Amanda had an appointment this morning and then bussed to work and was going to walk home so texted me to see if I’d wait after class and we could walk home together… I stayed late after class to finish things and clean up then made my way to her office.
She wasn’t quite ready to leave.
So I drew a picture.
Then we walked home together.
(The line drawing was done in the office, colour added later at home)
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...?
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.
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...
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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
I should clarify, this has nothing to do with the previous post. Just a regular waiting room for a regular appointment!
Of all the places I have to wait for appointments of people, this is my favourite. It is usually very quite and comfortable... (Today the radio was on and I had to listen to commercial radio...)
I got some new shoes.
While waiting for Keiran on Saturday, I tried to draw them... not my best work... but, it's something!?
I haven't been posting much here, lately. Probably because I haven't been drawing or painting as much the last few months. I did do a few drawings while sitting in waiting rooms and offices over the few months, however...
Finnegan aged out of the Pediatric Diabetes program, so in February we went to meet his new adult endocrinologist. Diabetes sucks chunks, but it's made slightly less awful when you have decent people keeping an eye on these things and it was a huge relief to meet the new doctor and find he was competent and compassionate.
Colours are funny. The wall in the background here is the same as the one behind Finnegan... but in the picture above with Finnegan it looks more yellow (it's green in the sketchbook).
New sketchbook. pages aren't as thick and sometimes stuff bleeds through.
Just after I'd started a woman sat down in the black chair and noticed I was drawing, she apologized and asked if it would ruin the drawing. I'd mostly sketched out the line work, so it made no difference.
A quiet afternoon as the Saskatoon Community Clinic. Again, about halfway through this one, a group of four came in and sat in some of these chairs... They were less aware of what I was doing.
Same place, a couple weeks later. I think I did the colouring, for this one, after we got home and despite having taken a reference photo (below), I did it from memory... which, obviously, is not always 100%.
I never take pictures while drawing in waiting rooms - This was while we were waiting in the examination room.
It was a long wait, and I brought along one of my Derwent Inktense Paint Pan Travel Sets and tried colouring there with a limited palette. (most of these I've coloured with Derwent Inktense pencils - as it's a bit less messy when on the move and can even be wetted later, if there won't be time to dry before the book has to be closed and squirrelled away)
Same room a couple weeks later, different angle - looking at the chair I was sitting in in the previous picture.
This fellow joined me in the waiting room. I only got a brief look at his face, because whenever I looked up he'd notice and look over at me! Most of it was done from memory afterwards.
I guess the first of February is Hourly comic day...? Not sure when it started. Saw people participating in the past and thought, "hey, that'd be fun to do" but always forgot about it until I started seeing the posts appear the next year... Well THIS YEAR... someone I follow on Twitter mentioned it a few days in advance, so... I was sort of prepared... sort of...
The idea, I think, is to draw a comic every hour about what you've been up to for the last hour...? And post it on some sort of social media (I've seen them on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook).
I managed to crank them MOSTLY out "on time"... mostly... almost... until about 5pm.. I did do a few after that, but didn't get around to posting them. The rest I finished up today... So... here is a day in the life, sort of... I don't normally spend the whole damned day drawing comics about trying to draw comics all day...
I busted out a brand new sketchbook to do these all in... and.. filled 32 of 48 pages (I think I'll tear the rest out and just use them for separate page doodling and such)
And that's it...
It was fun. If nothing else, it proved to myself I CAN get a LOT of shit done in a day (or two) when I'm FOCUSED on something... not that it's all going to be AWESOME... but shit gets done!
Will I do it again? Maybe. I'll have to think a bit more about format beforehand. Also, I should probably learn to use the freaking iPad - seems like that's what most people are doing. No mess, quickly upload - without having to take pictures and edit and format those pictures...
