Making It Up

as we go along

art

Skating, friends and a doodlesome evening

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First Tuesday of the month meeting, for the first time in a while (it doesn’t run in school holidays, and got caught out in September by inset days). Small declined on the grounds that none of his specific friends were going today, so I was able to offer a lift to one of Smallest’s friends, which she enjoyed hugely. So much so in fact that she gave skating a go again, and made it round the rink a couple of times, with only one unintended sit down. It was particularly lovely to see her hand in hand with another boy she’s met a few times who turned out to be an accomplished skater and happy to offer assistance.

Tigerboy made me laugh – I was chatting with a new family and he came up and said “I’m very sorry for interrupting your conversation but could I have a drink please?” Very formal for a five year old!

Building up to writing something specifically for families pulling kids out of primary school and worried about keeping up with the curriculum – my experience is that in most areas it’s pretty easy to cover without a lot of sit down work, but it’s tracking down the resources that suit that will allow you to do that. I have some thoughts 🙂

Anyway, easy family meal tonight of macaroni cheese, and I’m hoping my tomorrow’s yoga video will work as today’s was corrupted. And I’ve spent quite a bit of this evening doodling, partially inspired by sktchy again.

How is October kicking off for you?

Drawing exercises – blind contour drawing

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Tonight I’m working from Draw People in 15 Minutes. (Amazon affiliate link, although I got it from the Works – there’s a banner ad in the sidebar/footer if you want to explore.)

I’m using a 2B pencil and a Cass Art sketchbook, and the exercise is blind contour drawing. The idea is that you draw in a continuous line as you look at your subject, and you *don’t* look down at your drawing.

I’m actually quite impressed with this for a first go.

Guess the offspring?

(It might have been marginally easier if said offspring hadn’t kept dissolving into fits of giggles while I was drawing! )

Art inspiration at The Works

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This post contains affiliate links.

The Works - Art & Craft

New code today 18th September: TREAT20 up to 20% off orders over £10!

I love The Works for educational resources for me and the kids. I buy Big’s refill pads here – my tip is to go for a pack of 6 for £4.99. I also buy the 30 page sketch pads for practice – pack of 6 A4 sketch pads is £5.00.

My other weakness at the moment is Art books. Recent buys include these beauties.

So we’ve got Drawing basics made easy, which is a set of step by step tutorials on all sorts of different things, from different artists. There are references for all the artists so that you can find out more about them, and I find it really good if I’m stuck with no idea what to try. (I can’t find this one in stock online at the moment disappointingly, but it’s well worth keeping an eye out for it – I picked it up for £4.00 in the local store.)

Next up, Alternative Art Journals. I took a punt on this one hoping to get some ideas of how to get started with art journaling. It wasn’t quite what I expected – the alternative really does mean alternative to the idea of keeping a journal in an art book. But it’s given some ideas of things to do with the children, so has been worth it. I like the idea of either this tag journal particularly to keep of local flora and fauna, and I can easily see Smallest starting a cabinet of curiosities. In fact, she came back from Kentwell with a basketful of curiosities, so she’s halfway there already!

Urban sketching, the complete guide to techniques however, was exactly what I was hoping for. I love seeing people’s journals of their days out and about – I follow a few artists on instagram who do exactly this. And this book really is a great guide to getting going – covers resources, techniques, the sketching community. It’s great. (And currently £5.00.)

Resources – including the pens you can use and what they’ll do.

how do you draw a straight line

Ideas of what an urban sketch might look like.

lecture hall urban sketching

And finally, Drawing family portraits. I took a chance on this, given it was £2.00, hoping it might give me some tips on drawing people. It really didn’t disappoint. There’s lots of technical stuff about proportions, materials, technique, but it’s all laid out really clearly and with step be step tutorials. So I like this one on drawing with diluted ink, and I think it’s something I’m going to have a go at pretty soon.

So, what do you reckon? Worth checking out the sale? Up until midnight tonight (Sept 18th) you get 20% off with code TREAT20 but tbh, even if you miss that, with this prices you can’t go far wrong. If you do pop through and purchase, let me know how you get on with it all? Here’s the link: The Works.

Watching paint dry. 

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Playing with my paints again. 

I’ve deleted twitter from my phone and am trying to wean myself off Facebook. I’m enjoying instagram, although I find the algorithm frustrating. 

Hopefully all this will mean less stress and more creativity. I miss the community though, and I don’t know what to do about that. There used to be community in blog rings, comment boxes and so on, but facebook, twitter etc wiped that out. And replaced it with what has become an angrier, shoutier place overall. Too much noise. 

I was clinging on for the friendships I’d found and cultivated there, but I don’t know how much room there is for that sort of thing to grow up any more. Is this a natural devolution, or have the algorithms and tweaks pushed social out of existence? 

(I’ll pop back with the finished picture when it’s finished. )

BeInspired – my watercolour challenge with Cass Art.

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A little while before Christmas, I received a very exciting parcel.

The very lovely people at Cass Art had invited me to be part of their BeInspired art challenge, and to help me get started, sent me a parcel of watercolour stuff to explore.

And what stuff.

Anyone who follows me on instagram (and if you don’t, whyever not?) will be aware that I am quite a fan of Winsor and Newton watercolour.

This parcel included a 24 half tin Winsor and Newton professional watercolour set as here (affiliate link).

I may have squealed. (I’m fairly sure I squealed quite a lot actually.)

So, now you understand why there’s been quite a lot more watercolour activity than usual on here. The candles were painted following youtube tutorials, as suddenly I want to understand how to do it all. But I also want to experiment, and I’m inspired by the natural world, much the same as with my photography. So last night I sat down with the whole lot and did this.

Just in case you’d like a closer view

I’ve got to say that the experience of using professional watercolours with good brushes (these are sable) on proper paper (300 gsm, acid free, hot pressed) is really quite exciting. You can get heavy paper a *lot* wetter, which means you can go to town on washes. Even the pro colours look a lot deeper colourwise wet than they do dry, so I think I may have to get a bit bolder with colours on my next sunset washes. But I’m loving the effects I’m discovering, and I think this year is definitely going to be the year I push the boundaries with art.

And I’ve just read that back and it is so obvious that I am still a complete beginner with this stuff.

Which is the point quite frankly. Established artists are inspirational people, but if you’re anything like me, you look at them, and you haven’t the first idea how they do what they just did. I’m just learning and I’m ready and willing to talk about that lots. So if you fancy being more creative this year, why not let yourself BeInspired alongside me and Cass Art?