Saturday Update Drawing and Knitting

So here is what I have doen with my drawing:

And here is the progress of the knitting:

Sketch for new drawing

I decided to do a dream piece based on an interior of a famous Viennese Cafe, called Central Cafe. I wanted to populate it with famous people, although recognizing the people is much less important than the movement of the eye and the composition (which I am still working on. Here is the draft sketch.


 

Today I changed things a bit, but despite three hours of drawing I don't feel like I came forward very much!

Sorry about the lighting - I used the natural light from the window, but it gets darker the farther away from the window you are! (Imagine that!)

 

 The figures near the front have gotten bigger and I am not having much luck rendering the ones in back in a recognizable fashion, but I am trying to improve the composition.

Weekend of Feb 20

The following images show the development of work this weekend. I'm a bit tired of this topic, but am trying to rethink it one more time.

 

Saturdays' addition: (the faded image on the right is the one above - I have not erased on it, so I think it was the direct lighting on it that made it look softer.

Today I added two more versions, but based on a different photograph.  I think it works, but will be interested to see what my teacher says.

Fox paws so far. Just screwed up and repeted red in the same place as last pattern! ;-(

Fox Paws update

Sunday Drawing Report

So I have art class on Monday and have to do my homework beforehand, so Sundays I will probably always have a  few drawings to post (or more likely changes to old ones based on critiques.)

You may remember this one: (I have toned it up a bit to give it more compositional interest.)





I decided to try and do a more minimal version of it with a few lines to connect less comprehensible areas.

I think I like it.  I also went back to the one of my mother and her sister as children. It is still a work in progress, but I brought it forward a bit.

Personality Tests

Facebook knows we are suckers for those what character are you in Twilight tests that purport to tell us something about our personalities. So I took two today that I thought were pretty good. Of course if you post to Facebook that you took them they put a big add for the test rather than reporting who you are these days, so I thought I would post my results here. (Just for honesty's sake I was Willow in the Buffyverse quiz not long ago - but it asked really obvious questions, like what color is your hair and are you geeky, into killing things or a fashionista - you can kind of guess what character goes with what!)

Anyway, I was happy with the results of my first test which asked about color memory. I've been told they give everybody 100% on these tests, but I guess I still want to believe that I remembered the colors of things in the famous paintings they asked us about.  I love that they use a black and white photo to report to you about your abilities to remember colors!

 

Of course I have no where near a photographic memory, but I think I am pretty good with colors!

The second test should not have surprised me, but it did. We had to answer questions like which way do we cross our legs or our arms and what we saw in pictures.  I consider myself fairly analytical so I was sure I was giving all the left brain scientific-styled answers, but instead I got this.






It is a bit simplistic of course (see I do have that left brain aspect after all!) but I was happy to see that my sense of my own creativity could be reinforced.

Cafe Before the Opera Drawing

Well, I'm back a t work on my recent drawing. I didn't like it so much that I spilled a coke across it as I was bringing it upstairs!

 

I guess I'll try and iron it! 

 

Here is a brighter version - neither are very accurate to the work itself in terms of contrast.

 

Bed Space

Two nights ago I got ready to go to bed and it turned out to be harder than I thought.

Luckily there was a little space on the right side. (Can you tellI ususally sleep on the left side of the bed? Only the orange Kitty left me my space! Well, it was cold that night!)

Drawings for the Day

 

Fast graphite stick sketch just to play with the composition.

Here is the original.

I worked on the cafe a bit too.

Drawing Update

So, I am trying to work on spatial relations and negative space, but Iam not succeeding too well.
I'm at a stopping point with the picture of Grandmuddy Hunt and I also started a new drawing to try and work on space. I was hoping to have five or six levels of space and I have three, but it is a beginning.

Grandmuddy Hunt feels finished to me, but of course my teacher is usually not satisfied as easily as I am. (I'm not sure why the backgraounds are always so grey in my photos, but if I auto contrast, thenthe pencil lines become much darker than they actually are and if I raise contrast  then I usually lose subtleties. (I guess I need to take pictures with more available light.)

What will my teacher say? Probably too much rendering and he rarely likes it when I use dark values.

This one feels like i am going backwards. Iknow it is not about the accuracy of the faces and figures per se, but it feels very much like I would have drawn 40 years ago. We'll see what advice I get.

Fox Paws Update

Well, I've made it through almost an entire  run of the fox paws pattern. This time went better, but I fudged a lot on the last row so I hope that won't be too obvious!!

Now it is time to decide whether to diverge from the pattern or to  follow the color suggestions made by the pattern author.

Sketch of Faces (Updated)

Here's the draft. I'm about to do drastic stuff to it!

I decided I wasn't happy with the draft - kept working on it:

 

Okay, (still not happy, but... so what else is new?) and of course as I look at it, even though I completely redrew all the features of the lefthand figure, I don't see much of a difference. (Probably time to start over). Anyway, then I started  changing things up a bit. I still need to work on the lefthand figure and think about the background, then tighten the focal points, but here is the current stage of the drawing.

The figure on the right is fairly faint, but the other two are fairly strong. I can't seem to get the right balance in a photo. Here is a second shot in which the right figure is too prominent, but you can see the other figures better.