Afternoon at the beach

I sat at a park today drawing some kids playing in the sand. Then a lady came and plopped down practically in front of me, just begging to be sketched. Well actually she was asleep, I think.  She had her legs stretched out, but I ran out of paper.  So much for planning ahead!

EDm # 314 I'm a little teapot!

EDM 314 was to draw something with a knob on it. I chose my copper teapot.   I think I caught the roundness a little better than I have in the past, but I sure didn't know how to catch the metallic glow.

I drew it with a 0.5 pentel mechanical pencil and shaded with a 2B and a 3B.  Not that any of that means anything to me but I wrote it down so I could have it for reference!

Comments and advice are welcomed! 

Running the Rail Trail

Actually Mike did the running and I sat and sketched.  Then when he passed and we said Hi, I would pop in the car and go down to the next parking spot a few miles down the road.  I was able to do several sketches.

This sweet couple sat and relaxed just long enough for me to sketch them and one of their bikes. They were both riding cargo trikes -- but my sketching turned out a lot more cartoon-y than I would have liked.

The young man was sitting by the side of the trail waiting for his family. His family arrived and he got on his bike and took off as fast as he could, probably to wait at the next trail break.

Happy Anniversary to me

40 years. 

Where'd they go. Were they happy? 

I don't know.

Today is our Ruby Anniversary. I picked up a jar of Extra Hot Salsa at the Farmer's Market yesterday. That will be my Ruby gift for Mike. Interestingly enough, I also bought red red strawberries and a jar of red raspberry honey for my friend. Must have had ruby red on the mind.

Going to the dogs

Trying to draw Livingston.

Sketching the kids

 Grace was very intent on her work.

 Parker came with a flower in her hair nearly every day.

We followed a 4 step process of scribbling the shape, then doing a continuous line drawing.  Next we did the actual drawing and added details.

All this while, Emily, one of the camp leaders, stood posed on one foot while we drew.

Sketching a Sculpture

We took the Kids Art Camp to the Sculpture Museum today.   I called a piece a "statue" in front of the museum photographer who explained that a statue is what you buy at the dollar store, and these were "sculptures."

 That said, I tried my hand at sketching a few. Was doing the "fat guy with the big neck" when the kids asked me what I was doing ... and one went over to read about the sculpture. She returned and told me it was Winston Churchill. Oops!  Oh well, mine looks a lot more like a fat guy with a big neck!






I created a graduated sheet to use when I photograph my pencil sketchings.  Let's see if they show up any better on Blogger!

 

Progressive Mosaic

                                                                                          My assignment for the Silly Photo class was to create a backlit series of photos.  But I found inspiration for drawing in one of the photos and tried to capture Gabby's hands and Lauren's expression.

I tried to create a grayscale to take photos of my pencil drawings, but still had exposure problems.  But then I did find the brightness button on my scanner which really helped.

EDM 318 Numbers

Scanned

When I thought of something with numbers, I chose to sit outside and sketch my car. My husband is ever so proud of the 26.2 on the back although HIS car has the updated 140 point whatever that says he is an ironman.

Didn't seem appropriate to put a 5K on it even though that is as far as my little legs will trundle.

But the joy of my day is walking out to my car under a dreary Michigan cloud cover and seeing the Florida license plate that reminds me of sunnier days gone by and ahead.

Photograph with contrast and saturation adjusted

I would love some advice on how to scan or photograph a pencil drawing, I seem to lose a lot in the translation.

Dress up your Hand

I have a long way to go in drawing hands. The hands in the previous post were next to impossible for me to draw.  So today's photo assignment got me thinking maybe instead of practicing bananas I should be practicing hands, since they do come up as subject matter more often than bananas. At least they do in my life.


The assignment was to use bounced light and to " dress up your hand" - since I really feel it is chocolate not diamonds that is a girl's best friend, I dressed up my ring finger with a nice dark chocolate kiss.

I did have to go into iphoto and adjust the exposure on this - haven't learned to do it successfully on the camera yet.n My "light bouncer" is a pad of watercolor paper that I opened and sat on the table by my north-facing window which is currently facing a rain cloud.

Now my personal challenge of drawing same ...   all I can say is ... needs practice!

Creating a Mosaic

Another Photography class assignment

... here is a mosaic of how I spent my day. I have not figured out how to arrange photos in the order that I want ...

wish it were as easy as drag and drop but it is not.  I enjoyed trying to catch the joy but somehow lost it in my sketch.

Woke up to ants

I woke up to ants in the kitchen ... and an assignment to take a photo every 30 minutes. After researching home remedies for ants on the internet, I spread cinnamon across the windowsill, sprayed the little buggers with vinegar and water, and trapped them with Dawn dish soap.

There were only about 20 or 30 of them but I am guessing the real army was waiting to come in at any minute ...

I am off to Walmart for ant traps.



I made the captions by adding my photos to a flickr account, then using this website , which is a totally free photo enhancer.

My Camera has EV !

0.3 EC

I never knew my camera had exposure compensation. Ok I never knew there was such a thing as exposure compensation. 

0 Exposure Compensation - auto setting

1.0

1.7

1.3

Here are some photos of my drawing using a variety of EV settings. Unfortunately I think the camera's auto setting with an EV of Zero is probably the best!  But at least I know where it is so I can change it now.

2.0

Choosing and Losing

Just try taking 300 photos and deleting 299!  It was fairly easy to get it down to 15. And even down to 10.  When I had 5 photos left, mostly of cats and orchids, I put it in Mike's hands and let him choose. He picked this one.  I guess it pretty much captures Snicks and her attitude about the couch.  But I do feel the need to post my favorite as well since it would be a better reference for drawing her eyes.

Using Natural Light

breakfast in natural light

No flash!

I took the photo using the natural light in an Almost Facing North Window.  

No flash.  And it worked. That surprised me!

Then I drew the scene and took the photo of my drawing in the same place, next day.

Now if I could learn to draw contours to make my flat drawings into 3D, I would feel a lot better about them.

However I did learn a lot about photographing my drawings  Maybe I can stop going over every line with a black marker!  I did find this link and plan to practice my banana drawing skills.

Closer to the window  
The camera saw the dappled sunlight that I didn't even notice!

Sketch Journal - Lost Sunbeam

I found a beautiful photo of a woodland poppy with an accompanying watercolor at Sue Brown's blog here ... and took the liberty of drawing from her photo and sketch. Here is my attempt ...

My scanner faded the color a bit but it didn't hide that when you try to do a blue background behind a yellow flower that is still wet, the yellow runs into the blue!

Lesson learned ... I Hope!

(I did email her to ask her permission --- )