Drawing Journey Part25 - Rose

So, after a few days of having fun with some simple hatching and crosshatching I decided to do some funky project.

I found a Rose tutorial made by PaintBasket on YouTube which I thought it would be a great way to test my new skills. Link to it is HERE

I wanted to begin with the very same starting point as a gentleman on video, so I paused the video, took a screenshot of the outline he did, resized it a A5 (European size) , did a transfer and I got my 0.35mm technical pen ready. 

I started to watch the video and I can confidently say that I had not seen nothing more boring than that. It was long, dragging and despite the gentleman's soothing voice it was also incredible monotonous. As it was in a real time it took about 1 hour and 45 minutes of suffering. He was really trying to explain his thinking process as well which was nice but did not help me that much so in the middle I decided to just go with it with some faith and hoping for the best. I replicated shadows he did. I replicated the highlights he did. I replicated some strokes he did and so on without thinking why.

When I was done something magical happened. As I was so focusing constantly on very small portion of the drawing I completely missed it as a whole. Then I looked at it from bigger distance and I could see my Rose looking like a professional artwork.

Lesson learned! Give a chance to something even though you think is pointless because magic happens at the very end. I am very grateful for this not "boring anymore" tutorial because without it I wouldn't be able to ink the Rose and my artistic confidence wouldn't improve.

I am so incredible exciting and pleased with the result that I can't wait for my next projects.

See you next time and Have a brilliant drawing day :)

Artist to Artist note :

When you do the same as me please don't claim it as your own, instead give the credit to the person you've got it from.

Drawing Journey Part24 - Beginning of Inking

During browsing on the internet I bumped on some guy who did outlines of his cartoon characters with brush and ink and it looked like so much fun that I bought a Sumi brush almost immediately afterwards.

I fell in love with inking instantaneously and I bought a set of Faber-Castell set of technical pens as well. It was something incredible satisfying to see wet ink drying out on the paper that I could do just simple hatching and crosshatching for hours and hours.

Was a little bit surprised that there are not as many resources nowadays as I thought it would be about using technical pens and all books I bought were dated back to the 80s. I guess it's not "trendy" anymore as it used to be :)

Anyway, my next project is to ink a rose so fingers crossed it will turn up at least good, aiming for great :)

Have a great artistic day

Drawing Journey Part23 - Jug

This exercise was far the best one yet!

At the beginning I had to prepare a tonal ground for my drawing which just meant starting to draw on grey surface instead if white one. Later on I discovered it was more about erasing than using a pencil and I truly loved it.

To make a tonal ground I sprinkled graphite shavings onto the paper and then smudged them to create a smooth middle grey/natural grey tone. A clutch pencils are brilliant for making graphite dust as there is no wood from pencil shaft to contaminate it.

When that was done I started with rough sketch of a jug which could be found on Will Kemp website or click HERE. He used a picture of pomegranate in his course however I liked the jug better.

Then I was adding shadows with soft pencil where it was need and for highlights I used an eraser.

Because I started with already mid-tones placed on the paper I found it very easy to either go darker for shadows or lighter for highlights using the eraser opposite to drawing and shading from the scratch on white card.

Hope you like it as much as I do :)

See you next time and have a great Day

Drawing Journey Part22 - Upside-Down-Puzzle 2

I found Will Kemp Foundations of Drawing course on Lynda.com which seemed to be like a great way how to develop my drawing skill further and because I used the Free Trial offer I had nothing to loose.

It reminded me a theory of the book Drawing on the right side of the brain which Faces/Vase exercise came from.

Back to Will’s course, the first exercise was about re-programming the brain to draw what it actually sees instead of what it thinks it sees.

This upside down puzzles was more sophisticated than the horse puzzle I’d done before. There was a picture included in the course which I printed it out. Following the instructions from the video section I covered the whole pic before I had a chance to see it. I uncovered a small portion, drew it, uncovered another portion and so on and I literally had no clue what it was going to be. after ¾ of drawing it finally hit me that it looked like a portrait.

