Category / drawing

by Leonie Andrews

Back Again

It’s so easy to slip out of the routine of posting regularly,  one miss here, one day away and here it is a month and a half gone. At least I have kept up the regular drawing sessions our Zoom group.

Sketching a ‘concertina book’ I’m working in

The subject matter is generally what is laying on the table when our session starts, like this knife.

Old butter knife

Then there is ephemera. We all made paper party hats for our friend’s birthday.  What better way to remember that day.

Paper hat fun

Last but not least our car ‘mascot’, a ‘beannie’ toy we’ve had for years (and several cars), now sadly faded from sunny exposure. Probably the more challenging aspect of this sketch was drawing the woven tablecloth.

Our car ‘mascot’ Zebby
by Leonie Andrews

Pumpkin

It’s not possible to ignore the sculptural shapes of the pumpkins we harvested the other day, so of course one has made it into my latest drawing.

Some late finds

I started this drawing off with a smear of Buff Titanium watercolour paint as the base for my shape and to pick up the highlight colour for the subsequent drawing.

Watercolour underpainting

The pencils came next. This fruit had such an indeterminate colour, leaning towards green, but with undeniable elements of grey and blue. I was concerned about overdoing the colours.

Sitting on my grandmother’s breadboard.

Using the breadboard as the base for the pumpkin allowed me to flip between the two parts of the drawing while thinking through which colours I would use next.

The final drawing

I could have pushed the colour a bit more, but I’m also happy that I stopped where I did.

by Leonie Andrews

And the vegetables keep coming!

Two more sketches today from my catalogue of garden vegetables. 

Firstly, what will probably be the last tomato from our garden this season. It’s what we think is an Italian Long Orange Sweet tomato – sadly the person who gave us the seed got the names mixed up, so we’ve had to make an educated guess about it’s real name.

The last tomato of the season?

My latest sketch is of this red onion. I forgot to tell my partner I was saving it  for sketching,  so he bought it inside and tore off the leaves that I had deliberately left on to make a contrast to the colour of the onion’s skin. Nobody’s fault but my own.

The red onion

I think I’ll have another go at the onion. I found it hard to get the shape as accurate as I wanted and I also struggled to capture the paper-iness of the skin.

by Leonie Andrews

All the vegetables

It started last year and now I’ve done two more sketches of the vegetables we grow in our garden.

The ‘Turk’s Turban pumpkin was a ‘no brainer’, so visually appealing it just begged to be drawn. Sadly, by the time we decided to eat it, it had rotted on the inside. I did manage to save some seeds so hopefully I’ll have more subjects next year.

‘Turk’s Turban ‘ pumpkin

Next up was this ‘Grosse Lisse’ tomato, which weighed in at 554 grams (or 1 pound 2 ounces). It was picked still a bit green, but has subsequently ripened fully.

Tomato ‘Grosse Lisse’

Last but not least are a small bunch of zucchinis (courgettes), some of the 150+  fruits that we have harvested so far this year.

A plateful of zucchinis

All the sketches are made using Caran d’Ache Luminance, light fast, colour pencils. My sketchbook is a Leuchtturm  1917 sketchbook, the combination of the smooth paper with the creamy pencils works particularly well.

by Leonie Andrews

Away with the tides

Last week we had a lovely,  if not long enough break at the seaside. What is particularly special about this place is that there is virtually no internet signal.

A cast off crab moult

We always pack our sketchbooks and spend out time roaming around the tide line, checking out whatever we can find and making lots of art.

This Rose-petal Bubble shell was a first for me. It’s about 6cms long. The remnant shell is underneath this fleshy part.

I enjoyed sitting on the verandah of our cabin making quick sketches of my fellow campers as they moved around the campground.

Kangaroos lounging on the grass

Even better was sketching the ‘roos! They spent a long time most days, literally lounging around on the campground lawns. Contrary to what you might think I found them to be very ‘angular’ animals to draw. Not at all the soft curvilinear shapes we’ve come to expect from the stylised versions we see on logos around us.