15, 16 & 17 plus a layout

Took a quick break from drawing to complete my layout for this month's Show Us Your Stuff Challenge. Another image prompt. Check out the details here.

Put one of my drawings to good use - printed it on a 6x4 and scrapped it!

Lots of handmade goodies on here....if I could remember where they all came from I'd tell you, but I can't sorry.

But I can tell you the rose was cast from air-dry clay using Moulds By Mel, then painted with watered down ink (Mel was our lovely sponsor this month so all the DT received some!) These moulds are such a great invention - heaps of designs and beautifully detailed. Made of silicone they are so easy to use with clay, fimo, resin or wax - once pressed in, they come away so easily!

I'm a bit behind with 365 drawings.....storms, blackouts and the fact that my internet has been shaped doesn't help with trying to share them either....

So it's day 20 and I'm up to Drawing 17.

#15 Hugh Jackman

The first one I've been unhappy with - but I'll still show it - realising where things have gone wrong is all part of improving.

I do like the shading and the way the facial hair turned out - but the likeness is not there.

Hugh has very small eyes and I always insist on making the eyes bigger than they need to be!

I think the mouth is too wide also.

Looks more like Julian McMahon I reckon!

#16 Platypus Baby

People always freak about doing hands - but I love all the detail in them.

It's just a matter of seeing every crease and shadow and adding it to your drawing.

Draw what is there - not what you think should be there - is the motto I always try to keep in mind.

#17 Ellie

(my MIL's Border Collie)

Read This + more drawings

What I know about Dawn French:-

She's the zany yet lovable Vicar of Dibley

She was ever so annoying in the Coles Flybuys ads

She has really good hair

And really good teeth

What I didn't know about Dawn French:-

She can write

I'm not talking comedy - I'm talking a serious novel that you won't be able to put down

The blurb on Oh Dear Silvia: "Silvia has a secret which only she knows but she is in a coma. The reader gets to know Silvia through her visitors to her hospital bed and their stories help to unlock the secret."

It's brilliant.

Read it.

OK now -  365 drawings.

Are you sick of them yet?

A huge storm last night and a 7 hour power outage meant I had limited time for art.

So I tried something a little bit different.

(Just in case you and I get bored.)

Manga or Anime has a huge following and has always fascinated me.

(It's those eyes again)....

So went slightly wild and got the colour out for this Pirate Boy.

LOVE!

There's something about a pear.

The shape. The colour.

And so fun to draw.

Experimented with some cross-hatching on this one.

A pear or two may pop up again in the next 351 drawings I'm thinking.

Thanks for coming by!

xxx

Blend Me Happy

Drawing #11 - something different - a still life of coffee and biscotti as requested by a friend!

And #12 - talented and gorgeous actor Amanda Seyfried from the TV series Big Love, Mamma Mia the movie and lots more since.

 Another lady with amazing eyes!

I've decided I really love to draw eyes - must be why I'm so keen on portrait drawing!

Tried out these on both drawings.....

.......(a Xmas pressie from Mum - thanks Mummy!)

I tend to use my finger for blending but I've found out that's a big no-no. Can leave grease on your page that the pencil then "grabs" to (yuk) and also leaves your fingers black! Messy!

These blenders are made from paper compressed into a stick.

You just rub where you want to blend your pencil lines.

I LOVE the result!

So subtle and perfect for skin.

Also worked well on the white coffee cup.

9 & 10 - 365 Drawings

Ten days of "a drawing a day" and still going strong!

Yesterday I drew one of our lovely cows.....

We have about 140 cattle and they all look different.

Each have their own unique "hairstyle" tufty thing on top of their head. This one was pretty tame - some have quite alarming mops up top!

This girl is a Limousin cross - so a lovely caramel colour with blonde highlights on her face.

Ain't she a stunner?

Today's portrait is my Princess Mia - at 7 years old (last year).

Took ages to get right - I think it's harder when you draw your loved ones cos they need to be SO exact or they just look plain weird!

Really happy with the result though - a very close likeness.

Right down to the freckles and the long long dark lashes Mia is known for.

She is wearing a hoodie - fabric folds are tricky!

See you soon.

xxx

Portrait Step-by-Step

An old school buddy who's been following my 365 Drawings on FaceBook wanted to know if he could see some "during" photos of my process of creating a portrait.

Here's my Day 8 drawing (of my 13-year old daughter Kate at her dance concert last year) and how I did it.....

