Hello, This is my first try at hosting a weekly challenge. I hope you enjoy the photographs I've chosen.

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 decided to leave them hosted on Photobucket, so as to avoid running up my attachment quota. If you have any issue seeing these photos on Photobucket, please send me an IM, and I'll attach them if need be.

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.

If you have an interest in hosting a challenge, please see the list in the pinned area of general discussions.

Two photos for the portrait fans in the crowd.









From the dinosuar exhibit.





For the folks who like drawing details.

For the flower or water fans.





If you like drawing animals.

Just a quick question. Do you own the copyrights to these images?

Yes - my wife or myself snapped each one.

Awesome! I am going to start working on the water lily ones. Where do I post it after it is done? If you can't tell, I am a little new to this.

Please post them right here in this thread. That way we get to see each artists interpretation of the subject.
You can also add your work to your gallery for others to see when they view galleries.

Welcome to Drawspace, and this challenge. Being a "little new" is just fine.

hmmm..I tried the boy ..


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Very cool - first response is in - love it!

It's so cool to see our photo in art form!

I tried the other boy in coloured pencil, mainly Prismacolor, some Derwent on Gallery sketch pad. It measures about 8" square

norma that is lovely..you really captured the boys character..

Indeed - lovely work.

Hi everybody,
Not yet finished. With an eraser, I spent a lot of time to get the half-smile, but I could'nt. Oh la la, not easy, not easy.
I'll continue tomorrow or later. May be I"ll start from the beginning.
Cheers,
An

An..that is the spitting image of him..you are so very talented..I envy you portrait drawers..so very nice..

I keep trying

OK I admit to cheating a little....

I started these a bit ago. Just finished up a wee bit today though, so I thought I'd participate in the challenge as well.

I guess starting early is a privilege of hosting.

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Love this one too NVA.

This is my first drawing of a human since I started learning how to draw. I think it turned out pretty well, although I defiantly need a lot of work. What do you guys think?
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Thanks to the host for the photos - the are all very interesting visually. Here is my 5 minutes turkey. It is undercooked, I am afraid.
Hopefully, I'll do that tonight.

Hello friends,

I came back to the weekly challenges after a few months away from the forum.

This is my attempt for the fence (1.5 hours using just a very cheap HB pencil).

Greetings,
Turrialba

Thought I'd try the waterlilies - coloured pencils and watercolour pencils on sketchpad - about 7"square

I needed a break from doing Cats and Flowers for the DrawSpace ATC Trades so I made an effort at the boy on the train.
I'm trying to get more into color as opposed to just b&w as in many of my previous portraits. This was done in about 1 1/2 hours.

If I have time, I'll try to do another one this week.
Ken

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Brilliant - Brilliant

This is so fun watching all this creativity.

wow....you guys are really doing some wonderful work..very very nice

Hello to all! First of all, congratulations for all the beautiful works in this challenge!
Here is my contribution... I must say, dear Jazzmanian, that the day I did my drawing was a lot brighter that the day you took the photograph...

Regards.

that is really excellent

I should tell you about how that photograph came to be. My sister had called and asked that I go look at a camper trailer she'd found in the classified ads for her since it was within a few miles of my place, but quite a ways from hers. I grabbed the camera, so I could snap some pics of the trailer to email to her, and jumped on my motorcycle for the run.

Turned out, it was a lovely early evening, and the country road I found myself on was lined with wild flowers, crops, and small sections of woods. Since I am working on a collection of wild flower photos, I kept stopping along the road, jumping off my bike, and taking pictures. The fence was along the road right there, and I go the idea to try and macro focus on the barb. I may post more from that day sometime here.

I was sure glad my sister asked me to drive out there. I think I'll return once the snow melts here, and the temp climbs well above the current -27C.

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Well here is my first attempt at a challenge.

Brian

This was done with pencils 2h to 6b on Canson 70 lb sketch paper. Don't know if I needed to add that but it's here.

The fence I tried this week. Thank you for the challenge

Oh, thank you so much, lovely Kay!! But, in fact, I am not very happy with it... As I said it´s to light! I could not reproduce the right colors... Anyway, I really appreciated you comment!! Regards!

Dear friend, thank you so much for sharing with us the story of this photograph! I loved the way you described it! It looks amazing that country side!! It seems that it was indeed a very beautiful and pleasant early evening! And for sure I would love to see your other photos and all the beautiful images you have captured with your camera! Thanks a lot for sharing!!

Best regards,
Sonia.

This drawing of the second boy is a bit of a mixture. I started it in the evening, when the light was rotten for coloured pencil, so I just did his face and head in various graphites. In the morning, when I could do colours, I decided to finish it off with the reflections and T shirt in colour. It's different!

Here's one unfinished - I started it with the ambition to do a really detailed drawing, and again, I lost patience...

Hi, everybody: outstanding contributions. Bravos!

Sveta: It's very good, excellent drawing and coloring! What it would be if you did not loose patience !

The boy has a big success. His portrait is really difficult to draw. I took my pen and tried quickly again, and once more failed to get his smile! Question of millimeter!

You did a nice job on this portrait! I think the element that escapes you in the smile is the cheek. The shape of his cheek as the muscles flex gives him that small smile. I know I have no room to talk here, as I haven't done any challenges yet this week, but I will try later if there's time.

Thank you, Mindy!
You are absolutely right!
I'll try to get the form of smiling cheeks!
An

sveta..that is even more lovely than the picture..I just adore your style hon, and your use of color is really wonderful

I agree, Sveta! Your drawing is beautiful!! I didn´t even had the courage to try this one!

Dear oliverandjazz and adobeiro, thank you so much for your nice words! You've been both very encouraging! And thanks to jazzmanian for the lovely photos.

I've been wanting to try something with water colour for some time now. I felt that the water Lilly would be nice done in water colours. I purchased some paints on Fri, and made an attempt to use them this evening. This is my first try with water colours, and I think the results show this, but I had fun, and I found the media nice to use.

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Well I guess that about wraps up my week as host. I enjoyed so much each participants submissions!

Thanks to all who submitted art, and to those who commented and joined in the conversation.

I hope everyone enjoyed the reference photos.

If you've got a work in progress on any of these photos, I'll continue to keep an eye on this thread for some time. Feel free to continue to post work from these references into this thread.

I've enjoyed my first hosting experience.
Thanks again all!



Gerald .aka. Jazzmanian

It's sunday today. I finally understood the boy's half-smile. Thanks to Mindy, you are adorable!
The next week, we have hard works, by Kim.
An