A sketch of the kitchen garden at Chartwell, Churchill's former home

Yesterday the sun shone - and we went to Chartwell in Kent, former home of Winston Churchill and now a National Trust property. I went armed with camera and sketchbook and my partner went with the intention of doing one of the things he enjoys doing best - sitting in the sunshine with a marvellous view of the Weald of Kent.

After a quick visit to the house (again - we go every year at least once, partner is a big history buff) and some negotiation as to which bench in the garden meant he got the best dose of sunshine on his face and gave me the best view(!), I settled down to sketch the kitchen garden from a terrace just above it. Churchill himself built the brick walls in the background of this kitchen garden. There's more information about the recent restoration of the kitchen garden here.

The sketch was completed using a mechanical pencil in a double page spread of my Moleskine sketchbook and I used coloured pencil on top to give a sense of the main colours. I think I'd like to have a go at doing a landscape painting from the terrace we sat on as the bit you can't see is the stunning view of the Weald of Kent which is just above the top margin of my sketchbook.

I've included some photos - the first is of the view I had (except the photo was taken standing up).

One of Churchill's recreations was oil painting. The next is a shot looking down to the studio where Churchill painted and the Weald beyond. The studio is the brick building to the left of centre. The kitchen garden wall is top right.

Finally, one taken from the studio area looking back up at the house. This last view is one which I'm doing in pastel for my partner. He's very patient, as it was started on a sunny day a long time ago and has stayed 'nearly' finished for simply ages! It's quite a busy traffic area and I didn't find it easy to paint from there so I'll probably try and finish using this photo as a reference. There's not a lot to do to it.

You can see more photos on the National Trust website.

Technorati tags: art , Chartwell , Churchill , coloured pencils , colored pencils , drawing ,
landscape painting , painting , plein air painting , sketch , sketchbook

Streaming Eagle Cam sketches

I've found in the past that it's always educational to attempt to draw a moving subject which has a routine or a limited range of movements. It's a useful exercise to follow, as a step up from life class, when trying to learn how to draw a live and moving object with no routine. My typical subjects in the past have been people eating in cafes or restaurants and other artists. The process of attempting such drawings also seems to make the challenges of a life drawing class rather less daunting - at least there the model tends to sit still!

However I've never ever tried to draw a live bird before. I heard about the web cam which is watching a mummy eagle sitting on her brood (she seems to have two eggs). I wondered what sort of drawing might be possible in a short space of time. So I set a challenge for some friends of mine and myself to click the link - with pen/pencil and paper in hand and then sketch for 10 minutes. The results have been very interesting - and accomplished - and the consensus seemed to be that the exercise was a real confidence booster in relation to drawing in this way again!

What were the problems? Well the main problem is that she's very interested in her surroundings - see for your self! http://www.infotecbusinesssystems.com/wildlife/ The other problem is that there are some problems with page loading presumably because the site is getting a tremendous number of hits - once the sponsor advert starts rolling and the man starts talking just hang on - Mummy eagle is just behind. And the final problem is you keep wanting to watch the eagle - very distracting!

Here's my two 10 minutes sketches of an eagle who constantly turns her head and periodically gets up and inspects her nest and her eggs. I was only intending to do one but she turned around!



Have a go at drawing her and see what you learn!

Technorati tags: art , drawing , eagle , pencil , webcam

Learning to drawn and sketch: - websites (1)

There are quite a few websites around with communities who are helpful to people learning to draw and sketch. This post contains a couple of such website communities for people starting out.

Everday Matters: This is the name of Danny Gregory's blog, and also the name of the associated yahoo group and various other groups and sites which have spun off from the original site. The Yahoo Group explains its identity as follows

An ongoing discussion about creativity, drawing, journal making and seeing more clearly. This group grew out of Danny Gregory's weblog, Everyday Matters and his book, The Creative License. We have a weekly drawing challenge and also a secondary gallery site here and a Flickr group and a Frappr map site that records members' locations for get-togethers. too. And NEW! our pbwiki site for further sharing, discussing and what-have-you.

