I’ve sketched dogs before, but only from a photo. To catch up, I didn’t take very much time, so the quality isn’t really there.
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I hadn’t drawn a hedgehog before, and was puzzled by this specimen’s white spines, especially how to draw them. It turns you don’t; you draw the negative space, or, in this case, what’s visible of the black base of each hair. It’s a work in progress.
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I guess I should give up on making the best drawings I can, since that slows me down. OTOH, this sketch resembles a pig, but it very messy, which isn’t making me proud. Then, if only 5% of your creative work makes you proud, you’re top of the line, I’m told.
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Want to read: Taking a Bite Out of the Apple by Rob Janoff 📚

Talking about being in the right place at the right time.

I was surprised it was still in print after 3 years. Also, listen to this 2009 interview on the RetroMaccast, which is still active as a weekly podcast.

I saw a documentary on YT about Darkwing Duck, that was supposed to be called “Double-O-Duck”, as a spinoff of Duck Tales. That inspired me enough to stop the video and start drawing. I have these markers, so I should make use of them, shouldn’t I?
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I experienced the process of internalizing at a small scale when I sketched this Holstein-Frisian cow from a photo reference. In this process, you learn the rules, purposefully forget about them, and do everything as if it comes naturally. Alas, I haven’t drawn cows enough to draw them from memory, using construction and previsualization. I tried it, but failed miserably. So, instead, I more or less copied a photo, not by tracing, but by redrawing. Still, redrawing is a step up, skill-wise, from downright tracing.

It took a few hours, though, to forget what I read about how how to draw cows, how they show off their anatomy, easily stylized as a balloon-bellies suspended as a tent on a skeleton. But then, milk cows, as the over-bred animals they are, tend to be exaggerated versions of their prehistoric counterparts, the aurochs. They are bred to produce milk, and if having a calf wasn’t necessary to start the lactation flow, they wouldn’t even have offspring either.

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It turned out the art challenge that I gave myself for January 2023 wasn’t very realistic. Look at what I wanted to make:

• animal drawings that are somewhat realistic and colored with markers

I’m not very skilled at drawing animals, realistic or otherwise, nor at coloring with markers.

It turns out that the tutorials about drawing animals aren’t very helpful. The basics of drawing aren’t included in those tutorials, nor are the basics of drawing mammals (which is often meant with “animals”). Luckily, I have some art instructional books that do, but those require study and years of practice.

Am I giving up? No. But I do have to lower my expectations, a lot a lot.

So far I’ve drawn:

• sitting cat
• mouse
• rabbit
• horse

Still 30 to go. I should speed up a bit, since the month has only 25 days left.

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This video by Jess Karp was recommended to me by YT’s algorithm, as if it knew what I’m up to (art challenge). I guess it did, though I did my searches with DuckDuckGo. The sites themselves use Google Analytics, and so I got found out 😅 by an algorithm.

www.youtube.com

I’m struggling to get the 34 animal drawings done in 31 days. It’s already day 5, I’ve studied 3 animals and drawn none so far. I guess it’s the perfectionist in me trying—and succeeding—to interfere with finishing. The sketches are entertaining, though, based on photos.
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I guess I’m in need of clues how to draw. The one book I used had a method that was confusing me, i.e. not helpful. It will slow me down, as learning tends to do. 🤓

The animal after the cat was, of course, the mouse. After doing the tutorial on drawing mice, I tried to draw from photo reference, using the construction method from the tutorial. It’s becoming clear all mammals have a similar body plan: head, front, mid, hind sections, tail.
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I know what this looks like. When I construct the cat, it doesn’t look like the cat in the photo, and when I draw from the photo, it doesn’t look like a cat, but like a photo of a cat. I will move on to the next animal before I get too frustrated. I’m already a day behind. 🎨

The question was if I’m up to the art challenge of drawing animals. Only one way to find out, draw…

So this is the current state of my drawing skills, it seems. It isn’t bad, although it’s easy to see its plentiful flaws. I thought it wasn’t a good enough sketch to create a full colored drawing with markers.

Time to re-evaluate my initial art challenge, learn how to draw animals in the month of January 2023. That seems a setup for failure 😞 So, a more realistic challenge is to use a couple of months to achieve this goal. I want to be at least able to complete a few colored drawings this month. For now I have two of my own cats to draw, one of which is no longer alive (so I can’t draw him from direct observation). It’s only one of the 34 drawings to make, but I’m sticking to it. The important thing is to remember to have fun, not to be a slave to the challenge. Who knows, I might get 34 drawings done this month.

It’s already clear why so many fail at this stage. Not meeting prior expectations is tough. However, it is what it is, and things can only get better from now on. Trust the process. Practice will make better.

2023!

