More Toys, eggs, and some Donkeys

Working in series here, above are more toys done with colored pencil. This time I added a train set to the mix, along with a stuffed horse and dog.

In a way these are more personal toys than the ones I have been drawing. While I don't recall a stuffed dog I did have plenty of toy horses. I was one of those young girls who are horse mad, there was nothing I wanted more than to have a horse of my own. Never happened, in fact I never really learned how to ride, though I did have some lessons one summer. The dream died a long time ago, maybe in another life I can make it happen. In the meantime I can relive it a bit in my drawings.

Now the model train I did have. As I recall it was a largish train (probably O scale) and I had enough track to make a small oval such as you see above. Course at this point I can't remember if mine was a steam engine or an electric engine probably steam. My drawing is of a steam engine with the coal tender behind followed by a caboose. The other object is a "tunnel" for the train to go through.

I have no memory of what happened to that train set, I never had a lot of cars or a lot of track. I did have a friend whose brother had a very large set up that he would occasionally put out on the top of their ping pong table. Now that was one fancy model train set up. The other memory I have of model trains is the set up at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, talk about large and complex. Though the current set up isn't the one I saw as a child. I can remember wishing for more of my own, but as a girl it wasn't encouraged, and we/I didn't have the money.

Do these look familiar? They should, this is the pen and ink version of the graphite drawing of the eggs I had in my last update. I used tracing paper to outline the eggs and major fabric folds and transferred the image to another sheet of drawing paper.

I used my 3X0 technical pen to draw the shadows. Probably just as well I did the finished pencil piece first as it gave me a feel for where the shadows should fall and how dark they should be.

I had started another sketch and thought that to finish it I should add a donkey. While I have over the years (mostly when I was young) drawn hundreds of horses I don't recall ever drawing a donkey. To get the look I did some on-line research and downloaded several images. Using some of those images I sketched the above.

I can tell you some of the differences I noticed between donkey's and horses. Donkeys have larger heads and ears, a more sloped profile to the nose, but very slender legs in relation to the barrel shape of the mid body, oh and not much mane or tail.

Still haven't gotten around to finishing the other drawing, I feel that I need to do a bit more sketching and research first. But it was kind of fun to do, it has been a while since I picked an animal to practice drawing, donkeys are both familiar but different from horses so are a challenge.

More signs of Spring as my final photograph today, daffodils in bloom. Hopefully they are still looking good this morning as we had a very chilly night last night. Winter just doesn't want to let go here in the Northeast. After our lovely warm weekend we actually had a bit of snow yesterday morning. The flowers survived that well enough as I made the above photograph later in the afternoon, but it was cold last night so I can only hope they made it through OK.

That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome.

Eggs, an Illustration and Roses

Eggs in graphite, they were supposed to be eggs in pen and ink as the reference photograph I used for the above drawing is one of the WetCanvas Pen and Ink forums April challenge images. But when I started the initial drawing of this I found I just couldn't stop. I needed/wanted to put in the rest of the shading. Over an hour later (shading with graphite takes time) I ended up with 3 eggs in graphite and no way was I going to add ink to this, I had worked too hard to get the shading just so to add ink and then erase the graphite.

Bother now I have to figure out if I want to even try this in pen and ink, which I sort of think I do as shading in ink is a lot trickier than shading with pencil. Though I have to say it probably won't take me anywhere near as long to do this in ink as it did in Graphite.

Done in my sketchbook, it is about 3 x 6 inches, and done with various hardness pencils, not really sure which ones as I wasn't totally paying attention, pretty sure there was a 2H, HB, B and probably a 2 or 3B in the mix.

Above is another colored pencil drawing, again a fairly quick sketch, inked with one of my technical pencils and then added colored pencil. Probably should have taken more time with the coloring but I wasn't in the mood. Used a combination of pencils, Polychromos, Derwent Artist, and even a couple of my old Venus pencils, depending on the color I was going for.

Inspiration for this is Edward Lear's poem of the Owl and the Pussycat. I got the pea green boat but missed the guitar and the jar of honey. I was drawing totally from imagination so have no idea if I am actually sort of copying an Illustration I saw in the past, probably for some elements.

Don't know what has gotten into me lately I am not usually at all whimsical with my drawings but here I am drawing first toys and now this pair, no clue what will be next.

Over the weekend I finished the watercolor of the rose stem with rose hip. Not wonderful, but not too bad either I guess. I am now working on the flower for the Floral/Botanical forum April challenge. Per usual at this stage of a painting I am wondering if I should bother continuing to work on it but probably will.

The background is a color I was mixing with some of my new watercolor paints. I realized that I needed some artist quality paints and also that I needed some additional colors for my pallet so I indulged myself and ordered a few new colors. The kind of mauve background was a result of my playing around with them.

Once I finish that one I will go back to the leafing plant with frost damage that I did the drawing of last week. There are a lot more colors in that one so it will be more of a challenge.

Last image for today, my neighbors Andromeda has started to bloom and I managed to get a photograph of it the other day. Here in the Northeast this evergreen shrub is one of our earliest bloomers in the spring, if you see crocus then the Andromeda isn't far behind.

That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome.

More Toys, a plant and a Nature Journal Page

OK I admit I just couldn't resist drawing the elephant with polka-dots. This time its' company is some more blocks and a cloth doll with red hair. The dolls expression isn't quite what it was supposed to be, my pen slipped a bit while I was drawing her mouth. Ah well, it didn't bother me enough to correct it. Toys are sitting on a slight wonky shelf.

The polka-dots on the gray elephant are purple and pink, seemed appropriate. Drawn with pencil in the sketchbook, then inked and color pencil was added. Fun to do, everyone needs some play time, right?

Eventually if I get around to it, the above drawing will actually become a watercolor. This is another attempt at participating in the WetCanvas Watercolor forum April project. Thought you might like to see the photograph the drawing is based on, as I have a feeling it doesn't make a lot of sense without color.

About a week or so ago I photographed this plant outside the library. Apparently it started putting out some new growth a bit earlier than it should have as it got hit by our frozen temps which damaged some of the new leaves. That said I think some of these leaves are from last summer. Anyway a far more colorful image than the rose hip and stem I had selected previously.

Believe it or not I spent far more time on this drawing than I expected to. Had to keep making corrections and it still isn't quite right. I have realized I have gotten a lot better and faster at drawing birds and other animals than I am at drawing plant shapes other than flowers. A bit disconcerting, and a way to dampen the ego.

Inked another of my catch up Nature Journal Pages, the one above is from a visit on December 5, 2012 to Daniel Webster. Thankfully this is the last of the 2012 pages that I needed to do.

Top images are a Hawk I saw flying and hunting for dinner, and the tree stump in the Panne with two rather largish turtles hauled out to sun bathe. I was surprised to see the turtles as by December they really should be dug into the mud and hibernating. Though per my notes the day was relative mild for December. Note that the water level is still very high. The final drawing is of some Canada Geese dining on the one of the grassy areas at Daniel Webster.

Done mostly with one of my dip pens, but I did add a few lines with one of the technical pens after I erased the under drawing and realized some areas needed a bit more.

As a last image, proof that spring is finally arriving here in the Northeast US. Crocus blooming in the yard of my apt. building. Made this photo a couple of days ago, the blooms are mostly gone now, and as we are expecting rain I doubt any will be left to photograph by tomorrow.

That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome.