Are you good at drawing?

Have you ever wished for more realistic drawings?

I have.
Drawing doesen't come easy for me, I always struggle to draw no matter what my subject is. As you probably know, I've just taken a class in how to use watercolor pencils. A fellow student there suggested for me to read a book about drawing, and believe me, it's a miracle.

The book has lots of lessons, and it's not wise to skip any of them because they build upon one another. So after doing some initial lessons, I went for the proof that this book was the same as all the rest. I was wrong, terribly wrong.

What I drew in less than 30 minutes is nothing but a miracle.

This is a famous sketch done by Pablo Picasso, and is presented in the book. My job were to copy it, and I was sure I couldn't do it. My sketch shows very clearly at which point the left side of my brain took the lead. Left side of the sketch, arm on chair and the mans arm are both wrong. These parts were the last ones I did, and the left part of my brain took over.


The next sketch I did, is one I have tried many times to sketch. Just because I think it's funny with caricatures. I have never made it, and this time it's perfect, in less than 5 minutes. If that isn't a miracle, nothing is. Please, don't look at the colors, I was just trying to paint with my spray inks.

And then to the book. It's written by Betty Edwards and is called Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.

If you want to improve your drawing skills, I highly recommend this book, it's the most amazing thing I've ever seen happen to myself. Library is probably a good place to start.

Now that my class is over, I look forward to go deeper into this book and do all the lessons. My drawings might chang once and for all. I'm so excited.
Have a wonderful weekend!

Gone fishing

Gone fishing, Chris Rea, beautiful song.

There's something wonderful about researching for a job one is going to do. I had a good time searching the internet for trouts, colors and how the water is colored. I found lots of stuff to work from, and now I feel I know a bit more about the topic than before.

I sat down and sketched some fishes, still not sure whether to paint one fish or several, on my piece. The biting one is my favorite, so that one has to be painted. I even painted one of my sketches, on sketching paper, just to try out some colors.

I found I would like to make a test, just to see if I really could do it, and get a fairly good result. I used a 100% cotton watercolor paper, and that is the best I've ever paint on. It was so easy to get the transitions smooth and good. At one stage, my piece looked like the one below. It has changed a bit, but this is a good close up.

This is the paper pad. Best ever for me.

Here I'm done, I can see things to change but the wide open mouth is done deliberately. I want people to know that when I'm fishing, all the fishes are lined up ready to bite my hook. LOL.

This photo is very close to my original painting, the colors that is. Mostly I've used flat watercolors, but I've been glazing using Twinkling H2O's. In a certain angle the fish is glittering like it's wet and fresh out of the water. Egyptian Gold, Chestnut Brown and Iscicles are used for glazing.

Let me end by saying thank you all for your lovely comments and visits, it warms my heart ans thrills me to read your words. Enjoy your summer and have a lovely weekend!

I'll link this post to Friday Sketches and Paint Party Friday.

Bowl of Beauty

Right now my peony, Bowl of Beauty, is blooming.

It's by far my favorite peony. I once picked a huge bouquet and gave to a friend to her 50th birthday. She was going to have lots of collegues (teachers) to coffee and cakes, and I was there to help her out. The peonies served as table decoration and some creative teachers discussed how I had made these flowers. One of them concluded that I had stuck the "yellow flower" through a not filled peony. The other ones agreed to that and spoke of me as very creative, while the fact was that they were the creative ones in this case. Each year I think of this when they start blooming, and I can't help smiling.

Happy Friday Sketches and PPF everyone.

I had to sketch my peonies, but I have delayed it. Wasn't sure I could do it, at least not good enough. But, I did it and the result isn't bad at all. The only thing I wouldn't do over again, is to outline the flowers. That black line is too hard against the "fragile" flowers. Otherwise I'm very pleased.

The background seems too dark in my photo, but in person it isn't. Don't know excactly what happened.
What's your favorite flowers? I find it hard to pick one flower to call my favorite, there is so many beautiful flowers. I even love some weeds as well, not smart with a pretty large garden.
Next on my sketching list is the wild rose. It's blooming as well right now and it's so beautiful. Old flowers (3 days) almost white with a dark brown/black center, newly sprung flowers, beautiful medium pink and a yellow center.The buds are more strongly pink, and they all appear, on my bush, at the same time.

Thank you for visiting and for your lovely comments, it's much appreciated.

I'll link this post to Friday Sketches and Paint Party Friday.

Doodling all week

Happy PPF and Friday Sketches everyone!

I've been so busy making my last mandala, I've had time for nothing else.
The sketch I'm sharing is in fact an old one, and has nothing to do with my garden or anything in nature at all. But, as a young girl once said to me, is it your super glasses you want me to find for you. Yes, they are. They are a bit too strong, and my prefered ones when making tiny details.

A bit wonky, but still a sketch and  good practice for shading.

Now, what I've been doing all week has been a tremendous job. So many small details and to paint it was a challenge as well. Below is the finished drawing.

The paper I used for this one is a 600 grams watercolor paper sized 76 x 56 cms. The diameter of my mandala is 52 cms. A very large work for being me.
I had made some testing, in beforehand, to choose the different designs. I liked it when done drawing, and it's always a question whether to add paint or not. I'm a color lover so I ended up painting it.

The Norwegian royal residence, in Oslo, has a beautiful ball room, and some, even more beautiful, hand painted wall decorations. Each time I see photos of them, I get this special feel, and that was how I were inspired. I would try to capture that feel. Not necessarily by using the same colors, but the over all feel.

