A blog about writing, sketching, running and other things
Day four of the One Week 100 People challenge, and the one I struggled with most so far. Started really late and when I was tired, and barely got the daily twenty drawings in. Also first smudge of the challenge (no 70), but it’s something that looks relatively fixable. I’m gaining confidence, speed and a better insight to human faces daily with this challenge, so although it’s tasking, I intend on finishing it on time.
Day three of the One Week 100 People challenge. It appears that the street photographers aren’t exactly catering to sketchers, or they’d take more profile pictures than they currently do 🙂
I’m getting into a pretty good rhythm, and more importantly I’m getting better at figuring out where to start each portrait. Many start with a general outline, others start with the hair, or the nose->eyes->lips. Every day it gets a little easier to draw people, and though 20 people a day is still far from easy, I do feel like I’m getting the most out of this challenge this year because of my choice to work directly in pen and with no shading or paint.
Day two of the One Week 100 People challenge and today was more challenging than yesterday, mainly because I started late and had trouble finding decent photographs. Photographers apparently love photographing blurry people, masked people, people with their backs to them, other photographers (while they are taking photographs and their face is half covered by the camera), or people from a large distance. Some of them also love photoshopping their subjects to death, so I’m now able to find a half decent subject only every five or six photographs. Thankfully the pool is huge and varied, with people in all ages and from all over the world, so while things are slowing down a bit, I’m still grateful for the the opportunity to enjoy the work published in this wonderful group. Even if I can’t use all of the photos there, I am thoroughly enjoying perusing through all of them.
I’m doing the One Week 100 People challenge again this year (I skipped it last year but I have done it before). It’s a challenge that I find difficult but very rewarding, and this year perhaps more so than in the past. I’ve decided to work from Flickr photos, to challenge myself to draw every clear face that I see in the photo pool that I’m using, to work fast and directly in pen and ink. I’m also not hiding behind watercolour at the moment, but we’ll see for how long my resolve holds. These all took a minute or two each, and were drawn with a TWSBI Vac 700 with an EF nib and Platinum Carbon ink on a Stillman and Birn pocket softcover Alpha. There’s some feathering and spread with this ink, which I’m not enjoying, so I may switch to Staedtler Pigment Liner pens later this week.
I created this page as part of Liz Steel‘s excellent Sketchbook Design course. I remember drawing it while listening to a live Q&A with the Mischief Theatre improvisors on Instagram. I got back to building Legos after more than 20 years because I saw how much joy Adam Savage took in building Legos and I decided that I wanted some of that childhood joy back too.
I discovered that legos have become much more sophisticated these days, especially the Ideas and Architecture sets, and that building Legos puts me into a zen like mood that beats anything I’ve been able to achieve with meditation so far. My mind becomes calm and focused on the step that I’m on and I can utterly forget about my problems for a few hours. If I didn’t have budget and space limitations I would be knee-deep in the giant Millennium Falcon set as we speak.
Today I discovered that a local Lego guru is collecting money to buy sets for kids that are going to spend Passover in the Oncology departments of various local children’s hospitals. For years he’s been purchasing sets for kids, teenagers and young adults that are hospitalized for long periods of time, at first entirely from his own pocket, and now with the help of donations as well.
If you can, treat yourself and someone you care for to something like a Lego set, or a nice pen, or a cool notebook or just a half hour of listening to them talk about whatever they want to. I think we could all use a little kindness pick me up right now.
I drew this spread as part of Liz Steel‘s Sketching Now Sketchbook Design course, and it records my experiences from the final virtual tea seminar session that I had with Juyan from The Chinese Tea Company. I took all of the seminars that she offers, and I can see that she’s running a few of them again later this month and next month. I highly, highly recommend them (I’m not affiliated or paid to say this in any way, I’m just a happy longtime customer of her wonderful shop). Whether you are just starting out in Chinese tea or you’re well versed in Gong fu tea brewing, you’ll learn a lot about tea and tea tasting in her seminars, and have a lot of fun along the way. You get four tea samples that you drink while your in the seminar (and there’s enough left over for another brewing post seminar too), Juyan gives a presentation about the tea, the grower and the growing region, as well as tips on how to assess the leaves, brew them and taste them. The seminars are small and intimate, and are a wonderful way to spend an evening. If you’re starting out the Fundamentals of Oolongs and Green Tea Exploration (currently sold out) are phenomenal, the Wu Yi Rock tea seminar is a must – a gateway into understanding a complicated and elusive tea (as is the Phoenix Oolong seminar, if she gives it again). The Puer tea masterclass (also sold out) is just that, and a great way to get familiar with an easily misunderstood class of teas, and the Silver Needle White Tea seminar will take you by surprise. Until this seminar I thought that white tea in general and Silver Needle in particular is boring, but it’s anything but that.
Another spread from my sketchbook, also created as part of the Sketchbook Design course. I still need to find a way of drawing my black cat without him turning into a dark blob on the page.
This is the first time I’ve used colour blocks to design a page in this way, with vertical drawings and horizontal text. This page was created as a contained composition for Liz Steel’s Sketchbook Design course (highly recommended, especially if you have a basic handle on drawing and sketching already). I normally would have just done an overlapped jumble of all the things that we cooked that evening, to convey a bit of the chaos of cooking so much in just an hour and a half, but I forced myself to think of a way of creating some of that night’s feeling using a contained composition. The vibrant turquoise was what brought this page to life for me: a joyful colour that connects me with what I learned about Mexico during that evening, and the happiness of cooking my way through a small part of the wonderful Mexican cuisine.
BTW – I just noticed that Jenny Mason from The Finer Point also took the Sketchbook Design course. I love the vibrant spreads that she’s created. Go check them out.
I’m still working to clear my backlog, as life is starting to get back to normal. This spread was part of the Sketchbook Design course assignment focusing on contained compositions. I find drawing night scenes in watercolour particularly difficult and so I tend to avoid them. However, I couldn’t pass on the chance to draw the night heron I saw at night, and so this spread emerged.
I’ve had a rough two weeks, with my mom going through surgery to remove tumours during a Covid lockdown and other stuff crumbling at the same time. Starting to get back to my my routine again, which means posting here, working on a review and working on another short story.
This page shows a deserted Dizengoff street, which I haven’t seen since the first lockdown, last spring.
Hoping for better days ahead.
