04 February 2017

Sketch A Day

Practice makes perfect, or so they say. I’m not too sure about the perfect part of this saying, but one thing’s for sure: practice makes better! If you want to learn something, you need to practice on a regularly basis. So when I saw the #sketchaday event on Instagram, I thought it would be great to join to see if I could make this into a daily routine. My goal was not to finish a sketch or drawing every day, but to sketch something, anything, everyday for at least 10 minutes. It’s been a fantastic experience and I love it so much. Because of the 10 minute time limit, I don’t have to feel guilty if 10 minutes is all I manage to force myself to work in my sketchbook. And even the sketchbook isn’t a necessity. One day I just grabbed a piece of paper from my art trolly (you know, the fabulous Raskog one by Ikea). I needed something for my art journal and started a sketch of a squirrel on a piece of scrap paper. I’ll add a short video of the finished art journal spread in this post too.

Alpaca

This art practice is so easy to fit in your daily schedule. You only need paper, a pencil and for your convenience an eraser. So, when I had an appointment for a full checkup on my wheelchair, I took the essentials with me and made this sketch of an alpaca. Or is it a lama. I always find it hard to tell the difference.

Baby_squirrel_01

This is the squirrel I made for my art journal.

Baby_Fox_01  Baby_Fox_02

Like I mentioned before, I didn’t intend to finish a sketch every day. This cute little fox baby was done in two days. I had to find some YouTube tutorials on how to draw fur. Once you know the trick, it’s actually not that hard at all. I’m very pleased with the end result.

Polarbear_01  Polarbear_02

This polar bear cub was also done in two days. I love how his expression changed once I added more details. It was quite a challenge to add the texture of the fur, but still give the bear a white appearance

Hedgehogs_01  Hedgehogs_02

The inspiration for this hedgehog mum and baby came from a periscope of someone showing her pet hedgie. I’m totally in love and want a hedgehog for as a pet myself now. I’m realistic though, so I’ll just keep drooling over these cute pictures and videos I see on the internet. My cat isn’t even an adult yet and I’m very happy to have him in my life and take good care of him. The spines on these hedgies may look difficult, but they are just a bunch of V shapes. What I also love about those two photos next to eachother, is how you can see the difference between the first raw lines and the final drawing. Every piece of art has it’s ugly stage and you just have to keep going to make it look better. When I’m drawing sketches, the ugly stage is right at the start and when I see what’s on my paper, I’d rather tear it out of my sketchbook, because how could I ever make that into something not ugly? But as you can see, I kept going, adding details and texture and in the end it’s not that bad at all. And even if the end result isn't what you desire, it’ll still be useful as you always learn from the things you practiced.

Face

And there she is. I really love this hype of making beautiful faces. And as the incredibly talented Dina Wakley says, if you want to learn to draw faces, just go for it. Draw or paint a face for 100 days and you’ll see the amazing improvement between your first face and your 100th. For now, my faces are quite okay. They’re not perfect, but I kind of like them. The real struggle starts when I want to add hair to my girls. I ruin every face sketch as soon as I give her hair. It’s very clear what I need to focus to get better, but I really don’t want to keep drawing nice faces and then ruining them every time. So I thought of a solution. I’ll make a sheet on my computer with just six times this face, print out a bunch of those sheets so I can focus on practicing the hair.

Here’s a short video to show you the spread in my Gelli Printed art journal on which I used the squirrel sketch.

Well, that’s it for now. I’ve already started a new sketch, starring my darling red furr ball, also known as Teddy. So make sure to follow me or check this blog regularly. I always announce a new blogpost on Instagram and Facebook, but that last one doesn’t like me a lot, because it’s algorithm makes my post disappear for most of my FB friends. Instagram is way more reliable. And of course there’s also the following option from Blogger, which you can find in the side bar. Have a great weekend and don’t forget to make some art or anything creative. It’s good for your mind, body and soul!

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