Recap 2 - Kitchen Item Drawing Challenge

On Sunday morning, the stand mixer was just sitting there, so it was time to give it another try.  For a warm up, I took a close look at the mixing bowl, noting the angles and length of each angled section, before doing a practice drawing of just the bowl. Getting symmetry on both sides is beyond me, but the proportions on this one is much closer to reality. This is a very small drawing.

 The drawing of the stand mixer was also very small, only 4 inches by 2 1/2 inches while the drawing on day one was 8 inches by 6 inches. Doing a smaller drawing of a large object was challenging. There is less room to hide.

Day 5 - stand mixer

The next day, I reached for my Good Grips Smooth Edge can opener. It's oriented differently than the typical manual can opener. This is truly a wonky drawing. When trying to capture objects with a lot of parts and angles in 10 minutes or less, I have to learn to live with and accept the wonkiness.

For the bottle opener, I selected a weird perspective. Plus, I was not concentrating very well. It shows. Oh well, I'm owning it and posting it, anyway.

Day 6 - can opener

Day 7 - bottle opener

The purpose of this blog is to capture my journey in learning how to make art. It gives me a place to capture and document my thoughts, feelings, and experiences. It's such a miraculous and incredible thing to learn and I decided early that I needed an outlet where I could drone on and on and on about whatever aspect or insight currently interests me. Hopefully, I get enough of it out here, in written form, so that I don't over do it with people in person.

Anyway, one observation from this recap is that "success" can make it harder to continue rather than easier. The drawings on day 5 and day 6 were both good experiences. I felt successful, since I felt my drawing skills grew a little bit with both of these. Ironically, this made it harder to pick up the pen the next day and it shows in the drawing on day 7. I was a little fearful about not hitting the high water mark from the two previous days.

The first time that I draw an object I, generally, just do it without any practice.

Day 8 - garlic press

When I'm done, I step back to see what is the most "off" or which "main element" could be captured better. If there's time, I'll sometimes do a follow up sketch (or sketches) focused on that part.

One thing with using pen is that I have no idea how to effectively show lights and darks versus using lines to denote shape or shadows. In truth, I get frustrated and mostly just throw some lines on the drawing.

A flu bug caught up to me, so I took an unexpected drawing break for several days. While I am feeling better, this weekend is going to be quiet and spent close to home. I'm hoping to spend some time drawing and knitting.

While I generally don't do warm up drawings, I did this morning. I tried drawing a cat sleeping on top of a chair in the kitchen. It was a little beyond my post-flu addled brain, although it felt good to try. I scaled back and just focused on the cat. Drawing in pen is more challenging. Up until now all of my cat drawings have been in pencil and the eraser gets use a lot.

This was my third attempt. I still can't figure out how to use the pen effectively to show value and other details. I like the minimalist one the best.