**happy new year**

Wow... what a year it's been and it has gone so fast too, which doesn't surprise when I look back at what I have been up to! Phew.. I have been busy :)
It's been a big learning year for me... here are some of my favourite highlights of my creative year:

There was a lot of knitting and crocheting going on...

:: knitting and crochet

I did a lot of learning new things and relearning some old skills

:: watercolour and drawing course

There was quite a lot of screen printing and making things going on!

:: screen printing and making things

I really enjoyed learning how to use my new camera... I'm still learning :)

I am really happy with all that I have achieved this year and I'm really looking forward to next years creative adventures :)

Hope you all have a wonderful New Year!!

See you next year!

Cheers
Lamina xxx

drawing course: week 8

Boo hoo hoo... it was the last week of my drawing course! It was such a great night, we all brought some food or wine and had a few breaks from drawing to enjoy a bit of a last day party! It's quite sad really, after 8 weeks you get to know these great people, then you'll probably will never see them again! It's been excellent to see how far others have come with their drawing skills from the beginning.. a few have really improved amazingly!

A few of us were feeling the pressure of the last night... wanting to draw really well! We were having a few problems relaxing, but it was a different story once we had a glass of wine :)

We started off with a few 1 minute drawing to warm up!

:: 1 minute sketches - charcoal on A2 paper

Next - 5 minute drawings and a portrait. I was a bit happier with these ones. Our model had really fantastic dreadlock hair tied up into a bun arrangement!

:: 5 minute sketches - charcoal on A2 paper

:: 5 minute portrait - charcoal on A2 paper

Next - we did some shadow drawing, where we drew/shaded the dark areas in the shadow. I really liked this exercise.

:: 5 minute sketch - charcoal on A2 paper

Then we moved onto 10 minute drawings and we had some more food and wine :)

:: 10 minute sketch - charcoal on A2 paper

:: 10 minute sketch - charcoal on A2 paper

:: 10 minute sketch - charcoal on A2 paper

:: 10 minute sketch - charcoal on A2 paper

I'm really happy with my last sketch of the evening! I'm not really good at drawing feet and hands in such a rush but I like my foot in this one :)

I have really enjoyed this drawing class so much and it was good to get back to basics, I felt that I learnt a lot! I would really love to do some more drawing or painting courses but I think the next thing I will be doing is photography! I really need to learn how to use my new camera... desperately!!

Hope you all are having a great Monday :)

drawing course: week 7

My second last class :( We did life drawing this week... I really loved it! I have done a little bit of life drawing about 20 years ago and I don't remember a thing really! But I found that I got into the swing of things really quickly!

First we did loads of 1 minute basic line sketches to get our bearings.

:: 1 minute  drawings - charcoal on A2 paper

Next - 3 minute drawings: We drew circles for each part of the body and then drew the body outline, if we had time. This was a really great technique to get the body proportions right... I need all the help I can get!

:: 3 minute drawings - charcoal on A2 paper

:: 3 minute drawings - charcoal on A2 paper

Next - 5 minute drawings:  We drew circles in pencil this time and then drew the outline of the body in charcoal. *Please excuse the smudging over the top of the drawings which is caused by other drawings on the facing pages. I had to use both sides of the paper as I nearly ran out of paper!

:: 5 minute drawings - charcoal on A2 paper

The next set of 5 minute sketches: We used squares and triangle to sketch out the body and then drew the body outline over the top with charcoal.

:: 5 minute drawings - charcoal on A2 paper

Next - 10 min drawings: These were my favourite from the whole evening! At first I thought I liked using the circle technique as it is give a smoother finished outline. But after chatting to one of the ladies during our break, she was using squares and triangle... I decided to switch and try the squares and triangle again! I am so glad I did as I much prefer the slightly more angular look it gives to the drawing when you do the outline. So funny, the lady I was chatting to decided to switch to circles!
Some of the positions the model was sitting in were quite difficult to draw especially where she has her leg tucked under the other... I think I did really well :)

:: 10 minute drawings - pencil and charcoal on A2 paper

:: 10 minute drawings - pencil and charcoal on A2 paper

:: 10 minute drawings - pencil and charcoal on A2 paper

It was such a great class and I am so pleased with how my drawings turned out... such a huge improvement from the beginning of the class!!!  I really do surprise myself sometimes :)


Next week...my last week :( and more life drawing... Yay!!!

drawing course: week 6

Portraits this week... we had to bring in a mirror so we could draw our own face... wow what a challenge! I actually really enjoyed this class! Though it was a bit confronting drawing my wrinkles!!! I ended up looking really old... yikes!