It still surprises me how easy drawing can be if you flip your picture upside down and working on small section instead of the whole which could be very discouraging and scary if you’re lacking a “drawing confidence “ especially from beginning.

Next time tonal ground drawing so stay tuned :)

Have a great drawing day!

Drawing Journey Part21 - Cartooning Fun

After a strenuous task last time, shading the Kettle, I was left with literally no energy to make another lengthy project.

I was browsing on the net looking for some inspiration and I came across cartooning stuff which was exactly what I needed. Something nice, cute and easily done in few minutes.

I've bought a Christopher Hart book for kids ages 4 and up. First of all just because I found it cheap on Ebay and secondly because I still have an inner kid in me :)

The top picture is actually mine. I was trying to come up with something what would be completely my own and as I was on holiday with no other resources whatsoever this was an end result of my effort.

At this point I realized that the Kettle exercise was a last think I drew from DrawPj course. My conclusion is: course is great if you are a responsible student and if you stick with it you will learn a lot. 

Unfortunately, this doesn't apply to me as I go where I see something interesting. I must say that Student forum is truly amazing. I keep posting my artwork (Yes, I call it artwork now :) and support I get from the members there is brilliant. 

This includes nice comments as well as productive criticism mainly from Cindy (founder of DrawPJ) which I do appreciate. Example of this would be a pointing out that the perspective of the bench on the top picture doesn't really match my guy perspective which I'd never noticed until it was pointed out to me.

Moving on. I discovered another funky drawing course but more about it next time.

See you then & have a great day :)
 

Drawing Journey Part20 - Kettle

Week 3: Kettle

When I first saw what was on the agenda for this week I immediately thought " There is no way in a million years that I can do that"

So, I took a deep breath and started.

I had an outline to fill in and as the same as previous weeks some instruction how to accomplish this massive task, at least massive in my "student's"  head, were included.

Recommendation was not to spent more than 4 hours with it and  because I'm perfectionist and my credo is "If you do something do it properly " I spent more than 9 hours over few days. I did section by section from beginning to the end even though instruction were to do it as a whole and not in sections.

Very pleased with it and especially after I thought it was impossible it gave me the whole new level of confidence and first time since I'd started drawing I felt like an Artist.

This exercise was somehow a huge breakthrough for me and it did open the door to a new world of drawing perception (very hard to explain the feeling I have at the moment :)

Personal notes: a prolonged period of heavy concentration gives you a massive headache!!!

Discovery : Graphite is lifted up even though a fixative is used. I was working on this piece for a few days and covering it with some glassine paper to protect it between my drawing sessions. I noticed that over few days very dark areas, almost black, on Day 1 was middle grey on Day 3 and at the end I had to retouched picture quite significantly.

Looking forward to next project and until then Have a nice day :)

Drawing Journey Part19 - Shade and Form

So, I sort of finished Lesson 1 and I must admit that I was very excited to start Lesson 2 Shade and Form from DrawPj course.

Week 1:

The exercise for this week was all about to creating value scale and starting to recognize the slight differences between them. As much as it was beneficial I wanted to get into " a real shading" :)

Week 2: Cube, Sphere, Cone & Cylinder

I did love these exercises. I had an outlines to fill in with different values/tones. Instructions were broken down into few steps and some hints and tips were included as well. I mostly enjoyed a sphere and cone. 

Overall I found these exercises a little bit repetitive especially shading the cylinder as this one was a last practice and was not as a fun as previous ones. 

Looking at them all finished make me feel very proud of myself . I've had a REAL sense of satisfaction J

Personal note: I started to feel more comfortable and confident with drawing and shading. Looking for difference between various shades of grey started to be more automatic.

Next time is Week 3 Shading a Kettle so fingers crossed.

