Saturday Sketch

Gratuitous picture of Fall color!

My friend Nancy (link) and I were talking last night by phone. I wish we lived closer.
In the conversation she said she combined several patterns to compose her quilt row. She said. "I can't draw" and it reminded me of myself before I had a class with Jane Sassamon. When I said that to Jane, she basically said, "pish tosh! Sure you can!" (I paraphrase) So I did and haven't stopped since.

On sunny Saturday morning, armed with a cup of coffee, my sketchbook, my green fountain pen, my poodle, and my who-cares-attitude, I sketched in honor of both Nancy and Jane.

I started with the thought, everyone seeing this can do this, they may not want to but they can do it. They can sketch simple shapes and that's the start to drawing.

Simple flower

Becomes two. See simple lines become something recognizable. To create depth you imagine where the flower petal would keep going behind another one but don't draw in the line. BTW most people would sketch with pencil and eraser but not me.
Mistakes happen, I keep going, I just add more stuff. Same way I quilt.
Hmm, what to add next? Kaja (link here) and I have a challenge going on rock walls so...

that was fun! Color in some shadows...

coloring the shadows adding sprigs of grass.
I tried, I really did, to take photos along the way but I got into it and forgot!
A squirrel showed up, that was going to be a cat but looked more like a squirrel so I gave it claws and an acorn. All sketching done with the one pen because I was too into the process to look for colored pencils.


I like words, so I wrote, Nature designs it's own art and drew lines around it. Added a vine to soften the wall, added a path of stones.

 This is a new sketchbook. Do you know how hard it is to start writing in a new journal or drawing in a new sketchbook?? Don't want to mess them up, donchaknow.
I decided last year, lest I perish with 25 brand new journals and sketchbooks, I should just use them every day. Doesn't need to be momentous or gallery worthy. Just needs to be of the moment, and make me happy. Does it change the image to crop it??

It would change it to go over the lines with black pen and color it in.  I'll do that and show you how it came out later, what do you think? Soon as I find my watercolor pencils.  Last thing added were the words in the petals...

I took a lot of pix of twos while on vacation this summer and am compiling them into a post of twos.
What I learned today... I enjoy folk or illustrative art. It doesn't have to be fancy to impart an emotion. I enjoyed the additive nature of sketching, just adding in what felt good. It doesn't have to be approved by the salons of Paris, it has to make me happy. 

When you stop looking at what you can't do, you find out what you can do.
For more sketching like a four year old, see these  sketch posts