We first started off with the basics of where things go on the face and doing a basic sketch in pencil.

:: self portrait - pencil on A2 paper

Then we did a left handed continual drawing, where you don't take the charcoal off the paper while you are drawing! I really loved doing this one, such great fun! This one is my favourite out of them all, though I'm not sure it looks like me, but I love it :)

:: left handed continual self portrait
- willow charcoal on A2 paper

Next... we did a right handed continual drawing with charcoal. I really stuffed up my first attempt... what was my brain thinking and I nearly got into trouble by the tutor... she said if I had continued with that drawing she would have told me to start again doing it left handed... she was kidding... I think??? This is the best one I did of them!

:: right handed continual self portrait
- willow charcoal on A2 paper

The last one we did was a more detailed right handed, charcoal drawing which still needs more work done on it. I'm really pleased with how it's going,  though I do look A LOT older... maybe I should give myself a little face lift and removed some of those wrinkles!!

:: self portrait - willow charcoal on A2 paper

And here is a photo of me in my glasses so you can see what I actually do look like as a comparison! I only wear glasses for close up work and on the computer! I didn't draw them in the first and last drawings as they got in the way of the detail/wrinkles :)

:: me :)

It was such great class this week, I have learnt so much! I really love the look of the continual drawings and their strong dramatic lines, love it! 

Next week... life drawing!!!



a bit of watercolour

With all the craziness of the last few weeks I still managed to squeeze in a little watercolour painting time.. a bit here.. a bit there! A few weeks ago, as part of  my drawing class we had to do some homework - drawing something in our kitchen. I drew my little teapot and the grater! I thought I would also try and do a watercolour of them both. They are still a work in progress and I'm quite happy with how they are looking! I am thinking that I will have to do the teapot a darker grey to make it stand out more!

Teapot:

:: teapot - willow charcoal on A2 paper

:: teapot - watercolour an A4 (in progress)

Grater:

:: grater - graphite on A2 paper

:: grater - watercolour on A4 (in progress)

I have also started doing a watercolour of my landscape I did last week in my drawing class...  quite a challenge and it's looking good so far. I never thought I would ever do a watercolour landscape, I actually quite like it :)

:: landscape - image source Cuba Gallery

:: landscape - watercolour on A4 (in progress)

I'm using Heather Smith Jones' book Water Paper Paint as a guide -  Project 22: Working from a photograph.  I love this book, there are so many helpful tips for whatever watercolour painting you want to do... I use it all the time.

:: Water Paper Paint by Heather Smith Jones  

Note: Apologies for the rather dark watercolour photos... I've been waiting around all day for a little bit of good light... but it has been raining on and off here all day!! There also a bit of a weird blur on a few as it seems I have a bit of dust in my camera (on the sensor)... arghhh!!

Everything was driving me a little nutso today!!

Hope you are all have a great day :)

drawing course: week 5

This week - Landscapes! We had to bring in a picture of a landscape that we wanted to draw. It was hard trying to find just one... there are so many amazing images out there! I did a massive search on Google and Flickr, printed out quite a few and finally decided on this one from Cuba Gallery.

:: image source Cuba Gallery

I was really drawn to the composition - power lines going to a lonely little shack, the open spaces and a spattering of trees. The tutor wrote up on the board a little list of the steps for us follow when creating our landscapes.

I printed the image in black and white so much easier to see where the shading would go! I also cropped some of the image to make it the same shape as my page. After drawing the basic outline in pencil and I spent a lot of time building up the background layers with willow charcoal... in fact too much time... it got to 8.30pm and I hadn't done any trees so I have 30min to get some detail in there!

:: building up layers with willow charcoal

:: a few trees by the end of class... phew!

I finished it at home the next night... I think it does need more work but I'm quite pleased with how it turned out! I really love my trees, the power lines a bit wobbly but I do quite like that!

