tea time

More cross hatching fun

Tommy Kane taught me how to cross-hatch

Cross hatching has always been a mystery to me. I disliked it as a method as I never really got it. I admired what others could do with it.

As part of SketchbookSkool's last klass (sic) this semester we had Tommy Kane teach us. His work is very detailed and he takes 3-6 hours to do a drawing (sketch, detail, watercolour and then go over with colour pencils).  That is a long time and you can guess what his homework assignment to us involved. As I mulled over the subject of my drawing, he posted an additional video in answer to comments in the class.

This one was about cross hatching as he drew a lemon in around ten minutes. That was amazing and I tried it straightaway and then once more as I finally got what he was talking about.

They are not brilliant but they are a massive step for me and I enjoyed making them!

What time is it? TEA-TIME

• Outline
• Flat lines for shadows
• Turn page if need be
• Notice darker areas even in shadows
• Know when to stop
• Go over outline again
• Practice

BULL

Visual expression - useful tips for design sketches

Design: Creation of artifacts in Society is another Coursera course I enrolled in (just for the videos - won't be completing this at all due to time constraints and other commitments).

One aspect of the course is to teach us tips for Visual expression - and I started making some notes in this area as this is related to but unlike the sketchbookskool klasses (sic) I have been following.

The basics of sketching for impact
These include

• fill the frame (use the page, not a thumbnail)
• use dark lines (walk 10 paces away from your drawing)
• annotate (erase pencil marks in one direction only)
• scan to high quality (1-2k pixels on longest side, cropped, jpeg/png, and scanned in colour)

 (So nothing like my notes on tracing paper in a A6 book)






Orthographic projections and Cross-sections

Orthographic Projections are 2d representations of views of the object. They are moved perpendicular facing you (side A, front, top, side B, bottom) - and give you a sense of dimensions and proportions.  It is important to align the drawings so that you maintain scale and proportions.


 X-sections give you a sense of the materials or set up inside your object/building - e.g. in a building, you can see where the stairs and internal doors are and in an object you can see that various materials are involved.


Two point perspectives

1 point perspective is the traditional vanishing point in the distance. This VP may be obvious or appear to be behind a wall.

2 point perspective is where you have an edge, corner and two sides which converge to two VPs on both sides on the horizon.

3 point perpective is where you look up or down a building and see the edges converge.

Rules for two point perspective
1. All vertical lines stay vertical
2. Circles are drawn as ellipses - use midpoints and diagonals to locate.










Drawing with emphasis , and Modelling tricks and techniques are to follow over subsequent classes.

Watercolours and vegetation

As part of SketchbookSkool's class I struggled with Jane LaFazio's klass (sic). The assignment involved making a grid in pencil, and making a composition of fruit or vegetables (for example) - we could use watercolours. We were to add some text, and a border.

Can you spot the various errors in my watercolour painting? It made my classmates laugh and me giggle.

A useful exercise in observation - I discovered that pine cones (NOT acorns) have more interesting 'leaves' then I knew. And that shades of brown watercolour on non-watercolour paper doesn't dry well.

Jane's style was time-consuming with various media introduced into it (e.g. collages, stictching etc.) - it became obvious that I needed to spend a bit more time on my second attempt. Her site has several tutorials for your perusal.

Using watercolour soft pencils worked better and I mixed her and Koosje's tips to do it again.

If you are interested , check out the list of teachers for semester one (a new session of this runs from July)
Semester two starts soon as well (July).

what day is it today?

badger, badger, badger, badger...

Was introduced to Roz Stendhal in my Sketchbookskool class today. She does animals and I did not expect to enjoy it but her class was great.
I started making notes from her class
but then could not resist having a go.








Then I took her advice for when you cannot go out....draw toys etc. So I reached for the badger.

Of course this meant I ended up with the earworm of the Badger song from all those years ago...