See You next time :)

Drawing Journey Part18 - Outline Drawing Summary

Week 3

I completely skipped the exercises for this week. It was a construction drawing of a  simple lamp with guidelines in place. For some reason I could not forced myself into drawing this and trust me I was trying so hard so many times. After I realized that I'd not drawn anything for over a week I just simply moved on to Week 4.

Week 4

This week was about Grid method for transferring an outline. Unfortunately week 3 repeated itself and I didn't do any exercises from this week either. Now I think it might be due to lack of my interest or appeal in a pictures provided in course materials.

Week 5

As you can guessed I skipped this one as well. To my surprise this was the same exercise of Old Hay Shed which I'd done already in 6 Pencil Techniques course few weeks back.

Week 6- 7

Outline drawing of Plumeria flower, this was a final project for the Unit 1 - Outline Drawing. I did not even attempt it and my plan is go directly to Unit 2-Shading and Form.


Happy Drawing :)


Personal Note: Please note this is my own personal experience and I know many people on drawpj forum who actually enjoyed themselves drawing these exercises. Information in course materials has it own value just pictures on their own did not work for me at all.

Drawing Journey Part17 - Chuk the Dog

Week 2 of DrawPJ course

Copy the shapes: very basic just copy as precisely as you can some basic shapes like a circle, ellipse, egg, pear, bean and moon or banana shape.

Frog Dog: this exercise had two steps.

Step One = following step by step instructions on how to create a construction drawing. I did not like construction drawing method at all. I spent far to much time on finishing this step just to find out that I needed to erase it afterwards.

Step Two = outline drawing and drawing personalization. I added a background and made some shading attempt. At the end I named my doggy Chuck. This part was much better and I had a fun - well deserved after frustrating step one.

See you next time :)

Drawing Journey Part16 - Upside Down Puzzle

I found this funky puzzle while browsing and searching for ultimate drawing book/resources. It came from Lee Hammond's Big Book of Drawing.

I started with making a copy using a copy machine and I cut out all individual squares - all together 70 squares. I also made a copy of the empty grid. Notice that each square in the grid is numbered - very important.

Using the elimination method, from simplest shape to complicated ones, I took one cut out square, found the corespondent number in empty grid and drew exact copy of it. I repeated it 69 times more and when I was done I turned it up side down.

End result was amazing. Under no circumstance I would be able to draw a horse like that but when it was broken down to the small chunks and turned up side down suddenly it all became possible.

Good news is, every single time when you filled stuck with your drawing just turn reference pic up side down, cover parts you don't need to see so you are not distracted and try again. I bet second attempt will be far far more satisfying then the first one.

See you next time :)


Note: I must say that in original filled grid some lines when aligned one by one didn't match however I tweak my end picture so they did.

Drawing Journey Part15 - Loose Curves

Moving on, I started the Outline Drawing course by Cindy Wider and these are first exercises in Week1.

Loose curves: the whole idea was about to be able to draw a curve using sketching strokes instead of few straight lines forming the curve. The given exercise was just something abstract however I chose to tweak it a little and I drew this Futuristic Dandelion instead. I must say I was pretty impressed with myself :)

Copy the pattern: main focus was on allocating points in a semi finished grid as precisely as possible and then joining them together forming lines and curve. Also it was a good practice on splitting lines in halves, quarters and so on.

I did some additional recommended Extra Practice for a different sizes of ellipses as they are apparently very important for drawing realistically.

Overall I am quiet pleased with the outcome and I am ready for exercise/-s in Week 2 .

Happy Drawing and see you next time :)

Drawing Journey Part14 - Resources Update

A just a little update on the resources I'm using.

