gail's 14 day challenge

I am resisting giving myself numbers, so I will skip that part because I want to continue this drawing practice. I am actually quite happy with my little scribbles. I am getting the "essence" of a glass salt shaker.
Even though I didn't like the Adobe Illustrator version, today's drawing practice gave me the kick to try it in illustrator, and I'm glad I got that practice in as well.
What an eye-opener, seeing what I get when I draw with my less dominant hand. I actually like them, and the wiggle-ly-ness hide my mistakes. Drawing left-handed takes a whole lot more time.
My right shoulder is still injured and I am still using my left hand to draw. Having fun drawing left-handed.
I knew this glass juicer would be hard to do. Maybe some year I will get better.
Without my glasses, I can't see unless the thing I am looking at is about 6 inches from my eyes. So I needed to have my glasses held very close to me. In the first drawing, I held my glasses almost next to my nose, and then I drew my hand as well. In the bottom two drawings, I moved my table so it was at eye level, and then I put my face next to the table. I had trouble with one of the angles of the ear-hook thing.
My eyes are old and tired, and I can't see the details so well. In the future, when I want to draw things with a lot of detail, I need to get in closer so I can see the details.
I tried to give the bottom drawing some shading. I definitely need a lot more practice with shading using an ink pen.
I found creating garlic drawings very difficult. I also tried it using my new desktop drawing app Rebelle 3, which mimics traditional media (kind of like photoshop) but there is even a watercolor engine, so the colors kind of flow around like real watercolor (maybe like Adobe Fresco, but I don't have an Ipad pro so I can't make any comparison). Anyway, garlic is hard for me to draw. More and more and more practice required.
Onions are also difficult for me to get a drawing that I like. I do like the one with less detail.
I was scheduled to do radishes, but I got beets in my vege box, and I wanted to draw them instead. I wanted to spend time on the greens details so I managed today to get just one drawing. I did a contour drawing, but not blind contour (in other words, I peeked). I like my drawing quite well, especially the little dots that I would never have known to draw if I had not looked at a real beet while drawing.
Baby brocolli is very hard. You would not have been able to guess what I am trying to draw without my telling you. Anyway, it was in my vege box, and my scheduled object (carrots) was not, and I wanted to see what would happen so I gave it a go. That is what I am getting from this practice... it's okay if the drawing doesn't turn out great/wonderful/perfect/beautiful etc.
I must admit that today, I was impatient and again focused on the result, and I found I didn't like what I was getting. I had to try to shut out all the goal-oriented thinking. It's almost like I have to step outside my own head...
I never liked the way I've drawn trees, too simplified, or I did squiggly lines that didn't really reflect the leaves or the branches or the details. I did my drawing today looking out my back window. The tree was about 10 feet away so I could see the oranges and the leaves, but not much more detail. I got impatient when I got to the pot whose bottom was hidden behind other stuff that I was also too impatient to draw.
I am happy that I worked through this 14-day practice. I view my success as finding that I enjoyed the time I spent doing the drawing, and I looked forward to doing it each day. I think one of the hurdles for not drawing each day is not knowing what to draw, so making a plan on what to draw each day was invaluable. Another hurdle is the fear that what I make will not be good enough somehow, so taking the outlook that it is not about the result was important.
Where to go from here? I want to continue drawing and learning. I'm thinking of other 14-day practices that I want to dive into...
Thank you Ohn Mar.
Comments after Day 4 of Second 14 Day Practice: I know I am bringing my critical self dialogue into this, and so it is not as much of a "pure pleasure" as I felt in the first 14-day practice. I'm still slugging along though and hope I can keep going. I have to stop worrying about the result so much.
Day 12: I love these (drawing people doing things in this loose style). Maybe if I do a 100-day project, I will be better at it.
Day 13: For the first time, I tried to block in the shapes before adding color and ink lines.