pages it is most certainly 'One of a Kind'.

Least We Forget

'Nature's Grace' - Acrylic on watercolour paper

I created the painting above many months ago using a statue in my garden and mixed photographic references of poppies.


'Least We Forget' -Wimblington Church War Memorial
- Coloured Pencil on Cream Paper

The war memorial at Wimblington church is my most favourite statue in the area. I felt it 'call to me' from the bypass that runs alongside the church and detoured off to find it so I could see it closer. I have since visited it many times, sometimes for just a few minutes and sometimes longer, sometimes to sit and think and sometimes to sketch. I always come away from her feeling fortunate and re-charged.



Today's sketch efforts in my Seawhite sketchbook continued with the toy theme using Harry's toy soldiers to mark this important day and finished with one of the many poppies we have all purchased throughout the week at various locations. The design on the lower right was created using a bunch of fake silk poppies I have in a vase in my studio as a reference.

More Boys Toys

A few more quick studies of my Son's toy vehicles in my Seawhite sketchbook.

Boys Toys

A quick study of one of Harry's many toy vehicles sketched while lazing on the sofa this evening.
I don't believe I've ever sketched his toy vehicles before, the truck proved both interesting and most challenging. I don't think this will be my last sketch on this subject category.

Life Class - Week 11 - CANCELLED

Posemaniacs Pose of the Day - Ballpoint pen - 10 minute page

All revved up, bag packed the night before, I prepared to take my youngest into school before heading off for the favourite part of my week - Life class!

Then I received a text cancelling class due to the organiser being poorly.
GUTTED!

By way of consolation, I visited the Posemaniacs website and took advantage of the 'Today's Pose', creating three quick sketches that totalled ten minutes in my Seawhite sketchbook.

I then took my youngest off to school and treated myself to a full English breakfast at Tesco Cafe where I managed to grab another figure sketch before heading home to spend some time in the studio working on that illusive canvas piece I mentioned in my last post.

Not so bad after all then!

Winter Wonderland

Card design - Arches HP watercolour block.

I have transformed my 'Elva' card design from the square page of my Seawhite sketchbook to an Arches HP watercolour block and uploaded it into my CARD SHOP 'Nitsa's Noodles' at Greeting Card Universe where it can be purchased for $2.49.

Design sketch - Seawhite sketchbook

I have also uploaded a Robin I painted last year in acrylic into my Imagekind Gallery of fine art prints, where it can be purchased from as little as $14.43.

Robin - Acrylic on canvas

It has felt alot like Winter here in the Fens today, the wind came from nowhere at around 4pm and there's been a frosty chill in the air all day. Physio this morning and the weekend wreckage to contend with meant little time to sketch so I added simple line sketches of items I crossed paths with throughout the day to form this page of my Seawhite sketchbook.

As you can see I ended my day in the studio where I finally started work on a canvas piece I've been planning and packed my bag ready for Tuesday's life session...Can't wait!

16th WorldWide SketchCrawl

The 4th November was the official date of the 16th Worldwide Sketch Crawl.
The crawls usually take place on a Saturday. Sunday's are difficult for me to get out and about but I decided to take part anyway, stopping throughout my day to make quick sketches around the house and garden.



My first doodle of the day was of one the few poppies still flowering in my front drive, sketched in ballpoint pen and watercolour after loading the washing machine.



My second was the rather putrid looking raw chicken I intended to cook for our traditional Sunday roast. I can assure you, it looked much more appetising exiting the oven than it did entering!



Mid-morning and after two Weetabix, Harry yearned for his latest craving...Eggs on toast!

Yesterday we gained two new ferrets which have been named 'Doodles' and 'Dollie'. With our existing two; 'Jess' and 'Megan' this makes a total of four.
Boy do they move!...Sketching them was beyond a challenge.



A couple of hours alone while the boys went off with the dogs found me catching up on my favourite soap omnibus; Eastenders. Sunday just wouldn't be Sunday unless I saw at least one minute of the Eastenders omnibus. While I watched I sketched the dining room...because it was there!


Finally, all clean from a lavender bath and wrapped up in his dressing gown, Harry tucked into one of the burgers I made for him and Jake while watching Top Gear.

To view sketches produced around the world and to keep up with dates of upcoming SketchCrawls visit http://sketchcrawl.com/

18 Minutes

As today drew to an end I struggled with the fact that I hadn't yet found time to sketch so I took my Seawhite square sketchbook over to the PC and visited Posemaniacs .

I started the first two pages using 60 second poses on top of watercolour I had prepped the pages with yesterday, adding a little coloured pencil into the negative areas on page one when I had finished and a little more watercolour to the figure on page two, just for interest.



Then I decided to shorten the length of the poses to 30 seconds, producing a further 21 poses that filled four more pages.

The whole lot, including the addition of colour afterward, took just 18 minutes. The Posemaniacs program took me through some very challenging poses and pushed me, forcing me to sketch the angle presented to me, rather than moving around the room selecting my view point, and allowing me to see the figure from angles I wouldn't otherwise see unless I took a ladder into life class.

You cannot help but be productive when using this free tool, here I was facing the midnight hour with nothing creative to show for my day and now I am sharing six whole pages of my sketchbook.

I love this website!

Roxie

'Roxie', character preparation sketch - 15 mins - seawhite sketchbook.

A quick preparation sketch of a pending commission.

Halloween Sketches

A bit late, I know!

Above is a sketch of the pumpkin my eldest hand carved this year, we've never had fangs on our pumpkin before. He also carved my youngest Sons' initials in the back so when it is lit they reflect onto the wall behind.

Below are two quick sketches from imagination, just playing around with ideas while watching TV.

Festive Footwear

'Elva' - 'GladRagz'

Played around with a few more Christmas designs this evening in my Seawhite sketchbook.

I started the year working on a series of works entitled 'GladRagz', so thought I would design some sketches around that theme. Each GladRagz piece has a female name for the title and, to be honest, I would have been stuck on a name for the top one if I hadn't of met a wonderful woman in Bygones Cafe back in July.

Each is sketched from imagination simply because I was too idle to move from the sofa!
I'm quite pleased with them and may work them up further for Christmas cards.



'Angel' & 'Holly & Ivy' - 'GladRagz'