Animal Alphabet Guidance

Last week I was inspired by Animal Alphabets on Twitter as they were drawing an Afanc.  As it was the start of a new cycle and I found the whole concept of the Mythical Alphabets fascinating and fun, I decided to join in.  The description of the Afanc was so clear that I thought it might be doable for me, seeing as I had recently worked on a beaver drawing.

 

The first thing I did to work on this picture was to download a Beaver and a Crocodile for guidance.  I decided on pencils because that is what I like the most and have practiced with, plus I love black and white drawings in pencil.

At first it was quite hard, not going the way I wanted and I had to draw upon a lot more things, other pictures of beavers, my original beaver sketch to get the hair right.

I also had to find many other different crocodile photos so that the tail would be relatively at the right angle to work with the beaver fusion.

I made the beavers ears pointy instead of round because of the little demon element.  I really enjoyed working on the tail, it was very crocodile like.  

 The most difficult part after this was his environment.  I kept adding and adding to the hair and shading then developed a kind of waters edge as I wanted him to be by a lake.

The next day I found some images of water and tips for drawing water and worked for ages looping and shading the water so that it looked like water, then I asked my sister what she thought it was and she said the lake so that was good.

After this I found some photos of crocodiles in deserts and swamps and found it really hard to incorporate this with a pencil.  Firstly I worked along the waters edge adding shrubs and grasses and went higher up the page with shading of this.  

Adding the grasses made a difference.  I had to go to the shops to buy a 7B and 8B pencil so as to really add the darker shading which made a  difference.  The hardest part was the far end of the picture, I could not imagine how to have it.  One crocodile photo had a distant tree line so I decided on this, drawing a row of trees and shading in between them.  From my journaling books I had how to draw scrolls so I made a scroll around the description of the Afanc. I was generally pleased with the finished result but found it very hard to draw a whole picture with just pencils.  Still, it was a good experiment and opportunity to really go to town with the pencil shading!

The absolute highlight was sharing it on Instagram and having Animal Alphabets re-tweet it! I actually felt part of the group, taken seriously being able to actually put pencil to paper and make an actual drawing. None of the members there seem to judge which is really nice, they offered compliments and encouragement and this really added to my art journey.  I'm so pleased to have discovered this, the weekly guidance of something interesting to draw is really helpful and needed. 

Journaling & Animal Alphabets

I have been continuing to journal, using the dates and events of my life as a guide to what to draw.  I am still feeling that it's slightly a burden, enjoyable while I do it but does not have that 'spark' to want to work on something or really look forward to it. 

For something slightly different I decided to do "representations" rather than detailed journals of what I am doing.  We have been watching "Ripper Street" so instead of drawing about it as usual, I decided to find a picture of Jack the Ripper and draw that instead for the whole page to represent the entire thing, in a more abstract way.  I was pleased with the result:

Next, I worked for a week to finish my music album "Spirit of Solitude".  I felt I had neglected drawing again, I did not feel inclined to fill up the journal with annoying bits and pieces I had collected and I did not want to draw my music notes, album or music station. 

This is my finished Solitude CD album and I wanted to represent my work on this music as a journal entry that was interesting.

Spirit of Solitude CD

Keeping with the abstract representation theme again I decided to draw a "Lonely Tree" for the journal page to say about writing the music for Spirit of Solitude.  I was pleased with the result because I used soluble pastels and shiny watercolour paint.  I was able to use the page beside to say that I had been writing the music and thought about lonely trees, deserts and solitude to write the music.  It was a much more interesting journal entry.

The Lonely Tree

I am finding journaling interesting but again I do think the main problem that I have could be the Roald Dahl notebooks I am using, the paper is grid lined and I like to draw on thick drawing paper, I find that more inspiring.

ANIMAL ALPHABETS

On Twitter I have seen mentioned "Animal Alphabets", I noticed a lot of people drawing different birds but I was not sure how the whole thing worked.  On a whim I bought myself a very cheap sketchbook and used the letters of the alphabet as a starting point for drawing animals and birds.  It was much more enjoyable and inspiring.  The paper is lovely and thick and I am inspired right away by the texture to draw on.

I used my stencils for a simple cover and I started with "Aardvark".  My favourite thing is pencil sketching, working on the shading which I love and this is so much better with proper drawing paper.  I found an Aardvark on Google Images and drew him in pencil, then I found the kind of background he would live in and drew this too.  

I also used the "Drawing Cartoons Letter by Letter" as an opportunity to put those on each page too.

This beaver is mostly a copy but it was good practice because I was able to do the hair/fur effect and he actually turned out looking like a beaver.

After this I found a Cuckoo photograph online and sketched from this, I enjoyed mostly the detail and learning exactly what a cuckoo looked like as I drew too.  

I am still journaling but I am not doing it daily.  I seem to be drawing now in sketchbooks and using the journal as representations and for sticking things like postcards that I have collected inside.  I am coming to the conclusion that I need guidance for drawing and the daily guidance of a journal is great but it centres a lot around either work or TV programmes.  With a sketchbook that has a theme it points me in a direction that is more focused and this is helping.