EDM 155 - Draw some stairs

I freely confess that I procrastinated on this challenge. Given my difficulties with getting perspective and lines drawn correctly, I thought this would be a very difficult, frustrating challenge. And so I dithered a bit about what stairs to draw, how to approach it, what angle to use. In the end, it turned out to be not as difficult as I had thought. I have been paying a lot of attention to lines and angles and vanishing points (I feel a bit silly holding my pencil up and squinting like I was a "real artist" or something, but that trick really does work!) Be assured that this is not my first draft of these stairs, it is my third. But the first one was not as far off the mark as it usually is, and it took less correction to get it to look acceptable. Some improvement is happening, and I'm even starting to feel less frustration and more confidence when it comes to this kind of drawing. It's all in the practice (and maybe some in that pencil trick). I think the angle of the steps is still a bit too steep, it looks like they slope down toward the right, but not nearly to the extent that some previous efforts have shown. So I'm happy with this mostly because I learned a lot from it.

EDM 154 - Draw a lemon

I love lemons. I even love the thought of lemons. When I was little, growing up in a northern country, there were no lemons to be had in the stores. We had apples, and bananas and oranges that were imported, but there was no real "tropical" fruit in the stores in the winters (and often not in the summers either). We ate a lot of canned fruit and we often had preserved fruit that we canned ourselves during the summers when we could get pears and peaches and apricots. But our lemon juice came in a greeen bottle. Today when I went to the neighborhood grocery store, there were mangos, pineapples, cherries, cantalopes. The world has become much smaller it seems and our fridge is stocked with key limes and lemons all year round. They are no longer luxuries for us, and we expect to get anything we want in the store at any time of the year. But I will try from now on not to take lemons for granted, and to give them the respect they deserve. After all, they travelled a long way to get to my house. This is done with Caran d'Ache water color pencils in the Aquabee sketch book.

EDM 77 - Draw something cold

Over the Christmas season I saw a lot of cards, wrappings, snow globes, etc. with snowmen on/in them. I had been wanting to paint a winter scene and try to capture the white snow and the deep shadows that fall in the late afternoon. I also wanted to try a landscape and try to make the background look far away and fading into the distance. I had been using indigo and absolutely love the color and the versatility of it. I thought it would be the right color to try and show the white of the snow and the shadows across it, as well as fading the background. And just for fun, add the snowman for a touch of color. I kind of like this, I like the way the indigo gives the look and feel of cold, crisp weather. Loooove this color!

I have spent the last two days in a very intense pre-retirement planning course. And yay! I actually can retire in this lifetime. What a relief! I'm pretty sure I can also afford to buy watercolor paint and paper when I retire, too. Yep, life is good.

EDM challenge 152 - Something wrapped in plastic

This one really was a challenge. I didn't even know how to start something like this. But I got lots of good advice, tips, and encouragement from others on the EDM list, so I thought I would give it a try. It's usually the difficult ones that result in the most learning, and I try to never be afraid of learning anything new. I studied how others had done their sketches or drawing, and looked at many things wrappped in plastic over the last week from my lunchtime sandwich to the new toothbrush to the head of romaine lettuce. I tried to see how the light reflected, where there were subtle color variations. Finally I chose to do this end of a roasted red pepper baguette that was such a pretty color. I think I get the concept, although I'm still having some difficulty with having the pure white reflections show up without making them look like they are outlined in a darker color. But without the contrast to the dark, the white does not show up at all (and really, isn't that the whole point in painting or drawing? Lesson learned: Do not be afraid to exaggerate the darks.) That will probably get easier with practice, both in looking at things and in painting them. So I think I achieved a glimmer of enlightenment although the execution of this may fall a little short of what I had hoped. (Honest, it looked better in my head!) I think though, that as a first attempt, I'm pleased with this. At this point in my artistic journey, I'm pleased when I can render something that is recognisable.