Mushrooms

Done from a reference photo. I have reported before on my struggle to draw from photos. Considering how convenient they can be, it seems like a weakness not to be able to make proper use of them, so I am trying to overcome it. Not sure if I am managing...

HB mechanical pencil on printer paper, 13cm x 18cm.

#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.

Self-portrait

As always with self-portraits, the rather menacing expression is just an effect of staring intently into a mirror...

#28: Blue bottle and tomato

Oil on canvas board, 20 cm x 15 cm.

A friend gave me a lovely blue bottle, and I couldn't wait to paint it. Clear bottles are common, so are green ones and brown ones, but blue ones are rather hard to come by!

With such richly coloured things, one is always tempted to use too much colour, ending up with something way too garish. In fear of that, I erred in the other direction, and my painting's colours are not nearly as rich as the bottle. 

I added the tomato for some extra colour. And I liked the curious bump on it - vegetables (and bottles, for that matter) all have their own unique personalities, well worthy of portraiture. 

#27: Autumn leaves

Autumn leaves collected while enjoying a morning walk. Oil on canvas board, 15 cm x 20 cm, and still sticking to my limited palette of black, white, red and yellow.

#26: Apple and glass

Bit of a failure, I think, but the apple looks better than they used to.

I have forgotten how to paint glass, so I had a mighty battle with the thing. I used to struggle quite a bit with this cultivar of apples; I seem to be getting a bit better at it.