I'm not sure I did excactly that, but there is this soft feel involved, even though I used some pretty dark colors. I've called this one " Secrets" because that's how it feels like to me. It doesn't mean that I've been hiding any secrets in it, but I think any viewer can find some connections to their own life in it, secrets or not.

I'm still not sure whether to add white "star dots" to the grey area above. I'll just have to let it be for a while to see, as long as I'm not sure I won't do it.

I'm very pleased with my result, even if I didn't achieve what I were trying to. This on is going to be framed and put on my wall. It'll be a good  piece representing my doodling side.

Thank you for popping in and enjoy your weekend.

Lots of fun this week

Happy Friday sketches and PPF everyone.
Let me start this post by saying thank you for all your lovely comments on last weeks post. It's so enjoyable to read them all, and how creative you all were. Many times it can be hard to leave a comment that's fresh and feels new when the list of comments is long as a good week.

In my sketchbook this week, I have tried to capture some of the most loved flowers in my garden. When I was finished painting them, the usual thought I'll just......  arrived and I topped it all with a glaze of gold. I'm not sure that made my painting any good at all, but that's how it ended. By the way, I actually sat outside sketching these, but I prefere to work at my desk.

I've also been into a roll of making flowers in a more free line or freestyle. It all began some time ago when I was making this rose.

Some time later this one emerged.

And a couple of days ago I made this one. This last one is the main flower in a piece that I love and it has to be framed and can never leave home. LOL.

Yesterday I started playing with different flower shapes, to simplify them, and that's what I'll do this weekend too. I hope to find some really good lines which will make beautiful freestyle flowers. Next week I hope to share with you a piece made with this type of flowers.

Right now, this is how far I've come. Still just at the stage of experimenting.

Thank you for visiting and have a lovely weekend!

Apple blossoms

It's past time for apple blossoms this year.

We have 6 appletrees in our garden, and they all act differently. This year 3 of them had a normal blooming, one was so loaded with blossoms that I've never seen it befort, and two had no blooms at all. They are all old trees, and the apples aren't especially good to eat, but I use them in cooking.

It's truly a beautiful sight when they bloom, all the pink color turning almost white when the flowers open up. There's so much going on in the garden right now that I have no chance capturing it all in my sketchbook. That's when the camera comes in handy. I have hundred of photos for later use.

It's really nice to to draw and paint, all the beauty from the garden, in winter. Wind and snow howling around the corners, and me sitting longing for a new spring. That's the time for using all the photos, picking a subject from all the beauty that was in my garden last season.

Happy PPF and Friday Sketches everyone, and thanks for checking in!

Documenting the garden

This week I got some Zeta journals in the mail, and have been very eager to try them. This painting were made in one, and it's goooood. So smooth, easy to draw and easy to paint on. I love it.

I'm thinking of documenting our garden in it, when things bloom and so on.

In my package I also had ordered a pad og Yupo paper. I made a first try on that as well, but have to make some more to be able to tell if I like it or not. It has to be over the weekend, tomorrow we're all celebrating our constitution day. I have lots to prepare.

I also got myself some new Twinks this week, so I'm well prepared for any art adventure. Right now I'm watching my peony tree. Last year it had one flower only, this year it seems there will be six. Flowers as large as my hand. I can't wait till it happens.

It's this peony tree, or bush will be more correct right now, which is my first entry in the new journal.

I'm linking this post to Friday Sketches.
Thanks for visiting, you're much appreciated.

All week about nature.

All my work this week has been related to nature.

We kept on weeding last weekend, and luckily we're almost finished. Just one more flowerbed remains, but the rain came and now it has to dry up a bit.

All year around we have magpies in our garden. I think they are bautiful birds dressed in white tie and tails. They always seems so happy except when they're arguing.
This week we've had four or five of them in the garden and they got me thinking of my paternal grandma. She was born in 1891, and she didn't like the magpies at all. It was something old I believe, about the magpies came just for stealing.

The funniest thing she said  though, was that if one had magpies in the garden and they became noisy, one would have visitors to the home before the day ended. My grandma had lots of storys to tell, she died in 1995, 104 years old.

I made some other birds as well this week. I saw the idea over at  Stefanie's blog and couldn't resist making some.

Cool and happy birds, lovely for decorating and lots of other stuff. I might be back with some ideas later on.

I also tried my hand on making a landscape, using pan pastels. It isn't the worst I've made, but I need alot of practice to be good at it.

It's made on black paper, and I had to add more light to it in picasa. Well, that's about it.

Happy Friday Sketches and PPF everyone, and thank you for all your lovely comments. It's a thrill to read them all.

Friday Sketches

I have not been sketching much last week,

but I have been creating alot of art. I still feel it's scary to sketch using a black pen only. To know it's impossible to erase does in some ways scare me. But, to my surprise I actually did paint the trees without any sketch at all.

At some point it dawned on me that I have to know the "soul" of the things I paint. What differs them from others. A tree isn't just a tree, but I'll have to learn how to express the differences between them. This painting sketch is my first try to express diffrernt sorts of trees. If I'm going to learn the difference of each subject I make, I have plenty of work ahead.

My next sketch is an old tobacco box I was lucky enough to get from a good friend of mine. Her grand dad had the habit of collecting old things, and this one was given to me. I'm not sure, but I think it must be from the 1950's.

Here is the real one, I use it to hold some of my stamps. It's such a nice box, made out of cardstock and a paper band once glued around it to show it was unopened. It's one of those things that makes me happy, as a little everyday treasure. That's all I have to show this week.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you've enjoyed it.
I'll link this post to Friday Sketches.