Devsye

Another one in the sketch book, with no rubbing out. I’m starting to add context to these sketches because I don’t want objects just floating in space.

This time the curve of the ellipses is okay, but they’re just at the wrong angle to each other.

This is another stand-up drawing, and another test using ellipses. Again, I haven’t quite got it right.

I had another go at the coal scuttle, this time with the fountain pen. Of course there was no room for mistakes. I didn’t draw it with a pencil first as a guide. It’s still not right, but better than my earlier attempt with a pencil.

I found an old fountain pen that works really well: it writes smoothly with barely any pressure, but I find the line is too thin for writing. I’m trying it for drawing, and it works much better than felt tip drawing pens, and wastes less plastic.

For this drawing I tried to keep the nib touching the page and draw in a continuous line.

This one didn’t work out. It looks like I got the top ellipse wrong at the start. It’s that problem with ellipses again.

Another sketch in a small sketchbook, done while standing up, so a bit wibbly!

I thought I’d go back to drawing more challenging things.

Someone gave me a box of gouache paints so I tried them out. I like the idea of making pictures with flat colours, like the old railway posters, or Cotman.

I was fairly pleased with this but I lost sight of the overall pattern of shadow. I also didn’t get the difference in colour between the front of the leaf, seen in the background, and the back of the leaf, in the foregeound. The front of the leaf is much bluer and the back more yellow. Perhaps it was a little overworked, but I don’t know what else I could have done with a subject like this.

This was mostly sap green, cadmium yellow and ultramarine, with touches of black in the shadows. Again, I’m just mixing the colour on the paper, wet in wet.