Tag: art challenge

River’s eye

I’m taking a Sktchy Art School course offered by Robin Hilthouse on drawing with ballpoint pens and decided my attempt to draw an eye with ballpens could be my daily Sktchy, my practice for the course and today’s Inktober drawing for the prompt “frail”. I had surgery on my right eye in my very early 30s and I have some more problems with my eyes now which are bothersome more than worrying, but perhaps I know more than the average person how frail and precious our eyes are. I think I have some way to go before I can draw an eye as beautifully as Robin but I enjoyed the challenge.

I drew this in a Moleskine sketchbook with a variety of Bic and Staedtler ballpoint pens.

Scout

I don’t often draw children but the photo of Scout which inspired this portrait is so perfect for today’s Inktober theme “enchanted”. I drew this with the technical pen brush in Procreate, which I don’t think I’ve ever used before. I know for sure I’m going to come back and add colour when I have the time

Isabelle

I made such a mess overworking my watercolour in this portrait of Sktchy muse Isabelle – it’s slightly improved by working over it with coloured pencils. It’s also my contribution to this week’s Old School Sktchy WAX challenge on the theme “Fall”.

Coffee truck

I know, it’s not a face. It’s a coffee truck for a Sketchbook Skool “Draw This!” photo challenge. I’ve always loved drawing vehicles and this truck is so gorgeous – it’s an irresistible drawing challenge for me. I drew it on my iPad Pro in Procreate with an Apple Pencil using a whole range of brushes but mostly my favourite Blackwing Pencil brush and a watercolour brush.

Lorë

A fun sketch of Lorë on my iPad Pro today. Her inspiration photo was in full colour but the pink and gold stood out for me so I decided to highlight those and leave everything else in black and white (well, grey).

Sheep

Something a little different today. A while ago I spent some time experimenting with digital block printing and I’ve recently agreed to come up with some designs for cards for a local eco project I volunteer with. So I’m refamiliarising myself with the process and plying around with colour schemes and brushes. This weekend Sktchy have a Barnyard Portrait party so I used a photo of my own of a sheep to come up with this digital block print design. It’s a little rough and ready but it was great practice for refreshing my memory and for playing around with colour schemes – I worked this design in 4 different colour schemes, but liked this simple one the best.

Drawn on an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil using the Procreate app.

Taylor

This is my fast fun response to this week’s Old School Sktchy challenge word “foreshortening”. I couldn’t resist that huge foot at the bottom of Taylor’s photo. I drew it on my iPad Pro using the Procreate app and my favourite Blackwing Pencil brush and then added the pink and white with a watercolour brush.

Nelly

This week Sktchy are having a Calm Portrait Party and this portrait of Nelly is my entry for that challenge. The inspiration photo is such a beautiful one (I drew a portrait from a similar photo of Nelly’s a year or so ago and that remains one of my favourite portraits) and I so enjoyed drawing from it. As you can see I was experimenting again with coloured pencils- but on my iPad Pro again.

Yes this was drawn on an iPad Pro, not in a sketchbook. I created a coloured and textured paper background so that I could use lighter colours and they would show up. Once I started drawing I decided to use a lighter touch with my hatching on the skin especially and I think this was a good decision. I drew this with the Procreate app using Georg’s Blackwing Pencil brush (my favourite drawing brush).

Puffin

This week’s Old School Sktchy WAX challenge theme is “fish”. Never one to take the conventional approach, I ignored Sktchy’s many photos of people with fish and instead chose to draw those beautiful image of a puffin with a mouthful of fish, posted by Africa Shepherd. I’ve never drawn a puffin before so I loved learning about the shape and colours of a puffin’s beak and eye as I drew it. Everything’s interesting when you draw it (I stole that line from Sketchbook Skool).

I drew my puffin in an A4 Moleskine sketchbook with Copic markers, a white Posca pen, Crayola Shimmers metallic coloured pencils and Prismacolor coloured pencils.

Tarana

As well as having a great artist community, Sktchy also offers some great portrait courses. At the moment I’m taking a course with artist Charlotte Hamilton on drawing patterned portraits. This portrait of Tarana was inspired by this course and this week’s Sktchy Patterned Portrait Party.

It was drawn in a Hannehmühle Nostalgie Sketchbook with coloured pencils (from a variety of makers).

The good news is that, although you need an IOS device to have Sktchy app, you don’t need one to take a Sktchy course because they run on the Mighty Networks platform which is available via an app and a website. If you’re interested in finding out more about Sktchy’s portrait courses you can find out more by visiting the Sktchy shop at https://shop.sktchy.com.