THE DESIRE TO DRAW
For a while now, and by a while I mean 15 or so years, I have wanted to learn to draw. I remember being in year 5 of school, meaning I was 9/10 years old, and spending my break and lunch times sat in a classroom with a friend showing me how to draw. He was great, and I admired his work so very much. I remember watching him draw and thinking this boy is the best in the world. Obviously, he wasnt. He was most probably very mediocre with a slightly above average sense of scale. I do remember his colouring to be completely off. He was, as we later found out, colour-blind!
I feel I must state before we go any further, and I cannot express this enough, that my love at this time was not for the boy but purely for the artwork. So much so, I cannot even remember his name. He was chubby, and had ginger hair; I remember this much. But I hardly knew him and I was not in the Clique he was in. I had seen a drawing he had done of a ship and instantly fell in love with it. He then drew a tiger, and my love continued to grow. I remember asking him directly to show me how to draw. He said no! The bastard!!
A few weeks later, there came a time to help with the school display. The teacher, Colin Wolfenden, asked for two volunteers to stay behind and help draw Henry VIII. To my amazement, the podgy, ginger haired, egotistical peasant who had turned me down volunteered for the role. I saw this as my opportunity! I raised a hand, so quickly, it almost came off. Luckily for me, I was rather a favourite of Colin. I was, of course, the other chosen one! Together we produced a portrait of King Henry VIII. He drew, and I coloured it in. My sense of shading was always slightly above average. We produced a masterpiece, one that spent at least one school term on display, and has inevitably been lost in the passing of time. By that, I mean probably put in the recycling bin.
That was the start of my desire to draw. We spent the next 2 or three days learning to draw, in which he very quickly moved on and back to his Clique. But that is enough of this Jibba Jabba!
I have been practising drawing for a few months now. I went from drawing things like a circle, to a very out of shape apple. I was growing bored and almost resigned myself to the fact that I cannot draw. But then, I realised it is most probably because I was not interested in what I was drawing. So I moved on to drawing garden birds. I like garden birds. Stuff like this:
Anyway, moving on, I then planned to paint a kingfisher. So, I went to The Works and bought some oil paints, 7x5 canvas boards and some fine artistic brushes. I started by getting a reference picture I liked (it just so happened to be one that RSPB Old Moor used as their Twitter picture for a while) and I drew a basic outline and reference marks.
Then came the colouring. Remember, I have a slightly above average sense of shading. I did a wash with watercolour to give a basic undercoat:
There then came several nights of putting on detail, spending ten minutes on one area, having a ten minute break and then coming back to focus on another area. All this, until I had my final piece *big drum role*.
Now, I know that this is far, far from being masterful. But I must say, Im rather proud of it. I like what I was able to do. I learnt a lot doing it. I learned that I put way too much paint on, and tried to layer it too much. Im not happy with the beak. I overpainted it, when it really should have taken just a few brush strokes. I didnt realise oil paint takes so long to dry! Next time I use them, I think I will use a diluter of some sort. I also want to get some varnish/sealant to finish it off.
I always forget the joy that painting can bring. Just a few slow, quiet hours of painting can make one feel so calm and relaxed. Hours fly by, and there is so little stress. The next big question is, a Blue Tit, or a reworking of the Bullfinch above?? Such difficult decisions.
CJ x
For a while now, and by a while I mean 15 or so years, I have wanted to learn to draw. I remember being in year 5 of school, meaning I was 9/10 years old, and spending my break and lunch times sat in a classroom with a friend showing me how to draw. He was great, and I admired his work so very much. I remember watching him draw and thinking this boy is the best in the world. Obviously, he wasnt. He was most probably very mediocre with a slightly above average sense of scale. I do remember his colouring to be completely off. He was, as we later found out, colour-blind!
I feel I must state before we go any further, and I cannot express this enough, that my love at this time was not for the boy but purely for the artwork. So much so, I cannot even remember his name. He was chubby, and had ginger hair; I remember this much. But I hardly knew him and I was not in the Clique he was in. I had seen a drawing he had done of a ship and instantly fell in love with it. He then drew a tiger, and my love continued to grow. I remember asking him directly to show me how to draw. He said no! The bastard!!
A few weeks later, there came a time to help with the school display. The teacher, Colin Wolfenden, asked for two volunteers to stay behind and help draw Henry VIII. To my amazement, the podgy, ginger haired, egotistical peasant who had turned me down volunteered for the role. I saw this as my opportunity! I raised a hand, so quickly, it almost came off. Luckily for me, I was rather a favourite of Colin. I was, of course, the other chosen one! Together we produced a portrait of King Henry VIII. He drew, and I coloured it in. My sense of shading was always slightly above average. We produced a masterpiece, one that spent at least one school term on display, and has inevitably been lost in the passing of time. By that, I mean probably put in the recycling bin.
That was the start of my desire to draw. We spent the next 2 or three days learning to draw, in which he very quickly moved on and back to his Clique. But that is enough of this Jibba Jabba!
I have been practising drawing for a few months now. I went from drawing things like a circle, to a very out of shape apple. I was growing bored and almost resigned myself to the fact that I cannot draw. But then, I realised it is most probably because I was not interested in what I was drawing. So I moved on to drawing garden birds. I like garden birds. Stuff like this:
Anyway, moving on, I then planned to paint a kingfisher. So, I went to The Works and bought some oil paints, 7x5 canvas boards and some fine artistic brushes. I started by getting a reference picture I liked (it just so happened to be one that RSPB Old Moor used as their Twitter picture for a while) and I drew a basic outline and reference marks.
Then came the colouring. Remember, I have a slightly above average sense of shading. I did a wash with watercolour to give a basic undercoat:
There then came several nights of putting on detail, spending ten minutes on one area, having a ten minute break and then coming back to focus on another area. All this, until I had my final piece *big drum role*.
Now, I know that this is far, far from being masterful. But I must say, Im rather proud of it. I like what I was able to do. I learnt a lot doing it. I learned that I put way too much paint on, and tried to layer it too much. Im not happy with the beak. I overpainted it, when it really should have taken just a few brush strokes. I didnt realise oil paint takes so long to dry! Next time I use them, I think I will use a diluter of some sort. I also want to get some varnish/sealant to finish it off.
I always forget the joy that painting can bring. Just a few slow, quiet hours of painting can make one feel so calm and relaxed. Hours fly by, and there is so little stress. The next big question is, a Blue Tit, or a reworking of the Bullfinch above?? Such difficult decisions.
CJ x