Choose my photo - I prefer a close-up to get all that lovely detail...

Crop the image and convert to black and white on my computer. Print it out A4 size, the same size as my sketch book. For my 365 Drawings challenge it makes things much easier - no tricky sizing problems...

Sketch in the "foundations" of the face - line of jaw, position and shape of features....

I do the eyes first. I leave blank shapes for the catch-lights (the shine in the eyes that all good photos have). I then render in all the minute detail of the iris, lashes, eyebrows etc. 

I spend quite a bit of time getting these right. The eye is surprising sometimes - and you have to draw what is actually there - not what you think should be there. 

A really sharp pencil is a must for each individual lash and eyebrow hair....

I start lightly adding shadows where they need to be - sides of face, nose, under eyes.

Squinting at the photo helps to gauge the intensity of each shadow....

More detail - clothing, teeth.

Teeth are difficult to get right - it helps me to turn the whole thing upside down. This engages my "right" brain so I'm merely drawing shapes and shadows and not "teeth". It works every time - I swear!

I swap to a really dark 8B pencil to blacken in the background.

Detail on the headscarf, hair.

More definition to the shading on the face.

The final step - which I love cos it really brings the face to life.

I take my putty rubber - for the non-artists reading this, a putty rubber is a special eraser like a ball of Blutac you can shape it any which way to get right into the tiniest places on your drawing.

I swipe over the areas of the face that are highlights (usually front of nose, centre of bottom lip, top of cheek bones), use it to dab away any smudge marks, and to really whiten up the teeth, catchlights and whites of the eyes.....

....can you see the difference?

I am no expert by any stretch! Just someone keen to learn more about drawing and become a better artist. I'm sure there's better ways of doing things - but that's how I do it!

Oh - I almost forgot. I got so caught up in my 2012 Faves post I didn't show you #7.

It's Jennifer Lawrence, the gorgeous actress from The Hunger Games.

Thanks for stopping by.

xxx

2012 Faves

READS

Out of the 30 books I read in 2012 (see my GoodReads profile) I gave 5 stars to :

TUNES

Most played tracks on my iPod:

Paradise - Coldplay

Turn Up The Love - Far East Movement

Small Bump - Ed Sheeran

Young Blood - Birdy

Mind Your Manners - Chiddy Bang

Never Let Me Go - Florence and the Machine

TELLY

I was glued to:

Derren Brown The Experiments

How I Met Your Mother

The Voice Australia

The Block

Snog Marry Avoid

FLICKS

Saw many, adored these few:

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

The Hunger Games

Brave

We Bought A Zoo

LAYOUTS

Less scrapbooking was done in 2012 but these I'm most happy with:

What were your tops for twenty 12?

Day 6 Drawing + Holiday Fun

Another hot guy for today's art work.....Channing Tatum.

He was the sexy bad boy in Step Up but I really fell for him in Dear John opposite Amanda Seyfried.  Oh god I love her too (filing that one away for a future portrait......)

Challenges were the slight distortion of the face resting in the hand and all that dark shading along the side of the nose. I don't think the irises are quite right either....

How's the hols so far? Keeping the kids amused?

In the heat of the day we've been Scrabbling.....

and Mario Carting......with much shrieking and squealing when I'm playing and invariably falling off cliffs and into boiling lava 15 times a game......FUN!

In the late arvo the girls hop in the pool (that pool is the best purchase we've ever made!!!) and there they stay until I drag them inside for dinner.

The vegie patch is producing wildly.

Lots of TOMATOES, BASIL and RED ONION for yummy salads and pesto.

And some gorgeous plump EGG PLANT...

.....grilled with olive oil and salt - divine.

What else can I cook with these ingredients?? Recipes anyone?

Drawings #4, #5

For Day 4 I decided I wanted to draw a male......when I mentioned this to my good buddy Linda during a FB chat she put in a special request - her celebrity crush Robert Downey Jr.

So this one's for you Linda!!!

Was good to draw a more natural eye with no makeup - and to try my hand at facial hair.

Today I blew up a photo of  little Cleo - the tabby kitten I got for Mum earlier in the year.

She's much bigger now - but I think this drawing captures her youth rather well!

Drawing fur is HARD!

A really sharp pencil is essential (I sharpened mine every 30 seconds) - for repeating thousands of tiny hair strokes.

Does anyone know how to do white whiskers??? That one had me stumped.

Thanks for popping in!

xxx