As an addition to materials I mentioned in Drawing Journey Part2 I got myself:

- Daler RowneyAquafine Watercolour smooth hot pressed paper pad - I could not believed how many different types of papers are out there and of course I bought the wrong one for the purpose I needed. Good advice - search for the difference between cold and hot pressed watercolour paper :)

- Winsor and Newton Medium kneaded putty rubber - it is brilliant for lifting (press and lift) graphite form paper instead of rubbing it off (left to right motion) with vinyl eraser

- Paper stump (no brand)- used for blending graphite

- Masking tape (no brand) - very important when you do picture/sketch transfer

- Fine Sandpaper - for preparing my pencils

Resources and resources additions:

I had many emails asking me for a name of books mentioned in Part1 so here they are

Book 1= How to Draw a Cool Stuff (purple one) by Catherine V. Holmes - this is the one even child can follow. There are an instructions on  how to draw a very basic shapes step-by-step. This is a very nice book but I was missing a methodical approach where I could build on some previous knowledge so I did not use it very much ( to be exact I used it about five times).

Book 2= Drawing for the Absolute Beginner by Mark and Mary Willenbrink - I ditched this book as I found out it was no use to me. It was fine to read it but as soon as I tried to follow some tutorials I got immediately lost. Contains a little bit of everything and it could be good as a  drawing techniques overview. Just did not work for me.

Additions and other resources:
Drawing on the Right Side of the  Brain by Betty Edwards - it is more about psychology behind the drawing. It is a hard read for me as I found the writing style a little bit boring and I needed to force myself to continue but info there is very good even thought is somehow hidden in a lots of unnecessary words. However, it makes you think about things. The exercises included are very interesting I must say.

6 Pencil Techniques by Cindy Wider. This is an online email based two weeks taster course with two exercises and two bonus ones . I paid 0.67 GBP (equivalent to 1USD) It has simple instruction from how to hold the pencil to how to make a different strokes to achieve different textures. I did learn a lot from it.

and Drawing, Shading and Portraiture Course also by Cindy Wider. This is a self teach course which I found discounted on Amazon local and I am planning to follow this course for the next few weeks.

Have a nice day and stay tuned for another drawing adventure :)


Note: Just to say I have not received any commissions for mentioning these brands/names

Drawing Journey Part13 - Old Hay Shed

Continuing with 6 Pencil Techniques course by Cindy Wider I was able to finished this Lovely Old Hay Shed.

The outline of the shed was provided in the one of course pdfs as well as some notes on how to shade it.

I was terrified when I was starring for few minutes at an empty paper with few lines not knowing where to start than I made a big decision and went for something easy like big black spot inside of the shed. Then I spread cross roof, wood, background, trees and so on. When I finished with all "required parts" I added my own such as additional tree branch on the left, bees, birds and butterfly.

Knowing that I've done it feels great and rewarding however feels confusing at the same time. Took me few days to finish it. During these few day my feelings were going up and down, from "I can do this" to "There is no way I can pull it through" and seeing it in front of me is like somebody else drew it for me :) 

Drawing Journey Part12 - Pencil Strokes

I have bought a 6 Pencil Techniques two weeks course by Cindy Wider. It was a taster correspondence course, cost me 1USD and pencil strokes were a first exercise.

I did enjoy it and found a pencil preparation quite interesting, especially for a chisel point which I'd never heard of before in relation with pencil.

There was a recommendation that you should fill one full A4(210x297mm) with each stroke. I can honestly say that I managed to fill a half of A4 and got bored (happens to me easily I must admit) and I did not practice any of hatching, crosshatching or fine lines. Broad stroke was quite tricky for me for some reason and I fully enjoy chisel point stroke.

Next: Putting in all together with Old Hay shed attempt. See you then :)

Drawing Journey Part11 - Corner of My Room

A Corner of my Room would be a last Pre-Instruction drawing.

I was so pleased with this one as I felt like I could finally cope with it. After all I found out that I was very comfortable with drawing straight lines, parallel lines and cubes while drawing curved lines threw my sense for proportions completely off.

Self Evaluation:

Positives: looks exactly like a corner of my living room, I like it overall

Negatives: none

Action Plan: keep drawing relaxed at all times

Feelings: felt more confident, also I felt like I had a control over drawing instead of panickin

Have a nice drawing day and see you next time :)

Drawing Journey Part10 - Left Hand

Another Pre-Instruction drawing was my own had.

