Quick sketches

Some quick sketches. I got hold of one of those cheap children's watercolor pan sets, and wanted to take it for a test drive, so I put an egg and two cherry tomatoes on the table, sketched them in ballpoint and splashed some cheap watercolour over them. I think even the cheap colours may come in handy for sketching.

And then a portrait sketch of Ryan, the son of friends of mine. Seven is not the best age at which to try sitting still for more than ten minutes at a time, so I had to work at breakneck speed, and there was no question of making corrections! 

Pencil on paper, 20 x 15 cm:

Endless changes...

Scarcely did I decide to shift my artistic operations to DeviantArt, or I have reason for second thoughts.

I very much like the layout of DA, and the way its galleries work. But it is also a very big umbrella, and I have noticed that lots of the artists there produce some pretty extreme adult-oriented art. I don't personally mind such work at all, but many people do, and I don't want anyone to get into trouble because they ended up viewing more than my own gallery!

I also noticed that DA's discussion forums are positively infested with neo-Nazis and other kooks, cranks and assorted nuts and dolts.

I'll probably continue to make use of their gallery feature, but for the moment I'll be here again, on a more regular basis.

So, let me first play catch-up, with an assortment of some of the stuff I have been up to since I last posted art work here.

Some more drawings:

Small pencil drawings (18 x 13 cm)

And ballpoint pen:

I like the medium, but it has a tendency to fade. I do notice that nowadays, lots of professional artists make use of the medium, and opinions vary somewhat as to how permanent such drawings are. If kept behind glass and out of direct sunlight, they'll probably last reasonably well; I am not too sure.

Some attempts at somewhat more detailed pencil drawings:

I have never been much good at these - I tend to prefer rapid sketches. But they are a good and necessary exercise, and now and then it is fun to sit back, relax, put on some soothing music and spend a few hours with a subject.

A pen and wash sketch as birthday gift for a friend who wanted a picture of a Tuscan-style window:

I also made a stack of these that I turned into handmade greeting cards. Here's a selection:

Some recent adventures in acrylic painting in a next post...

Fallen flowers

Found a whole carpet of these colourful flowers under a tree. I have no idea what kind of tree, but they made for a nice subject for a few sketches. Ballpoint pen and coloured pencil on bits of scrap printer paper.

#30: Pine cone

I find this kind of subject absolutely fearsome, because whenever I have to deal with this kind of repetitive complexity, i.e. little units that repeat, but not exactly, I quickly lose track of which bit it is that I am working on. Here I think I managed reasonably well, though I greatly simplified it and the drawing does not remotely contain all the detail I could see.

When I was a kid, ladies would often sit and knit or crochet in conversation. Nowadays we buy our jerseys in clothing stores, and we have cell phones, so the knitting ladies making idle and pleasant conversation have been replaced with people rudely ignoring the conversation while frantically typing text messages, or privately laughing at something they see on the little screen. 

I wonder why we bother to have friends in real life at all. Anyway, I made the above drawing while idly chatting in a pleasant conversation with colleagues - my version of doing the knitting lady thing. Or perhaps drawing while chatting is every bit as rude as texting? 

Black-collared Barbet

A sketch of a Black-collared Barbet (Lybius torquatus). Ballpoint pen and coloured pencil on printer paper, about 20cm x 20cm.

#29: Glass and teaspoon

Trying to draw glass with a ballpoint pen is probably not a good idea...

#28: Screwdriver and egg

Another slightly surreal still life. I am rediscovering my enjoyment of the humble ballpoint pen as drawing tool...

#27: Skull

A model of a skull, given to me by my friend Lenny Flank. Go check out his publishing company at http://redandblackpublishers.com/

As usual, I messed up the shapes and proportions a bit. I did find it a useful exercise though.

#26: Pomegrante

Used a ballpoint pen again for a change...

Tree and leaves

A few recent sketches, of leaves and a tree in the botanical garden. Ballpoint on printer paper, about size A5.

Tree sketch

Sketch of a karree tree (Rhus lancea) made during a visit to Dinokeng nature reserve north of Pretoria. Ballpoint pen, in A5 sketch book.

Austin Roberts Bird Sanctuary

A nice place to kill a few hours is the Austin Roberts Bird Sanctuary in Pretoria, where a large enclosure is home to all manner of critters, such as this steenbok:

As one might expect, there is also a large variety of birds, especially waterbirds, such as comb ducks (a.k.a. knob-billed ducks, for obvious reasons):

Blacksmith lapwing (so named because of its call, which resembles a small hammer hitting an anvil):

 Little egret:

 And the ubiquitous Egyptian goose:

Also commonly found at the reserve is the white-faced duck:

and yellow-billed duck:

It is a congenial place to make sketches of birds, something I try now and then when I can work up the courage to try sketching moving targets.