gail's 14 day challenge

gail's 14 day challenge - student project

gail's 14 day challenge - image 1 - student projectI 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.

 

 

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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.

 

 

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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.

 

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My right shoulder is still injured and I am still using my left hand to draw.  Having fun drawing left-handed.

 

 

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I knew this glass juicer would be hard to do.  Maybe some year I will get better.

 

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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.

 

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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.

 

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I tried to give the bottom drawing some shading.  I definitely need a lot more practice with shading using an ink pen.

 

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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.

 

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Onions are also difficult for me to get a drawing that I like.  I do like the one with less detail.

 

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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.

 

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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.

 

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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...

 

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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.

 

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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.

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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.

 

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Day 13: For the first time, I tried to block in the shapes before adding color and ink lines.

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