Almost Like Christmas

Autumn White Poinsettia (colored charcoal pencil)

My sister came to visit me and brought me a Christmas plant. Well, she told me that it was an autumn plant although I'm still suspicious. Nevertheless it was a great thing for me to draw. I can be a bit lazy sometimes so it's good for me to practice drawing with things that have a lot of similar shapes. It can be hard and boring to draw the same thing all over again and I can sometimes cheat with the details. This time I tried to concentrate on all the shapes, lines and shades I saw. After drawing the plant I had no energy to use for the background so I just made this quick version. I used colored charcoal pencil for this one and had to draw some parts again because of the smudging. During the process I also got a nice color on my hand to go with the sketch.

This Girl is on Fire

Girl on Fire (acrylic paint, charcoal pencil)

Last week we drew portraits from pictures. I chose this picture of a woman because of the interesting angle it has. I had made this Background earlier with acrylic paint and watercolor so the page didn't seem so empty when I started to draw. This drawing was made with charcoal pencil so I had to use some fixative for preventing smudging. The charcoal pencil is really nice to draw with because it's more accurate and doesn't make ass much mess as traditional charcoal. I think that the end result looks like a woman who is standing in the flames and watching you. That's something I didn't plan at all. Aren't surprises great?

Getting Started

An Orchid (ink, watercolor)

My hand (colored charcoal pencil, watercolor)

One of our exercises was to draw something that we see near us. First i drew an orchid and then my own hand. I had to use ink at least for the other one. The point was to draw without thinking about the end result. It was quite difficult not to judge your own work and actually I did. Still i managed to show my sketches to my students. I think that it's important to show them that it's ok to draw things that dont look perfect, and that's why I've shown them or at least someone all of my sketches in my sketchbook from that day on. With this exercise we also used watercolored backrounds that we had made earlier to avoid the fear of the white paper. I think it made drawing a bit easier.