First sketch outdoors

Just one more sketch to add before I post the colour images. This is of Edinburgh Castle in Scotland. It was a lovely sunny day in Edinburgh, the day of the Gumball rally, and I took my sketch pad and pencils to Princes Street Gardens which is a lovely spot in the centre of the city.  I really enjoyed doing this sketch and hope it will be something I can do when I go on holidays in future:

 

I just want to tell you about this pretty bowl I bought in Tokyo recently too.  It was my first ever trip there and I wanted to bring back a piece of pottery as a souvenir, though I only had a small suitcase so I didn't have much room.  I found a pottery shop on Yanaka Ginza shopping street and bought this.  I had no idea what I was going to do with it so stuck it in a cupboard when I came home. Once I started using the watercolour pencils and paint I realised I needed something to hold water and decided this would be ideal.  It seems to add to the pleasure of painting to have such a nice object to use.  I think I'm going to have to go back to Tokyo to buy a brush holder!

Materials

I was enjoying sketching and decided to have a look around Greyfriars Art Shop in Edinburgh a 200 year old art store in the city.  I had no intention of buying anything in particular but came out with Derwent Inktense water soluble pencils, some brushes and some Winsor & Newton watercolours which were £10 in a sale (I think the full price is £18) as well as some other bits and pieces.  I also bought this text book from Waterstones.  I'll show you my colour efforts in forthcoming posts but here are a few more sketches:

I used an example from the book to produce this one



This is another attempt of a sketch in the book

The body

My art started around a month ago, so I'm not writing this blog in real time. I'll use the next few posts to catch up on the pieces I've done in recent weeks.  The point of the blog is to follow the art as it develops. Ideally there will be improvement over time.  I  have no training and haven't done any art since I was at school.  I had no idea I could draw anything so after my little sketches in the last post I was pleasantly surprised that I could draw something that looked like what it was supposed to be.  I moved on to life drawing and here are the results:

 

   I've left the guide marks and flawed lines as I'm not aiming for perfection at this stage.    

  

 

I drew this one from a photograph

I introduced shading here for the first time and was pleased with the results

The beginning of the journey

So, on a whim in June 2014, I decided to try my hand at art.  Full in the knowledge that I've not quite mastered my previous hobbies of touch rugby, French, dancing (contemporary, tap, balkan, african), among others, I figured I might as well jump head long into yet another pursuit so, art it is.

I was inspired by an episode of NHK World's fab "Tokyo Eye" programme where one of the guests drew a sketch of a place he visited in Tokyo. I realised I would love to be able to do that too. At around the same time I visited Edinburgh College of Art's end of year show which was really inspiring.  I also saw a drawing my cousin had done. She is a gradute of the famous and highly respected Glasgow School of Art.

So I rushed out and bought, a charcoal pencil, at WH Smith.  Not exciting but they do tell you not to spend too much money straight away on a new hobby and a charcoal pencil seemed really arty and thus, a good way to start.  I drew a few sketches, then did more shopping, this time for a set of pencils.  Here are my initial results: 

Manga face

Hello Kitty