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.

Leuchtturm Sketchbook Art

In my previous post I talked about beginning a sketchbook journal and filling an entire Roald Dahl notebook with art and imagery and text like a journal.  I will now speak about getting myself a Leuchtturm sketchbook that I began in 2017, round about the same time, to draw more freely.  I felt that some of the problems holding me back could have been the quality of the Roald Dahl paper or the lines and grids in the background.  I like drawing on proper thick white paper and the Leuchtturm enabled me to do this.

Leuchtturm Sketchbook

 It's funny the way my brain works, I found it a challenge to use a second book and try to be free.  The Roald Dahl book had order because it was led by the days events.  I started the Leuchtturm book like a journal also but my brain played tricks asking questions like, how can I have two journals on the go, what if one has some info but the other misses info?  I let myself be more free in the Leuchtturm with the view to leaving behind dates altogether.  It is a constant challenge not to add pressure  as well as keeping the inner critic at bay!

Above, my first entry, I copied a pumpkin from Google Images using watercolour pencils, dabbing them slightly with a brush of water at the end.  On the second page I used cheap watercolours to encourage myself to learn and practise.  

Closeup of the pumpkin drawing

 My next entry I used a sketchbook journal entry image from the internet as a guide and I collected a real leaf off the road and used this to work into the art.  Practised some more watercolour.  Pleased with the layout.

Watercolour work and working in leaves.

 This next entry I was inspired by a card I received with cacti on it.  As I grow cacti and it's one of my passions I incorporated it into the book, I drew my conophytum succulents in flower.  

Being Halloween I looked for Halloween pictures and sketched this pumpkin picture and was so pleased with how it turned out!  I really enjoyed the shading!!  I used some Halloween stickers on it too.

Pumpkin drawing copy

 Because I was so pleased with my pumpkin sketch I looked for another Google image to copy and decided to be led by what I liked.  I found this lovely fence and wheelbarrow sketch which I freely copied and shaded:

Close-up of the drawing

Alongside the Leuchtturm I was continuing to journal in the Roald Dahl (see samples in my previous post).  As planned, in the leuchtturm I moved gradually away from journal entries and dates and just drew what inspired me.  This drawing of a whale came up either in a book or on Google Images and I copied it because it was interesting.  I used watercolours.

 I decided to draw some lighthouses because that is what I had been doing the last time I quit drawing so the next few pages in the Leuchtturm book are sketches of lighthouses copied from Google:

I added the text at a later date when I thought the sketchbook needed more than just drawings.  I had also, before I quit a few years ago, been using camel oil pastels and camel YouTube drawing projects which I never finished so I was determined to complete another one in this sketchbook.  The following I worked on over time using camel oil pastels:

Camel oil pastel picture

 This little sketch I copied from a newspaper because the lovely ship and lighthouse image struck me as nice.  I stuck the original in beside it.

Progress?

It was at this point that I decided to be bold and make an entry in the Leuchtturm from my mind and not copy.  I was pleased I was not being rigid with myself and that I was picking things to copy that inspired me.  I had some interesting pages.  It was time to use my own imagination. I was SO disappointed with what I was capable of!  Compared to the lovely shaded wheelbarrow and pumpkin - this below was all I could draw!  I was furious!  I used it more as a journal info page because I could not draw anything from my mind. 

It was months before I went back to this book, disappointed and frustrated by how one minute I could copy really well, but the next, be like someone who could not draw at all when it came to using my own imagination!

Beginning Again:

Several months passed before I drew again, after my disappointment with trying to use my imagination but I got a book to help me chillout one day and was inspired by the sloth on the front cover so I decided to copy it.  I thought, from now on I shall keep to copying and see how it goes, after the disaster of trying to go my own way and being disappointed.

Brian the Sloth copy

 I also started to re-do exercises from that old book I had "Draw What you see, Not What you Think you See".  I found that squeezing these into the gaps of my notebook pages made the book more interesting.  It did not matter to me at this time that everything was a copy or a tutorial exercise, at least the book was filled with art and that is what mattered!  I think that the next time I go to 'use my imagination' I won't try to draw something out of thin air.  Perhaps I will take my own photograph and copy that, maybe some flowers or something.

At our local garden centre I kept passing this picture on a tray so in the end took a photo of it and determined to draw it because it had so many lovely sketching potential and delicious shading.  It was already a piece of art so it was not an original but I still at this point enjoy copying and this was something I really wanted to copy so I just went for it.  I worked on the below picture over several weeks.  The picture is edge to edge of 2 Leuchtturm pages and is drawn freehand with sketching pencils.

Sketch copied from a photo over weeks

Continuing to Practise with Pencils and Shading

Having grasped finally the fundamentals of using a pencil and realizing how and why I had abandoned art so many times in the past, I decided to just plough on and keep practising.  I was curious about the different mediums of art but I kept on with using pencils and introducing coloured pencils too.  I copied these beach huts from the tin of my Derwent coloured pencils:
 

Coloured pencil sketch of beach huts copied.

 Then I used a great book called "Learn to Draw in a weekend" which is the book that helped me to suddenly "get it" about shading.  I practised with simple fruits and felt I got better and better:

These party hats below represent for me that "light bulb" moment when I produced a picture that actually looked like a picture and stood out of the page in almost 3D.  It was the edges and the shading and shadows that I finally understood.

Party Hats - shading and shadows and using colour.

At that moment I had a surge of confidence.  I remember that I would just draw things that inspired me and although I did not feel at this time that I was capable of producing any original art, it did not matter, I decided that it was okay to just copy and copy anything that inspired me so as to keep learning.  That Christmas our next door neighbour gave us a Christmas card which I loved so began to copy the picture on the front.  I never finished it but really enjoyed just using the pencils and getting familiar with them.  I love drawing little details with shading.

Copying a Christmas Card picture - copying to practise using pencils

All in all it was a good beginning from that first attempt of not even knowing how to make a line on a paper.  Compared to those very first marks on the paper from You Tube videos, I felt progress was being made: 

Very first attempts from You Tube, not understanding anything about drawing.

Although I find it a shame that over the years I have given up and gotten rid of all my art, I do see it was burst of growth and at the moment am still keeping going on this art journey.