Drawings of the Day

[bunn]

So I recently decided I was going to try to do a drawing a day.  Not necessarily a complicated drawing, but just a drawing of some kind.  The first day, I did a quick sketch inspired by a post by topum, about having to run to escape attack by geese.  I have no idea what topum looks like so this is very much a quick artistic representation of the whole geese problem.

Then we were re-watching Robin of Sherwood, so I decided to draw Marion.  This is just a copy of a photo, but it did take me two evenings, so isn't really a drawing of a day. Oh well.





I resolved to draw more quickly, and drew a picture of the Pilgrim of Brixham:  a nineteenth century sailing trawler which has been brought back into sailing condition by a group of volunteers who have come together as a small charity to operate Pilgrim as a working boat, doing sailing holidays and training sessions and so on.  They happen to be one of our customers, one of the more interesting ones too!   That was a fairly quick thing to draw, not least because I didn't put in any crew.


Next, I had an idea to draw Fingon and his knights, coming over the bridge to visit Rian in Nen Lalaith, inspired by this bit of song by hhimring.  Sadly, it did not go well.  I like the colour balance, but I couldn't get the riders right (I think it needed too much small detail for pastels) and my mental vision of the trees behind the bridge fading into the mist didn't work.   I worked on it for a couple of days and it just got worse and worse so I abandoned it at this point.  I still have a clear idea in my head of how I think it *should* look: all silver and blue on one side, with the Elves coming out of the shadow, and then warm sunny mortal tones on the other side of the stream around Rian.  Maybe I'll try again.



Possibly I should try it in acrylics: it's muche easier to do fine detail in acrylic, and you don't have the problem that the colour around the edges of small people comes off and muddies the whole thing. On the other hand, I am probably better at faces in pastel, as you can rework pastel a lot whereas acrylic tends to end up looking rubbery if you rework it too much, which is not good for faces.

In the short term, I decided to be less ambitious and just draw Fingon on a horse, on a bridge.  This went better, and didn't actually take that long to complete.

All the pencil drawings are on some A4 slices of card that I found in the the skip at the recycling centre.  I was supposed to be just taking in some boxes to get rid of them, but when I went up the steps and started heaving in boxes, I noticed that there were all these fabulous creamy rectangles of card, just sitting there in huge bundles.

So I stole a big heap of them, as many as I could carry. They are lovely to draw on and solid enough that you don't need any support for them, you can just hold them on your lap.   I don't know what I shall do with them all once I've drawn on them though, there are stacks and they are thick enough that I can't easily just shove them into a folder.  

Comments

[topum.livejournal.com]

Ha ha, thank you! This is excellent. I'll put it on my desktop for while, hope you don't mind. Also, can I repost it in my journal with a reference to your post / journal? My journal is public but I see that so is this entry.

My favourite are the last two. The horse's facial expression in the last one made me laugh. I think this was partly because I remembered your recent "naked man on a horse" post.

[timetiger.livejournal.com]

Those are proper geese -- both anserine and combative.

Fingon looks stern and noble, while the horse's expression is just this side of sardonic, which is pleasing.

[hhimring]

I like these!

In the pastel one, the contrast between the silver and blue and the warm tones on the right you aimed at does come across. And I really like how you positioned Rian with her harp in the entrance and Turin down by the stream. I cannot see the riders on the bridge very clearly, admittedly, but I do get a vivid impression of forward movement and waving banners!

In the more detailed pencil drawing, Fingon seems to be riding more slowly and also is probably looking more solemn than he did in the pastels. I can see how it might be Turin's perspective--looking up, he first sees the horse looming and looking at him and Fingon looming above that....

I like the others, too--the geese are fun, and Marion's hair is good and the sails of the ship.

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

The horse is splendid. And it did make me think of your bareback rider of the other day - frankly your rider is wearing much more appropriate clothing. And I'm sure the horse appreciates it.

[songblaze.livejournal.com]

I think part of the issue with the riders in pastel is proportion: they are rather too big for their horses.

[ylla.livejournal.com]

I love the geese - they're very Dark Lord of Derkholm!

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I particularly like the ship, and Fingon / Rian.