I signed up for a free, online course through edX: Natural History Illustration. I must have thought I had some free time. I don’t, but I signed up anyway. Here is my object drawing for the first assignment: cattail, gourd, petrified wood (just in case you can’t tell). I’m not sure what the reference notes are supposed to include for a natural history illustration. Thank goodness for Wikipedia, is all I can say.
My first self portrait. I sat in front of the bathroom mirror for this session.
I’m just now learning to draw the face components. Separately, I’ve worked on lips, eyes, noses, mouths. I thought it would be funny to draw my self portrait just as I’m starting out and then draw it again later (much later).
This sort of looks like what I think I look like. It fits my general description, but I don’t think anyone would look at it and say, “Hey, that’s Tresha!”
It seems odd to me that I couldn’t draw myself to be any more recognizable.
A sketch of Kay’s boot (that I borrowed). I positioned it at an angle. Looks like I need a lot of practice on foreshortening.
Deep Eddy is the oldest swimming pool in Texas. The water comes from a well and is not chlorinated. Water temperature ranges from 65 degrees to 75 degrees. Early in the morning, I saw one man swimming in a wet suit.
There is a mosaic wall.
But I wasn’t there to swim. I was there with a handful of other artists. I sketched in pencil and the others painted with watercolors. We scattered all around the pool area and went about our business creating art.
From my vantage point, this is what I saw when I sketched.
My sketch doesn’t quite look like the photo. Oh, well.
I purposely left out some items, like the trash can. And people. I don’t know how to sketch people yet. Or trees. Or stairs. Or swim lanes. But I was glad I went and my inner 7-year old artist was really happy.
When I was trying to teach myself how to draw, I bought several drawing books. I didn’t do much with most of them for a long time. Now that I’m taking drawing lessons and have learned a little bit, I’m returning to those books and trying out a few things. I drew these two sketches based on instructions from How to Draw Cool Stuff by Catherine V. Holmes.
The Impossible Triangle
I decided to try my watercolor pencils to shade the heart. I don’t really know how to use the watercolor pencils, but I read the instructions and took Nike’s advice: Just Do It. I made the heart into a Valentine’s Day card for hubby.
The Impossible Heart
It's a long story ... 