bloowabbit: April 2018

Wednesday 25 April 2018

Days 15-21 Eye Doodle Challenge / Sea Lemon

Past the halfway mark of this challenge and there are some eyes I'm enjoying drawing more than others. It all depends upon the photograph I source. If it's clear with good definition then drawing it is easier. I found it difficult to find a good Yellow Tang photograph and I think my drawing reflects that

Here's the next 7 eyes:

pig

rabbit

jaguar

rooster

yellow tang

crocodile

orangtutan

The orang-utan is my fav drawing to date...

From the prompts to come I'm really looking forward to drawing the octopus eye and the giraffe eye. As the ring-tailed lemur is my all-time fav animal I'll enjoy that prompt too.

The quality of my photographs isn't great - my iphone battery blew inside my mobile corrupting it so it's unusable. I'm now using a back-up iphone. A neat little photography/video camera is on the shopping list.

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Tuesday 17 April 2018

Days 8-14 Eye Doodle Challenge / Sea Lemon

Wow, this is such an interesting challenge! I have gazed into the depths of eyes (via photographs) of creatures I would never have thought to draw. What I'm feeling is similar to having watched re-runs of David Attenborough's Blue Planet, and awe at our world's diversity. Some eyes belong to predators, some to prey, and some to those whose only predator is human (read that last sentence again with Sir David's voice).

Next 7 eyes from my sketchbook:

snake

elephant

whale

fly

crow

dog

hornbill

The prompt for day 12 turns out to be COW instead of CROW which is quite funny.

I'm finding the paper in my sketchbook (Winsor & Newton 170gsm/80lb) not up to my layering of pencil - towards the end of each drawing the paper seems to become fragile, though I may be over-burnishing. Have been looking into alternatives and the Strathmore range seems good.

Wednesday 11 April 2018

Drawing process for Doodle Eye Challenge - 'dog'

Week 2 of the Eye challenge and I'm enjoying every moment. It's been a while since I drew with any degree of realism - I'm finding the practice good. My drawings are not photo-realistic as there's a softness about them and the eye's fade out to a hint of feathers, skin or fur. Will I be following on from this challenge to include this style in my art? Possibly, I have a few ideas.

My process of drawing - a light pencil sketch...

followed by base colours...

dark grey shadows and build-up of colours...

dark blue to deepen shadows, overlay more colour...

and then adding black pencil to indicate darkest areas. Occasionally I'll add white gel pen (only thing I find that works well over the waxiness of coloured pencil layers) as in the previous 'horse' eyelashes.

So now I'm wondering if I can translate this process into watercolour...one for the to-do list.

Tuesday 3 April 2018

Days 1-7 Eye Doodle Challenge / Sea Lemon

YouTuber Sea Lemon runs a channel where she makes videos about ' DIY decor, bookbinding, art tutorials, supply hauls, doodle challenges, bullet journal ideas and more'. I particularly like her videos on stitching notebooks and journals. For the month of April (or whenever it suits you) she's hosting an art challenge. There's a downloadable sheet and prompts - and if you do decide to join in then post your images to Instagram adding the hashtag #sealemon. Check out bloowabbit Instagram hashtag as well!

So here's my first 7 eye drawings. Yes, I've skipped ahead a little - sometimes with art challenges it's wise to complete a few days extra just in case you're not able to draw on a designated day. As long as the art is uploaded on the specific date all is okay. These drawings are made with coloured pencil in a sketchbook - Faber-Castell Polychromos. I wanted to go for realism and the print out sheet didn't give me enough space for that. Apart from the first image (that's my bleary eye) I sourced images online.

The chameleon and the fish eyes were the most difficult as they were the most alien to anything I've drawn. This challenge is not only good practice for my quality of work, it's really interesting seeing the differences in eyes of various creatures. I don't find the challenge tedious and look forward to the next eye prompt.

Eye Doodle Challenge / Sea Lemon

Other challenges I've blogged:

One week into Februdoodle - Feb'18

A change develops in my doodling style - Feb'18

Sharpie fumes oveload... - Feb'18

Past the finish line... - Feb'18

Thirty Drawings pt1 - Sep'17

Thirty Drawings pt2 - Sep'17