:: landscape in charcoal on A2

I learnt a lot from this class... I feel like I am a lot more confident, relaxed at experimenting, letting go when drawing and not worrying about making everything so perfect! I really enjoyed this class a lot.. luckily there weren't that many straight lines :)

Next week.... portraiture... help!

drawing course: week 4

This week my drawing course wasn't very exciting I'm afraid! We learnt about perspective - vanishing points, two point perspective and one point perspective! It was quite interesting but I have to say my head really wasn't in this class.. it was somewhere else! I just couldn't concentrate at all, maybe it was all those straight lines!?

So we started of with two point perspective, drawing a street corner - quite a challenge to do all those buildings and windows using two vanishing points!

:: two point perspective on A2 paper 

Next - boxes were set up at the front of the class room to draw and find their vanishing points. We drew the top box first, then drew the rest and found each of their vanishing points. I quite like my boxes :)

:: boxes vanishing points on A2 paper

:: set up of boxes in classroom

Next - we used our classroom to draw our one point perspective. I didn't do this one quite right... it looks like I would have to be very, very tall or standing on a heap of boxes for that vanishing point (top dot in the middle of the page)... but I got the idea :)

:: one point perspective room on A2 paper

:: our classroom

I am really glad we did the perspective stuff.. it was quite interesting but I was relieved when it was over! :)

Next week is landscapes...

drawing course: week 3

This week we did a still life and also work on the composition of our work. There were quite a few different "still life" set ups on the table in the middle of the room and we could choose which one we wanted to draw. I chose a bottle and fruit. I really like the shape and colours!

:: Still life

My first sketch was a bit of a disaster... yet again my proportions were totally out! I think my brain zooms in what I'm drawing at the time and forgets the rest of the picture! I really like my fruit but.. Oh dear...the vase height looks quite stunted!

:: Still life - first sketch - graphite on A2 paper

With my second sketch I decide to do it portrait, to give me more room for the bottle! The tutour showed me how to measure the still life proportions by using the "thumb and pencil" method which really helped. I first did a basic sketch, then just kept adding more shading and detail. We also worked on composition, I added part of a window and edge of a table. I'm really happy with my second sketch! It's not quite finished yet, I have quite a bit to do still :)

:: Still Life - second sketch - graphite on A2 paper

During the class the tutor gets us to go around and have a look at what everyone is up to! Is is really great seeing everyones work and seeing the different styles of drawing! You can really see how much everyones drawing has improved... so inspiring!

Next week we will be doing architecture and perspective... can't wait!

drawing course: week 2

This week we worked with the left and right side of the brain, using our right and left hand for drawing! It was really interesting! At first, drawing with the left hand was really uncomfortable but then after a while it felt kind of normal. We mainly used our own hands as the subject matter. We did quite a lot of continual line drawings where we looked at what we were drawing (subject matter) rather than what we were drawing on the page! Some of my drawings were a little all over the place, but it was really fun to do!

:: right hand continual - left hand continual - right hand continual
(graphite pencil)

Then we broke our hands down into different shapes - drawing with the right hand and the left hand!

:: right hand drawing shapes - left hand drawing shapes

Next... using our hand as our subject matter, we drew and shaded it. I used willow charcoal, which I am beginning to really love. I was so happy with how my hand turned out! Others in the class liked it too! :)

:: shaded sketch (willow charcoal)

Next subject matter was a shoe - from someone in the class. I wish I had chosen a slightly simpler one! There was too much detail to draw, in such a short amount of time! We did a quick two min drawing, two continual line drawings (left and right handed), then a detail shaded drawing. I really love how the right handed continual drawing turned out!

:: subject matter - a shoe (balancing on a chair)

:: a quick 2 min sketch (graphite pencil)

:: continual drawing with the left hand (graphite pencil)
- it looks quite funny :)

:: continual drawing with the right hand (graphite pencil)

:: shaded sketch (willow charcoal)

I feel my shaded shoe sketch didn't turn out so good! I ran out of time but one good thing that all these exercises has pointed out to me is that I need to work on my proportions... they seem to be a bit askew sometimes... I wonder if I am tilting my head oddly or something... hmmmm???! I'm sure my drawing skills have improved just from this session :)

Next week we will be doing a still life... can't wait :)