Tag: lockdown art

Mike in a (mandatory?) mask

Mike

Wearing a mask is mandatory on public transport in the UK from today unless you have a health reason not to wear one so I thought I’d mark the occasion with a portrait of Sktchy muse Mike wearing his mask. I’m glad that finally mask wearing is becoming acceptable in this country. I hope that with the easing of the lockdown it becomes more commonplace and that this helps to inhibit any second wave.

I’ve found lockdown incredibly difficult and, while I’m not rushing out of the house and heading to the shops today because I’m not convinced it’s safe to do so yet, I’m hoping against hope that people will be sensible and the death rate will continue to fall.

I drew Mike with Polychromos coloured pencils in a Hannehmühle Nostalgie sketchbook.

Lorraine

Lorraine

Lorraine is both an artist and a muse on Sktchy and her was such a wonderful face to lose myself in today. So many layers of colour and such expressive lines – and those fabulous eyes.

I painted this portrait in my Moleskine watercolour sketchbook with Zecchi Toscana watercolours and finished it with Prismacolor coloured pencils.

Cody

Cody

Cody is one of my favourite Sktchy muses. He has a great face to draw and his photos are so interesting. This isn’t my best work, not having the best week pain-wise, but I do think it captures Cody’s personality very well, and I love that about it.

I drew Cody in my Midori cotton sketchbook with Copic markers and Prismacolor coloured pencils.

Noppadol

Noppadol

Such a great name and such a great face – when I saw his photo on Sktchy Noppadol was an irresistible draw. Some I can browse Sktchy for hour’s trying to find a face I want to draw and other times one jumps right out and grabs me immediately and Noppadol’s was the grabbing kind – and I’m glad it’s a smiley face. It’s been a while since I’ve drawn a great smile so I’m guessing it’s a good sign that I wanted to draw one today.

I drew this in my Emilio Braga notebook with Bic Cristal and Bic 4-way multicolour pens.

Angela

Angela

I’ve been having fun today making ink from poppy petals. Once I had some ink I drew this portrait of Sktchy member Angela with my hand whittled pens. Then I squeezed lemon juice on the portrait to turn the ink pink on the hood, cheeks, eyes, and nose and I brushed a little of the juice onto the eyes too. I love how pink it became! I’m really enjoying playing with these natural inks – I sourced some gum arabic today and I’m hoping I can get hold of some baking soda in the next day or two, all of which will help me experiment more.

I used poppy ink made from foraged poppy petals, freshly squeezed lemon juice, pens whittled from a branch picked up on a dog walk and a Seawhites sketchbook.

Delphine

Delphine

I retreated to my comfort zone for a couple of hours to draw today’s Sktchy muse Delphine, because I could and I wanted to. This was drawn with Copic markers in a Midori cotton sketchbook.

Lois

Lois

This is a portrait of Lois for Lesson 2 of the Sktchy course Ink Naturally with Dylan Sara. Dylan showed us how to draw a portrait with 2 contrasting home-made inks and a hand made calligraphy pen. He used ink made with turmeric and walnuts.

I didn’t have any turmeric or walnuts so I made ink from paprika (I just added hot water and that’s the yellow ink) and tea – that’s the brown ink. I added a drop of India ink to my brown tea ink to darken it because it wasn’t dark enough. I drew the portrait using a pen I made from a whittled stick a year or so ago. It has a fat rounded nib rather than a more blunt calligraphy nib. I’m pretty happy with this given I was just using what I could find in my house. I’ll be buying some turmeric and walnuts this week and making some ink for further experimentation…

Madusa

Madusa

This is a very quick and gentle portrait of the lovely Madusa , drawn in my Hannehmühle Nostalgie sketchbook with Polychromos coloured pencils.

Paul

Paul

I’m still not feeling great – so much so that I haven’t managed to get out of bed today. So I drew Paul on my iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil and the Procreate app. I love the strength I see in his expression here.

Ivanka

Ivanka

There is so much pain and anger in the world right now, I don’t really know how to respond to it all. My body responds with migraines, one after another. So my head still hurts but I’m still drawing as best I can. This is Ivanka, drawn from Sktchy,

I painted this in a Moleskine sketchbook with Zecchi Toscana watercolours and finished it with Prismacolor coloured pencils.