Camp Creative Day 5

Sketches of students

Final day of Camp Creative - intesive work with the students to finalise their projects. No time for demos! But I managed a few little candid sketches of some of the students.

A great week at Camp Creative! Thank you for all my wonderful students who came along and made the class such a success.

Nature Sketches Camp Creative

I haven't had much time to do any sketching outdoors - and when I do have time am too tired from teaching all day! But I did do a couple of little things early in the week. Both of these subjects can be seen from the verandah outside my classroom.

Both have been done in aquarelle and graphitint pencils.

Camp Creative Day 4

Demo works from Day 4 Camp Creative

Black and Green Eclectus feather in Watercolour pencil wash/dry and graphite - One/Two Hours

Double Drummer Cicada in Watercolour pencil wash/dry - One Hour

Smiling Koala in Graphitint wash/dry - One Hour

Camp Creative 2 + 3

Portraits in Colour Pencil

Tuesday

Tuesday/Wednesday the class worked on portraits in colour pencils.

To begin, each student needed to create a 'skin ball' of layers of colour pencils that would create the correct hue and tone for the ethnicity of their chosen subject.

Demonstration of skin tone 'balls'

Once the student had worked out the correct pencils to layer to create the appropriate skin tone, they spent time sketching their portrait in graphite then transfering it as a line drawing onto their cold press 300gsm paper using a mid-tone colour pencil.

Tuesday: Build up of hues after deciding on colour pencil palette. Looking a bit grey and corpse-like.

Wednesday

Hair and continuation of build of of skin tones. Once again, test swatches of hair.

Camp Creative Day 1

Tests, tests and even more tests!

First day of Camp Creative in Bellingen was great fun - a wonderful class of 12. Some repeating students and some new, a good mix and all very nice people. I worked them hard and they said they enjoyed it! We spent the morning doing a variety of colour pencil test using wax based (standard) style of colour pencil. Lots of work on how to use primary colours, complimentary, blending, layering, etc. Then they put all those tests together and drew a marble - tricky subject but I was really happy with what they all did. Here is my quick 15-20 minute demo drawing along with some pencil tests I had done previously similar to what the class did today:

Then I asked the group to do a more difficult subject - one of the many silver spoons in my Op-shop collection that I have brought with me. They needed to observe the shape and sketch it first in graphite, once satisfied transfer the basic outline to a sheet of hot press paper. Then to look for different cool and warm colours in the spoon, noting how the reflections affected the various hues. They needed to create these hues with layers of colour pencil, blend the hues with a white pencil, then add any required tones with graphite. 

They did amazing work! Silver is a difficult subject and they created wonderful studies. Again, I was very pleased with what they did.

This was the very quick one hour demo I did to start them off.

We also discovered the joy of an electric eraser for adding highlights!

More tomorrow...

Camp Creative Prep

https://www.campcreative.com.au/

Camp Creative in Bellingen NSW starts next Monday and it looks like I have a full class! 

We will be working on colour pencils all week, layering, texture, reflections, form composition, colour theory, the difference between types of pencils - all the colour pencil questions answered!

We will be exploring the differences between 'standard' and aquarelle style pencils, focusing on the human portrait and on found objects. As prepartion I have done works for display and examination (powerpoint step by step) and will also demonstrate from scratch. Here is the example of a Macaw feather drawing done with wash techniques and dry aquarelle colour pencil on hot press paper.

It looks like it will be a fun week, beautiful weather and lots of drawing to be done! I hope to post a work everyday to show you our progress. 

Why not consider joining us next year in Beautiful Bello?

Merry Christmas!

Best wishes to you all for a happy and joyful season.

Hope to see you all here in 2019 for more drawings!

Regards, Linda

Spoons - individuals

Spoon Studies

'Apostle' Jam Spoon - unknown maker

'Nemesia' pattern spoon from Rodd

Whenever I am in a Op-shop, I scrabble around in the cutlery drawer looking for a silver spoon or two. Once I find one, it then turns into an few hours of internet searching to find out the spoons' history. I have used the above spoons in a larger drawing in an earlier post, but as I had two small frames and mounts available I did a couple of detail studies of the 'Apostle' and 'Nemesia' spoons to fit.  These two studies were done in graphite pencil  on Lana 300gsm hot press paper.
As I found a new 'sugar' spoon yesterday, you may see another one here soon - in colour pencils.

Recent demos in ink & Inktense

The Rose

Using A5 Art Spectrum hot press watercolour pad, ink wash and dip pen

Christmas fun

Just a little Xmas card - cold press watercolour paper scrap, A5 size, Cuthbert Mill? not sure. Using Inktense pan paints and Adel pens

Brown Thornbill

Ink on board

A further exploration into ink this time using a different type of surface. This is an 8 x 8" Ampersand Artist Panel - the 'value series', Primed Smooth.These are pre-primed gesso ground boards. I purchased a few of these panels several years back and forgot I had them - digging around in my paper drawer for some offcuts of hot press paper I found them again and thought I would try them out. The boards weren't cheap at $6AUS for an 8 x 8" one though!

I found the surface texture smooth as silk to draw on with ink. No absorbtion so you must wait until the ink has dried. Difficult to get a very fine line even with my finest nib. I used Art spectrum Acrylic ink/black, nib pens as well as a Derwent Graphik line painter 05 #16 (light grey) pen (from the #4 palette of pens). Honestly, those Graphik pens are not my favourite - nice idea but I have yet to get a handle on them, they constantly 'blob' out on me. Luckily the Artist Panel is so smooth and non-absorbant I could wipe clean the blob before the grey ink dried! I have a couple of boards left and will try again. It is always fun to explore new mediums, surfaces and techniques.

Image used from my own photography of the resident thornbill dancing about in my winter crepe myrtle tree.