My sketching has been coming along slowly and I’ve been following some of the exercises in one of my books to improve.  I doubt I’ll be posting a lot in this section until I get faster and start on some more interesting things.  So far I’ve been trying out single items without backgrounds or other surroundings – it’s been enough for me to concentrate on one thing and really observe it without other bits to consider.  So, below, I have individual gumnuts and a single fallen, dead gum leaf.

Gumnuts & leaf

Yes, they look like they are floating in space but I’ll continue to fill the paper with others as I go along so I can watch my progress.  I’m very pleased with the largest one because the resizing has come out quite well.  I’ve been spending some time talking to a friend of mine, Jane, who is doing some lovely sketching and she has been giving me some tips as well as plenty of encouragement.

Having read Project 2 – Stage 6 I discovered it is based on one of our own drawings and we are to use the colours within the drawing to do the next piece of work.  That was when I realised that everything I’ve drawn so far was in pencil, so only different greys.  With that in mind I got out my drawing stash.  I started with the leaf above using my Graphitints and a 2B pencil for the greyish areas, then I opened my watercolour pack.  These were very ‘virginal’ having never come out of the packet before but it was time to give them a go.

Beetroot leaf sketch

Here is my attempt to draw a beetroot leaf.  It is miles away from looking like the real thing but I’m pretty pleased that at least it doesn’t look completely flat.  I have definitely got some undulation around part of the edging.

You can see that the original leaf was at a different angle when I drew it and it has been repositioned for the photo.

Now to the assignment …………