Sylvia‘s Art Journey

Sketchbook Revival is back. It started today and I'm in. One of today's sessions was held by Carla Sonheim . We were provided a photo of, well, sidewalk cracks and shown how to see and draw funny creatures inspired by them. This is so not what I normally do, but I tried it and came up with some funny creature. Part of it is directly inspired by the photo, part of it is improvised. It looks a bit like a beetle and with those legs it certainly can only hop around. Still, I'm fairly positive it is happy to have a home in my sketchbook. Looking forward to an interesting workshop.

In the Virtual Sketchwalk group we did Tasmania last month, which, of course, is part of Australia. As Australia has some unique animals, I thought it must also have some unique plants. So today I did some research on Wikipedia and found one that I found interesting. It's called Kangaroo Paw and a drawing of it is now in my sketchbook. I think this would be an interesting project. Look for unusual flowers and other plants and draw them.  Drawing flowers is always nice and there must be so many out there all over the world you don't know and that look special. That doesn't mean I won't do anything else for the time being, but whenever there is nothing else I want to draw, I can look for an exotic plant an draw that.

March Madness is a creative challenge Jessica Wesolek is doing in her Facebook group. I have never done such monthly - or even longer - challenges, but this time I wanted to try it out. She said, it's a challenge like no other, so it made me curious. Every day we get a challenge to do and there are three levels of difficulty to chose from, so you can do it in a few minutes if you need. It's more than just a prompt, more than just a word you are given. For today we had to think of something unusual hanging on a clothes line and draw the idea. This is what I came up with: Yes, this sloth enjoys hanging there in the fresh air surrounded by fresh clothes. This was really a fun idea, so I am looking forward to more.

I'm just watching a comprehensive Skillshare class called "The Art and Science of Drawing", which is taught by a professional, academically trained artist. It is certainly great that there is such a professional, comprehensive class on Skillshare. I'm watching it to revise the basics of drawing, to get a reminder of the theory behind the practice. So far, so good. Though, what this class also reminds me of is why so many people shy away from learning to draw. It looks complicated and like needing lots of effort to make sense. So many dos and don'ts. Of course, it's about realistic drawing. The strange thing is that I've watched a lot of people not adhering to all these rules, like how to hold your pencil and how to place your paper, and still doing great work. Above all, drawing shouldn't only be for those who are prepared to draw 'academically correct'. It should be for everyone and it should be fun. My own drawings may not be good enough ...

I haven't been here for a while. Nothing exciting has happened. I have watched lots of Skillshare videos and some drawings have emerged through this. Like this elf who is here to wish everyone wonderful holidays and all the best for 2019! Having said this, I am rather satisfied with the outcome of my creative endeavour in 2018. My Nostalgie sketchbook will soon be filled and I'll move on with one of my Sketch & Note.

I saw this done with chalk pastels, but I only have oil pastels, so I tried this out with them. I have smudged around with them before, but haven't really tried it out as a background in my sketchbook. What you do is take a cotton pad and rub it across your oil pastel. Then you take the pad and rub the colour on your paper with a bit of pressure. I have used my yellow oil pastel only, but of course you can mix different colours as well. If you have put a bit too much on the paper, you can lift some off with an eraser. Then I drew over the background directly with ink. You can also draw on it with pencil, but if you erase the pencil later you'll also erase the oil pastel. Finally I coloured part of the drawing with coloured pencils. Some of them allow the background to shine through a bit, some don't. Of course, it also depends on how much pressure you use or how many layers you put on. I think this is a nice way to make a coloured background.

I've finally decided to try out Skillshare . It's an online learning site that has different kinds of courses, among them lots of art courses. You don't pay per course, but per month or year, and it's not very expensive. My first two months are free, so I'll see how I like their courses and then decide if I want to stay for longer. The teachers are apparently mostly freelance illustrators and artists. I have come across some of them in other places and am confident that they have something valuable to teach. There seems to be stuff that is nice to have, like ideas and tips for illustrated journaling, but also videos that teach techniques like pen and ink drawing. I started yesterday with a nice botanical line drawing course and made the following double spread. But I soon want to try out some more sophisticated stuff, so I can see if this place is worth paying for. Stay tuned.