Not Enough Sleep

All and all, it was a tiring week. Not enough sleep leads to not enough sketching or painting, both of which leave me cranky. I'm caught up on sleep, at least for the moment, but I still have a busy work schedule, a house with a million things to do, and a yard and garden to clean up.

On the art front, I'm part of a painting club. We have homework and are planning to meet around once per month or so. I also want to work on my basic drawing skills, figure out how to draw complete scenes, and also try to go to the local urban sketching outings.

Trying to accomplish all of this is a recipe for disaster and if I'm truthful with myself, I could summarize my current desire to do it all versus feeling overwhelmed by saying, "oh look, it's spring". I go through different variations of this every spring.

For this part of my life, here is the plan. I am going to do another 30 day or so self-challenge. When I did my first self-proclaimed 30 day kitchen drawing challenge, I enjoyed it and thought my skills improved. Most of my drawings were done in the morning, it only took 5 to 15 minutes, and it started my day out on a positive note. Painting is also going to be a priority. The rest of it will have to wait.

Since I gravitate towards detail but really want to learn to show less, this next 30 day challenge is going to be the 30 day brush pen challenge.You simply cannot put in so many details when you are using a brush pen. Also, that means any sketches go quickly.

I got the idea this morning when I did a super-quick sketch of him sitting in the chair. In truth, I liked it better before I added any facial details, which is hilarious when I'm wanting to show less detail. I should have stopped and just left the outline of a face. Sigh. Oh well, I learned lots from my last 30 day challenge and hope to learn just as much with this one. Doing a little every day is the best way to learn and that's why it's been so frustrating that I've been too tired to do much, after I completed my last painting.

Day one

Just so I don't drive myself too crazy, I'm giving myself 35 or so days to do 30 simply brush pen drawings. I also plan to post a collection of them every week or so.