Started drawing with the Painters Guild in the Lexington Arts & Crafts Society last week. This week, I worked on a portrait. It's close to the real person, but not quite. Her lips are off a little, and the scarf wasn't so big, but I still like it.

I'm taking an acrylics class for the first time and while this is just a work in progress, I like how the apple came out.

I still don't really know how to add a background that will work. The forefront still needs a table to ground the plate.

I was excited to have more free time this summer and to find an art studio with drop in classes. This is the first piece I finished.

It's been a while since I did an indepth drawing rather than a quick sketch and it was fun to take the time to develop the image further than usual.

I also did a quick sketch with a sharpie pen, but I need a better picture of it before I post it.

Sketchcrawl #22 - 4/11/09

I took the plunge and joined up with some folks today to participate in the 22nd International Sketchcrawl.

Our group in Massachusetts met up at noon at the Middle East Restaurant in Central Square. Despite my initial anxiety, I made it there by twelve-thirty and walked in to find five people drawing at the bar, and three more guys over in a booth by the wall across from the bar.

Took a while to warm up, but I started out drawn (no pun intended) to a large figurine on top of the bar. As we would discover later, everyone drew the pig.

Next it was on to real people. Here are sketches of Chris and his girlfriend Sara, who were seated at the bar. I sat across from them in one of the booths:



















We stayed for two and half hours before heading to the next stop~ The Field an Irish pub on Prospect Street. After getting to see what other folks were doing, I decided to move to watercolors.

The first was a sketch of Ellen. I loved her hair (lots of ringlets). Next was her friend Joppa.















It was kind interesting that everyone I ended up drawing today wore glasses. As if sketching wasn't challenging enough! The Field was pretty much empty so we all ended up drawing each other. It was nice and quiet there but eventually too quiet so we moved on after an hour and a half.

It was fun using the watercolors, and had we decided to stay put, I probably would have continued with them. With the few minutes I had left, I decided to draw Ellen's fiance, Matt before we headed for our third and final destination, the Tavern.

I should mention it was a cold, raw, rainy day and that was one of the reasons I think we all stayed indoors and didn't try to make it all the way to Harvard Square.

While I wasn't really happy with my work today, it was a great reminder of what fun it is. Hopefully it will also be a reminder of how important it is to practice often. Otherwise, how can I improve?







Here's Dave Marshall, the organizer of this event.

















I like this photo of the group. Dave posted it on his website (www.illdave.com)

Some Pen & Ink sketches

It's time. ... time to start painting again. Time to put ink to paper. Time to seek bliss....