Another strange feeling as I was trying to keep my left hand still while drawing with my right one.

This time I kept in my mind that I needed to speed up a little and not overthink it. I set up an alarm clock to 20 minutes and started to draw.
  
Self Evaluation:

Positives: looks better than I though it would be, looks like a hand, I like the palm and fingers, still can not believe it was me who drew it

Negatives: maybe more shading on forearm

Action Plan: keep drawing without thinking and don't let any doubts or worry enter my mind

Feelings: I feel very encouraged now especially after my self portrait sort of fiasco :)

Next will be a Corner of My room. Stay tuned :)

Drawing Journey Part9 - Self Portrait

It is a good idea to do a Pre-Instruction drawings which essentially means that you draw with skills you have right now. Over some period of time, and after learning some techniques, these very same drawings will be re-drawn and you would be able to compare your skills and hopefully see some progression- something like Before and After picture.

Mine Pre-instruction Drawing will be: Self portrait, hand and corner of the room

This is about the first one - Self Portrait 

I had a very strange feeling to look at myself in the mirror and observing all different shapes and shades and wrinkles ... and you get the picture. Usually if I applied make up early morning it takes me no more than few minutes and even than I watch TV with one eye half open so suddenly staring at my face and trying to draw it was very uncomfortable for me for some reason.

So, this exercise should have taken about 30 minutes - in my case 2.5 hours. I freaked myself so badly that I was trying to do everything perfect. I spent much more time with small portions like ear or nose than I should've. The complexity of facial expression was overwhelming, did not know where to start and generally I just wanted to give up an move on to something else.

Anyhow, after all that effort I could confidently said that my self portrait did not look at all like me and I mean not like me at all. Good proof was when I sent a picture to my boyfriend and his reply was "Who it should be again?"

That led to thinking about one of my ground rules in my previous post - keep good sense of humor :)

Self Evaluation:

Positives: it still reminds a human being, I like an left ear, right eye, lips are not bad either and I like nostrils

Negatives: does not look like me at all (however there is resemblance with someone but still couldn't figure out whom) and took me far to long

Action Plan : care less,  don't spent far to much time with just one small section, don't overthink it and just relax and let go

Next time will be attempting to draw my left hand. Fingers crossed that will go better :)

Drawing Journey Part8 - Cube Basic Shape

Apparently there are four basic shapes square, circle, triangle and rectangular and any object can be simplified into these shapes. With additional few lines you can transform 2d object to 3d so from a square you can draw a cube, from a circle a sphere, from a triangle a cone and from a rectangular a cylinder.

I decided to start with a cube as I found it the simplest from all - just few parallel lines. How hard it can be? Right?

I did three session and  started with very basic cubes trying to draw them from different angles. Eventually I got bored with simple forms and started adding more details to it. Was quite surprised when I finished and realized that I drew a cute Robot. I just let myself go without trying hard and some inner feeling was guiding me. Then I understood what people meant by " drawing was unfolding in front of my eyes" feeling.

As you can see I progressed from simply shapes to more complicated ones. Some of them involved quite a lot of thinking which I did not expect but found it relaxing at same time.

After all, had a great sense of achievement :)

Note: small written numbers on picture represent the sequence in which I was drawing however with some I got back to and re-do them completely.

i.e. number 6 was a plain cube - one hour later got back to it and made it a robot or number 12 was a dice from weird angle, did not like, it started to play with it and made it to Telly Family :)

Drawing Journey Part7 - First Attempt

This was my very first attempt to draw something. Came to me very spontaneous after I'd seen some tutorial about light reflection from a ball.

So firstly I drew an outline of the ball which would be a circle. Then I started to play with shading, added some cast shadow and then I started with adding more  details like a stem and leaf.

