A Little Further Behind Than I Thought

Oh my, I didn't realize that I hadn't even posted the rest of the February sketches yet.

I had some fun in February with the Olympics by doing some quick sketches from the televised games and then refining with ink and watercolor afterwards.

I was using some Holbein watercolors in a pan set that I acquired on Ebay a couple of months ago.

Here is a close up of the second in the series, the first was in an earlier post.

The sketches were done on the 9th of February but the watercolor was added on the 14th.

Here is the last one to be painted so far. These were fun to do and also challenging at the same time.

This is one of the first sketches that hasn't been painted yet, just pencil and ink so far.

I like the composition on this one so I'm hoping to find some time to paint it soon.

I started following along with the free Strathmore online art workshops in March. The first one is Back to Basics so I have been doing some pencil sketches. Here is the link
http://www.strathmoreartist.com/artist-studio/groups/workshop-1-2014/forum/

This one is lead by Earnest Ward and he has many helpful videos and also supplemental material on his blog.

I started working with one of my favorite old shells which is actually a horn shell that can be blown.

The emphasis here was on line and contour but I ended up with a little shading.

A close up of the second attempt ...

and the third.

These are all drawn with HB graphite and mechanical pencils and an Ebony Pencil.

Next we were concentrating on shading and drawing ellipses.  I decided to choose something smoother so I could try some of the shading ideas with the same tools as before.

A little handmade pot gifted to me by a friend.

I spent a little time collecting things from the yard with interesting lines and details, then did some more pencil drawings of a Black Walnut and a Honeysuckle Root ( it could be a Trumpet Vine Root but I think Honeysuckle).

 Back to the shell collection. This one just begged for some color so I added some colored pencil to the graphite drawing.

I'm also working on a new cartoon for a tapestry and it should be ready to take some photos soon.