Window in France

A small vignette from one of the many reference photos I took in several picturesque villages in France. I drew and painted this while watching TV, which could explain the very odd perspective! Oh well, just fooling around to keep my hand in, no big deal. Faber Castell sepia pen and watercolor.

Casual contour

Watching TV with my cat…

And making little book sketches to go with my next blog post for the library…

That is one lopsided hunchbacked teapot!

Drawing from France

I went back and had a look at some reference photos, tonight, from my trip to France last October, and decided to do a little more drawing on the first day of the new year. This is a street in a village called Saint Loup Lamairé. Several of the guest artists at Bandouille have painted this particular view; and I think I would prefer painting it to drawing it, since you can do the side of a building in one stroke of the brush instead of a bunch of shading with the side of the pencil! Maybe I'll give it a try.

But first I think I need to go back and review Bixxy's perspective lessons…what was it, Bix? Elbows down, knees up?

Drawing first

I can't decide whether I am lazy, fearful or impatient. The fact is, I don't enjoy drawing. Or rather, I like drawing mostly as an end to painting, rather than as an accomplishment in and of itself. I can do it; but because it's not something to which I aspire to improve except as it supports my watercolor, I neglect it, so I do it fairly badly. And like most people, what I fear I avoid. But really, the better your drawing skills, the more your painting benefits. So I'm going to do it more.

Here's one I did today. I want to do a series of paintings to go with a book I enjoy, and today I went looking around the internet for somebody who looks like the somebody I want to paint. This guy might do--we'll see.

You can see that I hung in there for the interesting parts and then got scritchy-scratchy with the outlying bits. Also, now that I look at it in scan form I see that one of his eyes is waaaay higher than the other. Oh well…practice. Practice, practice, practice. Until it becomes a practice.