75 Day Challenge - Day 8

A size 8 on day 8.

A New Find

 

Firstly, I can't believe it's been close to 3 months since my last posting. Time really flys when you're busy. Hopefully, with early retirement only 11 days away I should have the time to do what I really enjoy which is photography and painting and a few other things too.
I have found a cool site here... http://adaynotwasted.com/
Maybe it's the fine photography that is done by Lee A Brown or maybe it's the title of his blog, "A Day Not Wasted" or a combo of both but I've spent some time cruising around the blog and decided to try his August challenge.
Cheers everyone!

Heirlooms

Every Tuesday a portion of the Grand street is shut down for the Farmer's Market and there's always large tables laden with delicious, locally grown fruits and vegetables.
(for this month's Sketchbook challenge)

Cubs and Fire

It was during my trip back home to Jersey when my older brother and I decided to go fishing at the pond that we encountered a big mama bear with her three cubs. Apparently, someone had thrown some left over bagels in the area, even sticking some up high in the trees and this family enjoyed eating them all up. It was fun watching them and taking pictures from the safety of the car. My brother and I decided to go try our luck fishing at the river instead the pond. 
 
 

The fire department at my home town still sounds out the 5 o'clock whistle each night.  As a kid, when I heard that sound I knew it was time to head on home. It's comforting to know that some things don't change.  I knew drawing the building was going to be challenging due to the different shapes and angles so this was a practice session for me because I'm planning on doing a series of watercolors of my home town.

Vase Trio

More fun in the 1967 BSoA notebook and using the Faber-Castell Pitt pens. And guess what, I ordered more pens :D

More Fun

Another drawing with the Faber-Castell Pitt pens. Looks like I'm going to have to get more colors in these pens soon. :)
The right page on this drawing is the back side of my first so you can see, no bleeding occurred.

Last night's class was on values. Taking a b&w picture and using our value scale we practiced the many values of a 6B pencil.  
 

Fun Sketches

I picked up some Faber-Castell artist pens earlier this year. They're the B's which mean brushes I guess, normal size for the various colors and big brush size for the black and greys. It's really nice working with them. They dry quickly but not too quick so you have time to smear the color if you want. And they don't bleed through the paper. The flowers are done in a 1966 Boy Scout Leader's program 4'X6" notebook that I just started to use. Yes, I began in the middle which eliminates my first page fears. I can tell you none of the ink went through to either side of the thin paper.  The downside is, my pens will now be part of the to be packed list for me but the pluses out numbers though with using something new and something very old (pens and notebook).

Below is our drawing assignment for the week. I had to stand in front of a mirror while holding onto the wall or something with my non-drawing hand. Close my non-dominate eye and draw myself on the mirror with an erasable dry pen. You'll find you'll move a lot which is why you need to hang onto something. Once done, I then transferred the image onto tracing paper using a permanent sharpie type pen. I didn't catch why we needed to do this exercise but I have to say I learned one thing...I look mean when I'm into the zone. Holy Smokes, I need to smile a little! ;)