I have this free app for my pets. Used it many years. Now suddenly, they not only want to get paid, they don’t offer in-app payments, only credit cards. I don’t trust willy-nilly app developers to keep my CC safe. In 2023 they’ll turn off the free trial, and I’ll delete the app.

In November 2022 I did the micro∙blog November blogging challenge, to blog every day of the month. I completed the challenge and received my special achievement pin. Aside from writing a microblog of no more than 280 characters, I also added a drawing from my notebook.

The latter was so much fun, that I decided to continue the challenge—extend it—on my own. I called it my Microblogextended challenge. For all 31 days of December, I drew and wrote, even on Christmas and Boxing day, despite of day trips with my sister. I found the time to do it.

Here is the list:

• December 1: jest
• December 2: occupy
• December 3: is
• December 4: proportion
• December 5: seat
• December 6: autonomy
• December 7: hip
• December 8: squash
• December 9: fence
• December 10: average
• December 11: chimpanzee
• December 12: regular
• December 13: rocket
• December 14: attic
• December 15: split
• December 16: sticky
• December 17: lump
• December 18: brain
• December 19: dribble
• December 20: peasant
• December 21: hike
• December 22: nationalist
• December 23: fault
• December 24: forest
• December 25: plant
• December 26: chance
• December 27: defendant
• December 28: parade
• December 29: examination
• December 30: sand
• December 31: base

In the last week I decided I need another challenge to keep me going. This time it will be a pure art challenge, drawing animals from an art instructional book that is out of print. I got that book as a Christmas present.

I’m really proud of myself I finished this challenge, though humbled by the inconsistency in quality and art style. That needs to change.

Base

As a self-taught artist I don’t have a solid foundation in art-making. I’m aware of the art fundamentals, but never studied them thoroughly. Even so, I didn’t want to go out on a whimper, so I gave it all I got.
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For my January 2023 challenge, I’ll be drawing 34 illustrations of animals with alcohol-based markers. I have Ohuhu pastel color markers, special marker paper and mixed media paper. However, sketching and designing on that paper with pencil leaves a mess, since the pencil marks can’t be fully erased and muddy the marker colors due smearing of graphite by the tip of the marker. It makes much more sense to design on a separate sheet, and then transfer the final version using carbon paper and a ballpoint pen. I could take it even further, and design on an iPad, print it out, and transfer using carbon paper and a ballpoint pen.

Designing and sketching digitally is cheaper and faster than with pencil on paper. I can simply draw the different stages of the sketch in a separate layer while lowering the opacity of the previous layer. In analog you would partially erase the previous stage and draw on top of it. I should try both, and see what works best for me.

I thought about coloring in Procreate on the iPad as well, which would add (unwanted) complications, time and cost. Digital colors differ from analog colors, and the effect of paper is hard to reproduce, I know from past experience. So I will be coloring with alcohol-based markers. I have little personal experience with those, but I’ve seen enough YouTube videos to know how to use them, in principle. I’m sure I’ll be watching loads more videos while coloring. The whole plan, after all, is to learn how to draw by doing and watching how others do it, steal their ideas, in a good way.

Digitizing the analog art is best done with a quality camera on a tripod, except that I don’t own such a camera. I do have a scanner (all-in-one with scanner and monochrome laser printer), though scanned colors tend to look washed out a bit with the bright light. Furthermore, the size is limited to A4, which isn’t a problem for this challenge, since A4 is big enough for drawing individual animals.

Eventually I want to use a light-box for transferring sketches and a budget digital camera for digitizing, so I can work on a larger canvas. Those things cost money, and I’m on a budget. I use what I have and if I start getting more skilled, I could sell some of the art to buy the equipment. Who knows…

After digitizing I need to put it somewhere, so others can see it. For now I’ll be using my Flickr account. I paid for it, so I should definitely use it.

To remove any kinks as soon as possible, it makes sense to first complete a piece before continuing to the next piece. This isn’t factory work; it’s artwork.

I’m also not expecting professional results which could be sold. The only thing I expect is that I’m able to draw animals somewhat convincingly, in the sense that others can recognize what animal it is supposed to be. It doesn’t have to be photorealistic; I’d rather have it be sketchy and loose, more impressionistic, left to the imagination of the viewer.

Only two more days. I’m excited!

I’m preparing for the next monthly challenge, which will be to create 34 animal drawings analog, using colored markers and ballpoint pen. It’s from one of instructional books I got for Christmas. It will keep me occupied, for sure.

Sand

While sand is abundant on the Earth’s surface, it takes a special kind of coarse sand to use for building things, like concrete, silicon wafers, sand castles. It’s finer than pebbles, coarser than silt, so you can grab hold of it, yet not feel individual particles 🏖️
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