I recently bought a watercolor pencils for coloring stamp imprints and I thought it would be good opportunity to try them out. To be honest I still can not get over them. I was not aware that such a thing even existed and it is like a magic happening in front of your eyes when you slowly add water, such a brilliant idea to put watercolor pigment into a pencil shape.

And "VOILA" a piece a fruit was drawn. However I am still not sure if it looks more like an apple or a plum ;)

Drawing Journey Part6 - Ground Rules

Writing down some ground rules might have been seen as a silly idea first but over the time when there is a potential for failure and frustration is very important to stay motivated and keep trying - practice makes it perfect.

This is especially important when you learn a new skill. It needs to be practice about 10000 time to master it and a consistency is the key to success.

My ground rules:

1. Have a fun - the most important from all!

2. Have a sense of humor and Be kind to yourself - look for something nice in your drawing instead of criticizing it.

3. Do the research to find the best resources for learning - once you found them stop looking for new ones. Spend more time with drawing that browsing on the internet (I tend to overdo researching stage!).

4. Stay in relevant lesson - don't skip to more advanced ones. Too much too soon leads to frustration.

5. Practice until it's automatic and you don't need to concentrate anymore.

6. When drawing feels natural practice for two more sessions - helps pushing information from short term memory to long one.

7. Have a look back from time to time - you can see how much you have progressed when comparing your old work with new one.

8. Take break - especially when you feel you are about to loose your patience. Drawing needs to be associate with something nice instead of feeling bad.

9.  Keep going and don't give up under any circumstance. Learning a new skill requires a lots of time and effort but it's all worth it at the end.

10. When you feel down read this rules from beginning ;)

Note: Remember that although you are not Picasso yet you have a great potential to become one !

Drawing Journey Part5 - Dark Side of Drawing Board

Side Two- Part3   

At the beginning of making this board I had no clue what to do with other side. Initially I just wanted to paint in with acrylic paint but after the inking side one I got into a flow and could not stop with playing with inks.

First of all I covered the whole surface with Distress Vintage Photo ink in random directions.

With the wet blending tool I applied Distress Walnut Stain ink about 5cm around the edges and carefully blended distress Black Soot ink in few anticlockwise rounds while the board was still wet .

As it looked quite harsh I took the piece of bathroom sponge, which I wetted quite often, and applied a lot of pressure while was smudging the ink pigment in outward direction (from the center to the edge). The smudging  was repeated few times.

When everything was dried I took an acrylic block, a jet black Dovecraft pigment ink, a big clear stamp and stamped the flowers into two opposite corners.

I am totally ready for my drawing adventure now.

The end :)

Drawing Journey Part4 - Drawing Board Butterflies

Side One - Part 2

The real fun came after I'd done the base for the clip board.

I used a blending tool for stamping and in circular motion applied Distress ink Antique Linen for approximately 10cm all around the edges in inward direction (from the edge to the center of the board) . This type of ink is water based so to ensure nice even blending I frequently damped the blending tool into water and I made sure that there were no rough visible marks left, just nice smooth shading.

Then I switched to darker ink- Distress Vintage Photo. I used the very same technique as the first time but this time I was shading just about 7cm from edges.

Lastly I used darkest Distress Walnut Stain ink and did just about 2cm from edges. All the blending created a pretty graduated shadows around the edges.

After everything dried out I applied Distress Antique Linen ink again but just for this time I left the blending tool behind and used a tiny bit of bathroom sponge. I did moist it a little with water, inked all over the board from the center to edges direction and let it dry again.

When I was happy with shadows on the board, I used Dovecraft Premium Cocoa Brown pigment ink, acrylic block and four different types of clear stamps - corner flowers. monarch butterfly, small butterfly and single flower.

Gloss varnish was applied once board was dried again.

And I was ready for the other side.

To be continued . . . . . . .  :)

Drawing Journey Part3 - Making Drawing Board

Making a base -  Part 1

I had some fiberboard leftover, from my previous project, which was perfect for making myself a double sided clip board.

