Drawing whenever and wherever

The idea of the Drawing a Day was to make me better at drawing and to be better at spontaneously drawing - getting the sketchbook out when I saw something I thought I'd like to draw. I still need to make myself do this and many, many things I think about drawing and for one reason or another (normally too self conscious) I don't draw get the book out. Sometimes, the book comes out of the bag, and even the pen... sometimes the lid even gets off the pen before I chicken out and it all goes away again! This day however, I just got on with it and drew the coaster while my friend and I had a drink and a catch up one evening!

(I didn't actually have a Stella, that was just the mat that was there!)

(Turned out not to be the most sociable move of mine as I was looking at the beer mat and my sketchbook for way too much of the conversation!)

Inspiration

I have been having a look at a couple of my favourite illustrators recently. The first is Emily Gravett. She has a lovely website and I have quite a lot of her books now as I love them. I really like her drawing style and recently invested in this book of hers;

The Little Mouse is fabulous - although very scared throughout. I tried to draw him, copied directly from the book. I find trying to copy someone else's style fascinating and way trickier than I think it is going to be. I try and work out which order they drew which part of the picture - where they started and how they worked. I think Emily Gravett is left handed, and I am right and so I expect we tackled this mouse in different ways. I realise I always start my pictures in the top left and work across and down - probably so I don't smudge the work as I go. I only realised when I had a go at drawing on a tablet and it recorded the drawing as I did it - then I could watch the replay which was really fun.

Here is my version of the Little Mouse. He is a bit taller and skinnier than Emily's. I love the pencil he clutches - it gets smaller as the book goes on as he nervously nibbles it more and more! 

Potato prints, pigeon and pizza

Last Sunday I had another go at some potato printing. Inspired by a search on Pinterest before starting on the spuds, these two were made. I really like the little bunnies - Easter Cards might be on the horizon! The leaf flower I'm planning on experimenting with as a repeating pattern, think it might work quite nicely.

 For my drawing a day I was keen to draw a Pigeon that kept proudly pecking outside. However, as soon as I got my sketchbook and pen he vanished - not to return! I'll have to wait for another day to draw one!








I ended up drawing my supper - pizza! Quite a good way of avoiding burning my mouth on the hot little tomatoes - drawing it before I'm able to eat! Well - I did the outline then the smell was too much so I had to eat some. These were left for my packed lunch on Monday - delish!

Spring is springing!

I love this time of year - I look for new signs of Spring everywhere . Today I was excited by new Elder leaves, one Red Campion in flower and Hawthorn coming into leaf! The world is slowly turning back to green from brown.