It's big (over a 1,500 members) and has been characterised as being a friendly, welcoming broad-based group for people of all skill levels who are interested in drawing and illustrated journals. In keeping with Danny Gregory's philosophy, the focus there is mainly on drawing for its own sake and as a meditation on one's life, rather than as an activity with other goals in mind.

I know that on my travels around art blogs I see lots and lots of blogs which participate in the EDM weekly drawing challenge. And for those people who are worried about going sketching in public for the first time why not take a look at the EDM sketchcrawl activities?

Wet Canvas is an extremely large website with a huge number of different forums. It boasts as at today's date more than 78 thousand members but the number who are active posters is much lower than this. This gives individual forums a feeling more akin to some of other websites for groups of artists or would-be artists where people have a chance to get to know one another.

The Drawing and Sketching Forum is one such forum where people are generally very supportive of the efforts of new members. The incomparable 'JayD' (I'm a big fan!) started a self-help approach to learning how to draw back in October 2004 - with "Drawing 101: Class 1 - Drawing Basics" and has developed it from there latterly with the assistance of some guest tutors up to Class 34.

They've just started Basic 102 - and have got a class going on at the moment on Intermediate Perspective. All classes are based in "The Classroom" a sub-forum of the main forum. I personally know a lot of people who have gained the most enormous amount from the classes and whose work has improved in leaps and bounds as a result!

Techonorati tags: art , drawing , sketch , sketching , sketchcrawl

Learning to draw and sketch

I'm aware that there are quite a few people who want to learn how to draw better or how to sketch in public so I'm going to do a few posts on a "Learning to Draw and Sketch" theme where I'll highlight some of the sites which people might find useful.

I'm going to group links as follows:

• websites where people learning to draw are welcome - see the next post
  
• reviews of drawing books - I'm anticipating individual posts for each review
  

I'm going to put this post in the Drawing Resources section and will then update it with links to other threads as these get written. It will then provide a structured index to all that is written on this blog about learning to sketch and draw.

Technorati tags: art , draw , drawing , learning , sketch , sketching

More botanical art - and some sketches

I've got more links to botanical websites to go in the right hand column. I've always felt drawn to botanical art but have never been quite sure that I've got the patience for the very detailed work and control required for drawing and painting flowers within the context of botanical art.

I'm also on a really big flower "binge" at the moment - maybe it's all that colour that I need after what has been a very long and grey winter. Anyway, I'm running out of large vases! We had a warmer day with blue skies at the weekend and yesterday I noticed that suddenly everything is beginning to burst into bloom!

Anyway - back to the botanical art sites. These are listed below followed by comments on each:

• The American Society of Botanical Artists
• The Botanical Society of Australia
• Botanical Artists
• Botanical Artistry
• Ann Swan
  

Both of the national societies are very similar to the UK one - providing membership information, galleries of art by members, information about exhibitions and workshops and links to relevant organisations. Both societies also produce newsletters - but you can download the one from the american site - it's excellent and informative and I should think all those interested in botanical art will definitely want to take a look at it.

A new initiative within the botanical art world (at least one I've not seen before!) seems to be the development of websites by groups which provide a place to display art by more than one artist outside a botanical society framework and, at the same time, provide links to organisations of relevance to botanical artists.

All of the above websites provide an insight into the nature of botanical art and display art by a number of very gifted people. The reason for singling Ann Swan out - besides the fact she's a UK artist - is that Ann works in coloured pencil producing contemporary botanical art. Her sites demonstrates what can be accomplished with coloured pencil - and the oil paint depth of colour that can be achieved if you have the patience and the talent. Ann's site also usefully reproduces two articles which provide an insight to how she works.

I've provided links to each of the above in the flower section of the right hand column - it's about half way down - keep scrolling!

Finally - do please take a look at the gallery of flower drawings produced by Laura (of Lauralines) in 2005 which you can see on her blog. This is not botanical art per se - being more sketchy drawings and paintings produced in a much looser way but they are lovely and colourful and equally impressive.

Technorati tags: art , botanical art , coloured pencils , colored pencils , drawing , drawing flowers , flower paintings , painting