The fiberboard was cut on half as I wanted to glue it together to make it more sturdy and I accidentally had enough to make it size 22x30 cm. It meant that European paper size A4 could nicely fit in which was great.

All four corners were cut to make them curved, then I used a super strong double sided tape and stuck both halves together. I have managed to put the whole thing through my Sizzix Big Shot machine to press them firmly together.

All edges were sandpapered for about 25 minutes with a fine sandpaper to make it super smooth and lastly they were painted with brown acrylic paint.

And then I went crazy with decorating it.

To be continued .  .  .  .  :)

Drawing Journey Part2 - Supplies

Okey, so I have managed to gather all my drawing  supplies and in fact I had many of them home, as you can see bellow, which was a bonus point as I saved myself some money :)

If you are planning to take up drawing or sketching I do strongly recommend to go through all your staff - I was very surprised that I had almost everything home already.

The list of materials I have:

- pencil sharpener (I already had)
- eraser (already had and I did not bother to buy the putty one)

- Staedtler tradition pencil 4H (did buy it)
- Staedtler tradition pencil 2H (did buy just in case I will need it)
- Staedtler Mars Lumograph pencil H (had it)
- WHSmith sketching pencil 2B (had it)
- Staedtler tradition pencil 4B (had it)

- Goldline A5 sketch pad 95gsm yellow tinted (had it for some reason)
- The Works own brand A5 sketch pad 130gsm white (did buy but just because it was very cheap)

- A4 clippboard (I am going to make one so stay tuned for the pictures)

And I am all set up now :)

Note: I think it would be a good idea to write down some ground rules in order to avoid any beginner's frustration... but that could be a next post

Drawing Journey Part1 - Idea was Born

I had a passionete discussion  recently about what is a skill and what is a talent with one of my best friends. He thinks I am "craft" talented while I think that I just have skill. I did have a trouble to understand the difference until I read in some online article that the talent is some sort of vehicle, lets say a car, which takes you to the destination faster BUT if you do not posses a talent you can became skilled and be great in whatever you choose.

I wanted to take this theory into a reality test so I've decided to learn how to sketch and draw and be great in it with or without talent. I do not have ANY drawing backround except drawing a stick man and few funny faces :)

For the start, I did an extensive research on how to draw for absolute beginners. Was really supprised there is virtually no book or resources for people like me. All of them assume some sort of knowledge or they were not as detailed as they could be and I got lost after few minutes.

Then luckily enough finally found two books which I could use as a reference for my learning without to go to college or other drawing class. Not to name them  I shall say the BOOK1=very basic, very simple,written simply way even I or child can make a sense of it, great starting point and the BOOK2=written more professional way, good resource, still make sense, you need to have a some understanding of drawing otherwise it could become overwhelming.

OK so book 1 recommends to take any pencil, any paper and eraser to start with while the other recommends more professional approach - sketch pad or paper, drawing board, pencil 4H (hard), HB (middle) and 4B (soft) and erasers vinyl and kneaded and of course lots of additional supplies.

I think I will go for the mixture of both recommendtions and I will be back once I gather all materials.

Wish me luck :)

Thank You Card

I love recycling and had some paper "waste" laying around my flat. I used a metal die to cut some petal strips out of a gold envelope and then I quilled them into a blossom flowers. I did emboss a thin cardboard piece from an old box and I applied a brown ink to make the dots pop up a little. Everything was glued onto a white cardstok which came with some stickers I'd bought few months ago. The cardstock was inked before hand by using an old small clean make-up sponge and lastly I stamped a "Thank You" sentiment.

It will go to my very good friend. Hope you liked ;)

Recycling: From Old Mags To Baskets

Instead of  wasting old magazines or newspapers you can put them in some good use.

All you need for making these baskets is some paper, glue and some varnish or paint for last touches if you prefer to.

Good thing about making your own is that you can customize the size and shape to fit it in your specific needs and it is great fun too :)