My Prolific Week in Ink, Paint, and Colored Pencils

This was the last week of the six week semester at Sketchbook Skool. The teacher for week five was Roz Stendhal. She had us drawing animals, first quickly  in gesture and contour drawings to loosen ourselves up. I drew Henry V while he lay on my husband from chest to legs and caught him in motion changing positions so it looks like there are three Henrys across two pages of my art journal.


Our next teacher for the final week was Tommy Kane. He got mixed into this cat drawing which is more a doodle than anything else, but fun for me to do.

Tommy Kane's assignment was to slow our drawings way down. To take hours to do one drawing like he does when he travels all over the world drawing cities and everything that fills them. You can own a huge collection of his drawings in his just released book "An Excuse to Draw" from The Book Depository. It is worth every penny! Such a tome of absolutely awesome art.

So I slowly drew my kitchen in ink. I spent a little over  two hours on the drawing. Going slow, trying to capture every detail.

And then another hour or more went into painting it, and adding colored pencil on top of the paint; and then a little bit of cross hatching. I am very proud of these endeavors. Tommy Kane liked it too.
He is a very personable teacher giving each student feedback. Amazing.

I wasn't done with my kitchen so I decided to draw the dirty dishes in the sink that sat there waiting patiently while I drew.

Roz Stendhal encouraged us to go to a museum to draw animals in the dioramas there. I went to the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco with another Sketch Skool Klassmate, Kate Merriman, at her invitation. We met up with two more artist friends of Kate's at the museum. In the African Hall I sat and drew these Sable Antelope. I used Tom Bow and Copic brush pens to color it there too.

Then I turned to the end of the room and drew these very much alive penguins who were standing on rocks and one swimming in the water. It was a lot of fun.

And finally, because Tommy Kane had done it, I tackled the huge dinosaur in the entrance to the museum. I had my little fold up chair where I sat and drew in pen this huge Tyrannosaurus Rex.
I loved it when little kids came to see what I was doing and ogled and said I was good.
Even their dad said it was awesome! With that kind of feedback you can't help but soldier on, even when the task feels as daunting as this did.

 His rear legs were too big to fit in my drawing so I drew one of them horizontally and added my entry ticket to the museum to the page when I got home. What a fun day that was.
We all gathered for lunch after a morning of drawing and shared our art with each other.


My art journals are for noting what I am doing in life. On this day I was waiting in a long line at Costco for gas. It was just enough of a wait to do some cross hatching of the car in front of me. Cross hatching is very meditative and fun to do. I didn't mind waiting at all. Tommy Kane made a special video in Sketchbook Skool for us just about cross hatching!

That evening I decided to draw myself as I used the reverse camera on my iPad and drew my image, again using a lot of cross hatching. Practice, practice, practice.

Here's another one I am really proud of. It's a portrait from a photo of Tommy Kane. I see my mistakes (ear too small, etc.), but over all I got something of his essence and guess what? He LOVED it! What better feedback could I ask for than that?

Today is the last day of the first semester of Sketchbook Skool. I decided to draw this view of our living room. I used the Uni ball vision elite pen and it did bleed a bit with the added watercolor paint. But it bled where the color was actually darker than shows here on the couch so it was A Okay.
It didn't bleed anywhere else, just where I had added a lot of cross hatching.

I cannot recommend this class highly enough. The teachers are knowledgeable, helpful, inspirational, generous with their knowledge, tips, teachings and feedback. You can take the same class I did in July; I'll be taking Semester 2 at the same time. And in the meantime, the klassmates gather in a closed Facebook Group and we share our art and comments and conversations with each other there. It's really great fun. My life is greatly enriched from this experience.

Thanks for coming by to see what I am up to. I appreciate your visits and your comments!

Happy Paint Party Friday!

I hope Alexandra is feeling better at Sunday Sketchers.

And remember to visit and/or join us at Paper, Paint, Pencils & Pens where we draw to a different theme together every two weeks.

Have a creative week!