Hello art friends,

My name is Elena and I will be your host for this first week in May, 2009.
Please read the guidelines of our challenge, first.

All levels of drawing are encouraged to participate!

The goal of this thread is to enable and encourage individuals to practice their drawing skills, learn new techniques and have fun! If you just want to sketch that’s fine. If you want to create a complex, detailed drawing, that’s great too. You will get out of this what you want. The references used are from my own personal reference library of images that I have photographed and I release them here as not under copyright, meaning you can use them as you wish for drawing.

You will be challenged by some aspect of all references most likely as you all will have different strengths and weaknesses in your ability to translate the images to paper.

Reminder:

This is a DRAWING challenge. Therefore please confine your artistic endeavours to some form of drawing: graphite, coloured pencil, pen and ink or charcoal.

There is no ruling on what size your final drawing or sketch should be. Smaller, sketchbook sizes will provide a smaller file size which is easier for loading onto the thread.

If you would like assistance or advice, please ask for it and I will be more than willing to try to guide you.

This challenge will last for one week. At that time, all challenge drawings should be submitted to this thread.

I have offered 3-5 reference images to choose from. The images are also provided in greyscale. Seeing the images in black and white gives a better sense of basic values.

I have kept the images to simple shapes that still provide challenges. Block out your basic shapes first then work the details into them, rechecking proportion and measurement against other reference points in your drawing.


And now the selection of this week:

Medina Azahara, ruins of medieval city of Moorish caliph of Cordoba, 10 c., Spain.

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Cacti are in bloom in Southern California

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A cotton tail bunny having the afternoon snack in our neighborhood public gardens.

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French Girls in Toulouse.

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My hand holding a hen egg.

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And last but not least for your pastel, CP or watercolor attempts, a little basket of strawberries.Yes, it's that time of the year, the strawberries season!

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Enjoy and feel free to express your creativity and original approach to my photos.

15 minutes sketch of the bunny close up.Layout sketch pencil #555 on sketch pad 9x12in.

Two more sketches on Bristol board heavyweight smooth colored 9x12in.

Azahara, charcoal white and grey, sepia, sanguine, 30 minutes sketch.


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Egg sketch, sanguine, sepia, compressed white, grey charcoal.20 minutes

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Very good photos. I would love to draw the strawberries. Unfortunately, I'll be absent from home the whole next week. Best wishes to everybody!

An, I know you can turn that basket of strawberries into a fine art pastel work. They will be here anytime you wish to draw them. Bon conge!

I'm confused aren't we still working on this weeks challenge?

Yes we are Laura .

Elena please in the future do not post your challenge thread until the date you were given ...your thread will not be seen in the upper listings until the 3rd of May .

KIm this is very unfair to tell me not to post my challenge a few hours in advance. I might be out of town or do something else at midnight in USA, you know. In Europe is already Sunday and there are many people who draw only in weekends. As long as this one is not pinned I see no menace from my part to anyone. There were challanges in the past that were posted on Fridays and no one admonished the hosts.

I don't mind seeing them a day in advance. I know I never participate in any of them but I like to see what everyone comes up with.

Elena this was not said to be unfair ...the thread as I said will stay unpinned until the date of the challenge ...no one needs to have hurt feelings here , it just seems rushed when a challenge is started early while the current challenge is still running ...kinda like nudging your way into the front of the line .

On a Happier Note...
Elena, Thanks for this weeks challenge
The pictures you have chosen are great and can't wait to try them out.
Your drawings are really great as well.
Enjoy,
Ciao Tania

Thanks, Tania. You are welcome to try them.

This is an attempt to sketch Leslie, my friend's daughter. 1 hour, 2B on drawing pad 9x12in.

Hello, my friends. Elena, I love your photos.
This is my drawing with the girls. I hope you like it!

Foarte frumoase, Angelica. Thanks for joining in and choosing this double portrait, Angelica. Their name from left to right is Elisa and Leslie. Leslie is half Romanian half French. They are both students.
I guess you captured the spirit of their pose very well.Now maybe it's a good idea to work on light and shade especially on their face.
It's very difficult to do a double portrait, at least for me. Elisa didn't came out well and i need to rework the half of my drawing.

I did a sketch of the strawberries last night, but forgot to bring my flash to work to upload it here - i will bring it through tomorrow for you c&c

Here are 2 of my drawings. I didn't know how to get the thorns to show without a great deal of work so I lifted the color out with my eraser.

Tania, can't wait to see the strawberries.

Kathie both drawings are very good. I especially like the egg one. I would encourage you to consider going bold for the black. You already have the skills for good sketching, bring the contrast in your work by shading more in darker tones.You can use a layout pencil #555 or several soft pencils like 4B, 6B.The idea is to have 3 tones in a drawing: light, medium and dark.
About the thorns another option is using a needle or a pointed device that leaves marks on the paper which will remain white. This indenting method is used largely in animal drawings for whiskers.
Hope this helps.

Wow Kathie, your drawings are good! I too especially like the one with the egg. I agree with Elena that your sketching is nice. I think you did a great job on the size of the hand, the fingers and the egg in relation to each other. But I also have too agree that a little bit more dark tones would maybe make your drawing more beautiful and more exciting.

the cacti in oil pastels on Canson MI-teintes pad green 8x11in.

Wow that's really nice Elena.

Hi,

Sorry this is late - we've had problems with our provider and then the server, but this is the drawing i did as mentioned earlier.

Thanks again for the weekly challenge.

Hope it's ok that i put this up so late oops!!

Ciao
Tania

Oh, Tania, they are gorgeous.Great drawing!Thanks for posting it!