August Sketch A Day Faves

Off the bat I will say this month has dragged a little. Every other month this year I blinked and it was done whereas I've been convincing myself for half this month it was already September. It's not that I've been bored, I've spent most of month working and watching the Olympics (I've said it before and I'll say it again, Rhythmic gymnastics....WOW!), so it makes little sense as to why August has seemed to last so long. 

I've continued to pace out my work and have been enjoying it even though I have significantly less work to show for the month. And with that being said let's show and tell my collection of favourites.

At the start of the month I finished my AJ Michalka portrait. It seemed only right to draw the AJ to my Aly from July. I used the promarker and pencil technique from before and really enjoy how it looks in the end, especially with a bold solid colour in the background. The challenge with this one was definitely the hands which when I look back are quite similar to the hands from the Emily Blunt Huntsman portrait I did a couple months ago. I must be drawn to that particular pose. AJ was kind enough to repost the piece to her Instagram page which is always a thrill.

I finally got some black Pitt pens to try and this was my first go using them. I think they have a lovely finish and I intend to continue using them possibly for illustration work. With the dancer piece I tried to create some movement and hopefully in time I'll get the hang of that. My style is quite tight but to create movement it needs to be more loose. Not my strong point but it's a goal. And I really love my owls little face!

This acrylic painting was done specially for my Mum. She has been asking for a painting of mine and my siblings childhood teddy bears for quite a while and this was the month I finally granted her requested. Since my room is quite small it is hard to do acrylic pieces just because I don't have the best set up. Thanks to my brother I have a portable tabletop box easel which I can set up on the bed but if I'm painting for too long my back tends to hurt since I have no back support. Luckily this one didn't take up too much time and the teddies seemed to flow out of me (apart from that creepy teddy on the right). Painting this piece reminds me of just how much I love acrylics. Definitely need to think up more ideas for other canvases.

I've been seeing a lot of awesome work done with pastels online recently so thought it was time to give them a go again. As I have probably said before I find pastels a little too messy for my liking so to try and combat that I bought both pastel sticks and pencils for more precise detail. The colours are so pretty and they blend lovely. Once I have used them more I hope to do a blog post about them and how I have gotten to grips with them - if I ever do. 

This is the month of Britney Spears' Glory. If you haven't listened to the album and you enjoy pop music I highly recommend you give it a whirl. It's basically a mix of elements from In the zone, Britney and a hint of Blackout. The day I listened to the album was the day I drew this. I just got my grey Strathmore sketch pad which is such a great size. I didn't expect it to be as big as it was. Plus I was finding it hard to find a pad of just grey paper here in the UK. This pad was an import from the US on Amazon. I can't wait to see how colour pencils will work on it. So many possibilities! 

I have finally started using PayPal and taking commissions. It has been a some time coming. I had been thinking about it for a while but didn't quite know if there was a demand for it but when I did my Aly drawing last month and people seemed to be interested I thought it was time to get things rolling. This piece is for a former work colleague of mine and she has been great through the whole process. She has been like a cheerleader for me and I can't thank her enough! The next step will be to set up some sort of store, whether it be through Etsy or elsewhere, and sell prints and so on. But for now I'm just focused on the commissions and putting together a solid price list. This is another topic I wish to do a blog post on so stay tuned next month.

 

My last two drawing of the month make my favourites purely because I think they show some improvement compared to some of my other work in pastels and charcoal. All I need now is a better fixative, other than hairspray, to hold them in place so I'm open to suggestions. Also I really like the expression on the portrait piece. I'm a sucker for emotive faces.

My goals for next month are to do smaller pieces just so I can work on my speed. I can be quite slow sometimes. And other than that I just want to continue using pastels and other mediums to improve my skills. Drawing aside next month I will become an aunt for the second time so I'm quite excited for that!

Roll on September!

