Drawing of An Old House--Part 2

At this point, I have started to put in some medium tones with my 2b pencil and then start to add in some darker tones and shadows. As I added more and more, I would blend each addition using a tortillion, which is basically just a rolled up piece of paper, which can be purchased at art supply just about any where. They are available in small, medium and large sizes. I tend to use the small and medium for most of my work.

As you may be able to see from this photo, I started at the left front of the building, working my way around to the right side. That's how I generally work, doing sort of a layering of tone and building that up.

I have also put in just a bit of detail. For me, drawing is about realism and to achieve that, detail really is everything.

Part 3 is coming real soon!

My Drawing of An Old House--Part 1

I would like to give a big Thank-You to ronnieb of Morguefile for the use of his photo, Old House, which I used with his permission for this 4-Part series.

Originally, Ronnie's photo was in color, but for my drawing, I converted it to Black and White, zoomed in a bit and heightened the contrast. I did all this in Photoshop easily, but I think the same results could be achieved in many of the photo editors out there. Even many of those that are free are perfect for these kinds of basics. I could have edited out the wires, but chose to just ignore them, leaving them out of my drawing, instead.

Then, I printed out both the color original and theblack and white versions of the photo and began to get my paper surface set up. For this drawing, I decided to do some experimenting by choosing cold-pressed watercolor paper. I wanted to give this building some texture and "aging" and have that come through to the viewer.

I started the drawing off by making a line drawing of the house and some trees. I drew these simple lines to be basic, just to guide myself along. When I drew the tree's lines I hadn't yet come to a decision as to how I would be drawing them. I would have to wait and see on that, later.

For Inspriration

Here's a wonderful site about a truely inspiring guy, name Dennis Francesconi. I think that we all can learn something from Dennis' story--check it out!

http://www.sconi.com/home.htm

Thank-you, Dennis.

A Few Pages From A Sketchbook

I thought that it would be fun to post a few pages from one of my sketchbooks. I like to use

pen and ink, sometimes adding in some color with watercolor pencils using a waterbrush.

I just like to include whatever things that happen to catch my eye right at that particular

moment.

These four pages are: sketches of my cat, Chance; electrical outlets, switches and a light;

two of the many "hats" my husband wears; some items in our hotel room on a "getaway".

Keeping a sketchbook is a lot of fun and when I now look back at the pages, it brings back

the memories of that day, trip, place, how I felt or my impressions of what I saw.

Plus, some people use sketchbooks as an idea bank for later artwork. There doesn't seem

to be any rules and one can just use their imagination, with no limits.

I don't drawing in mine everyday, and I confess, months can go by without any new additions.

I also don't consider myself to be very good at it, but that's ok, I have fun, anyway. Remember, no one ever has to see it. That's up to you.

So, if you don't already use a sketchbook, think about grabbing one the next time you visit your favorite drawing supply online or in person. It doesn't have to be a fancy one, just make sure it's "acid free" paper. Just start on that first page and see what happens.

Afterall, Leonardo did and look what happened!

Thank-you Dors for this award, I'm delighted!

This is my first award!



Be sure and drop by Dors at
http://dorsart.blogspot.com/
She features some wonderful
artwork!






Here are some blogs that are certainly award worthy:

http://robertabaird.blogspot.com/
http://artbykarie-ann.blogspot.com/
http://theartofrescue.blogspot.com/
http://writingdoodles.blogspot.com/
http://freespace.virgin.net/michaelsmith.smith8/

Please, if you would nominate 5 blogs that you think
are of interest.