Still Here - Still Taking My Drawing Class

This may be the longest break in my posting to this blog, since I started. The online drawing class has been terrific. It's taking a lot of brain power and time, but I'm learning so, so much. I've been keeping up with posting my homework on Ruzuku, since the instructor looks at all of the homework that is posted and generally provides a comment to each person each day.

Yesterday, I tried doing thumbnail sketches for the first time. The point was to do a quick non-detailed sketch of your subject to figure out if it's worth investing time in a larger drawing.  Things to test or think about include:

• How to crop the scene. 
• Are there interesting shapes in the negative space. 
• Is there a good focal point
• Is there enough contrast.  

These should not contain details. We were encouraged to focus on the shapes formed by the different shapes in the values.

For some reason, I was a bit petrified to give these a try. I did use a viewfinder to get the rough outline started. I started with some of my lawn flamingos and finished up with a cat sleeping in the sun. I worked from right to left. I did weird cropping on purpose. I don't know how to figure out what works and what does not, so doing some wild experiments seems like a good idea.

It wasn't until the last one that it occurred to me to include small piece of blanket that the cat was on. My brain just gets full and does not see things right in front of me. I was really happy that I was able to stay out of the details.