Hazel, xoxo

June Sketch a Day Faves

It blows my mind how fast time goes. It feels like yesterday I set myself the #sketchaday2016 challenge and we are already half way through the year. Granted I haven't kept up my end of the new year's resolution fully but that's just a minor detail.  I still hold myself to the challenge in spirit! 

Anyway... This month has been a month of canvas gifts, pencil sketches and promarker exploration!  I've also been quite heavy in the portraits area and even though I want to broaden my subject matter, portraits will always be my favourite thing to do.  I grudge having to stop myself from doing what comes naturally to me. Faces are just the best! 

So here are my favourites of June!

At the start of this month I managed to hold myself to the goal of painting some canvases. Both of these canvas where painted as birthday gifts, tailored for each person's loves. The first being the Marvel universe's Christophers (minus Chris Pratt unfortunately) and the second being little Holly! Overall I was happy with how they turned out despite time constraints due to last minute planning. Definitely going to do more canvases soon! 

After over a month of painting with watercolour I wanted to go back to some old standbys. Pencil drawings are the foundation of my skills so it is always a pleasure to go back to them. However recently I feel like the pencils just don't have the contrast in tones that I want to achieve so that is where charcoal comes in. I'm not great with charcoal, mainly because I feel like I have less control over details. But the contrast in tones is so much easier to achieve, especially with the toned paper and use of white charcoal.

My intention was to stick with graphite and charcoal for most of the month but I craved colour after using the watercolours for so long so decided it was time to go back to markers. And so with that thought I ordered a bunch from Cass Art.

With my promarker phase came my craving to draw old Hollywood actresses. Even though I like my Liz Taylor and Sophia Loren ones, Vivien Leigh is definitely my favourite out of the three. I just love the colours and facial expression. 

Who knew that if you drew a hippy van that pro marjuana Instagram accounts would take notice. Good to know!

These last two pieces are by far my favourites of the month. I didn't think I would be able to achieve any sort of style that resembled realism with markers but I've pleasantly surprised myself. 

My next goals are to paint on some bigger canvases but also start to draw some original pieces and by that I mean using my own references instead of secondary ones. I also want to start drawing a wider variety of people instead of just the white female. 

Side note - When I bought a pack of skintoned markers it only had tones to draw white skin which is completely ridiculous. Yes I could probably buy individual colours to widen the skin tone colours I have but you would have thought that they could have sold a bigger set to incorporate the mutiple skin tones there are instead of just ivory and pinks. Rant over!

On to July!

Hazel, xoxo

March Sketch a Day Faves

I'm aware some visitors may have not seen any of my daily sketches, unless you have been following either my Instagram, Facebook or Tumblr. So I thought I would start posting my favourites of the month to give an brief overview of what some may be missing out on but also just to reminisce.

This year March was the month of concerts. I had the pleasure of seeing Tori Kelly, Ellie Goulding and Adele. Unfortunately I don't have a sketch to commemorate Ellie's concert but I do for Tori and Adele. I highly recommend seeing any of these singers live. Especially Adele. She gave me goosebumps. I will say though Ellie's concert gave me serious Cora vibes (the popstar from the movie Music and Lyrics) and not in a bad way.  

  

March was also the month I became addicted to Dance Moms (or should I say unhealthily obsessed) and so dancing managed the sneak its way into my sketches. Got to love Baby Groot!!!

 

I also tried to work on my skin tones this month with some decent results. I purchased some Winsor and Newton skin tone promarkers and I think I prefer them over the Letraset promarkers. Not entirely sure of the difference in their formulation but I like the Winsor and Newton colour better. I think it might be because the colour less bold so it's easier to layer the colours up to create more dimension. I also tried out some Derwent Coloursoft pencils which I have already reviewed in a previous blog post.   

And finally here are some random faves of mine.

It's been a good month and I managed not to skip too many days and tried out some new drawing tools. My goals for next month are to start trying to paint some bigger pieces. This way I can spread my progress across a number of days instead having lots of small sketches. But I guess only time will tell if I manage it.

Hazel, xoxo