Thursday, July 3, 2025

Old Peugeot

 I've been telling myself I need to get out and do more drawing/painting. I told myself, starting in June, I'd get out EVERY DAY and go for a walk or a bike ride and stop and draw something I saw... That didn't happen. (Well I did get out and do that a couple of times... but nothing I felt like sharing here...)

So I told myself I'd do it through July. I did get out for a bike ride on the first of July... but it was SO HOT... and there were SO MANY PEOPLE all over the place - at least where I was riding (for Canada Day!) I didn't end up stopping and doing anything. 

Yesterday, the second of July, I did go for a bike ride AND I did stop and draw an old Peugeot bicycle that I spotted locked up by the arts building on campus. 

Old Peugeot in my sketchbook! 

Of course I've been carrying around pens and small watercolour kits everywhere for the last month... actually I've generally carried a sketchbook and pens everywhere I've gone for DECADES... I just haven't made much use of them for the last few years... So when I sat down to draw, I found that all of my rapidographs were either empty or clogged and the first few staedler pens I tried were dried up... nevertheless... I found ONE that still had ink and I drew a quick sketch with that. 

I had neither pencils nor a thin liner pen that I might use to sketch out the general shape first... so I just started with the brake levers and went from there... things got a little screwy out towards the wheels - especially the rear one... but I did the thing. 

I didn't end up adding the colour until the next day (today), at home...

Will I get out for a walk or ride today and do another drawing...? I don't know. It's more of an intention than a MUST DO RULE. The kind of black and white thinking which says I MUST DO THIS EVERYDAY is the sort of thinking that leads to deciding I've failed if I don't do it one day, and just give up on the whole idea... and I'm trying to NOT do that!

Hopefully there will be more stuff posted here over the next few weeks...?

Monday, May 26, 2025

It's Been a Minute...

 I have not been doing a lot of drawing for the last little bit... 

So here's a thing... 

Amanda looking at some social media site and drinking some tea the other evening.

This was done in a little sketchbook I started in 2021 that I have not finished. It is all sketches of Amanda. Maybe this year...?

I did another sketch on Friday as well... but I was even less happy with how that one turned out... Maybe the next one. The plan is to get out and ride or walk to places and do more drawing.

Friday, January 24, 2025

I Drew a Thing

 Having cleaned my pens, yesterday, I decided it was time to start DRAWING!

(well... technically, I decided it was time to start drawing again BEFORE I cleaned the pens... that is WHY I cleaned the pens!)

It being Thursday, I thought I would start with the Thursday Portrait Challenge by Studio Tea Break on Bluesky. I had participated in these when I used to have a Twitter account. Studio Tea Break eventually moved to Bluesky, so... 

This week's Challenge was ‘The Princess’ (Painting of a Shawi Berber woman from Algeria), painted by Frederick Arthur Bridgman sometime between 1870 to 1878. 

This is my take on it. It's a start... 

I like the Thursday Portrait Challenge. It's like the time-honoured tradition of Painting from the Masters - copying the works of those who've gone before to learn their techniques through the process of DOING them. I guess this isn't exactly the same thing, because I very definitely did not do this with oil paints! 

Here is the original... 

Frederick Arthur Bridgman - The Princess (1870) - borrowed from Wikimedia Commons: 

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Frederick_Arthur_Bridgman_-_The_Princess_%281870%29.jpg


Studio Tea Break can be found here:

https://bsky.app/profile/studioteabreak.bsky.social


My stuff on Bluesky can be found here:

https://bsky.app/profile/timinsaskatoon.bsky.social


I have previously posted on this blog a number of the Portrait Challenges I did through 2022 here:

Virtual Studio - Thursday Portrait Challenges


Thursday, January 23, 2025

Welp...

It has been almost a year since I posted anything here... 

It has been almost as long since I even drew ANYTHING!?

I cleaned my pens today.

Lets see where that takes us...