[I originally posted this image as early access for my Patreon patrons on 28 March 2021].
063 screw
Day sixty-three of The 100 Day Project for 2021.
I managed to sneak yesterday's sketch into my day between photo editing, life admin and a virtual hen party for my friend, Jane.
I didn't manage to get it posted before I opened the bubbles, though.
I know I could have executed this better if not for time constraints. I think I'll try to get a more accurate rendering another day.
The thread is too close together and unevenly separated. The width of the screw is too variable, being thinner higher up at the shank than it is further down within the thread. The head reminds me of a golf tee more than a screw head.
But, for a ten-minute sketch on the run, it's not too bad.
062 hands
Day sixty-two of The 100 Day Project for 2021.
Okay, so I'll say this upfront: I'm sure this is my worst sketch of the project.
I mean, even worse than tuxedo cat, which was pretty bad but amusing. This is just bad.
I can't exactly say what happened.
Maybe it's because I spent a chunk of the day editing and sharing photos from my stained glass series with my Patreon patrons, and I was totally in that zone.
Maybe it was that my heart wasn't really in it today.
I mean, there are some days where my sketch feels like just another thing I have to do on an already busy day. So it's not always something I'm excited by.
I wasn't dreading the thought of doing it today, but it was kind of feeling a little like an inconvenience.
Or maybe it's just that I had my journal angled differently to usual in relation to the photograph on my monitor. Maybe sketching in landscape format caused everything to be a little off.
Whatever the cause, let's just forget this ever happened.
Focus on the source photo, which is much better.
061 lily
Day sixty-one of The 100 Day Project for 2021.
Yesterday, in the final hour of the day, I decided to attempt one of the more abstract, close-up photographs I took of one of the lilies a neighbour gave me late last year.
At some stage, I'll tackle one of the photographs of them closed. And then one of them open. But they feel like they will be more complicated, and I don't want to try to do it in a rush.
In retrospect, I probably should have shaded the dark green stems rather than just outlining them with a heavier pencil. Especially given I had done some shading for the shadows on the petals. But I won't beat myself up about it too much now.
I quite like that - without the source photo - this sketch is a little confounding. And, perhaps, a little confronting. I mean, it's at least vaguely anatomical-looking. But just what piece of anatomy it might be, not even I can decide.
I'd love to hear your interpretation of what it looks like. The more outrageous, the better, really.
The initial sketch, including shading on the petals, was drawn with a 4H pencil. The outline of the petals was traced over with the same, just heavier. The stems, toward the bottom, were drawn over with a 4B. The stamen were drawn over with a B pencil. (Alert: new pencil in circulation!)
I hope you have a lovely bank holiday weekend planned. I'm planning more paid work. More photo editing and hopefully getting my next Love Letter to London online. A virtual hen party for a friend. And long-distance birthday wishes for someone close to me.
060 sunflower
Day sixty of The 100 Day Project for 2021.
I've been meaning to draw this photograph for a while. But I knew it would take time and a reasonably large amount of concentration, so I had left it for a day like today. When I had daylight while I was sketching and when I wasn't rushing to finish in the final half-hour of the day.
I quite like how it came out, even though it's not photorealistic by any stretch.
I was worried that, when I got into it, I would find it too difficult. But I decided not to go for a super detailed version.
I sketched it all with a 4H pencil then used a mixture of 2B, HB and 2H to go over the leaves, disc florets and ray florets, respectively.
I should get some more planted again this year.
059 glasses
Day fifty-nine of The 100 Day Project for 2021.
There are still issues with what is now yesterday's sketch:
The frame at the front should become smaller on the left side, and the lens and frame should be elongated.
If that were so, the rear frame would be correctly proportioned. Though the angle of the frame near the centre is a bit too "twisted". Angled back too far.
But, if you ignore the source image, I think this is probably one of my more satisfying ones from the project.
And while my shading still needs work in terms of execution, I think I did relatively okay with the variations, the outline, etc.
Again, it could be improved on pretty much every count. But it feels better executed than many of my sketches so far.
I outlined it all with a 4H pencil, then variously used a 2B, a 4B and an F ( :o new pencil alert! I suspect I used it for the wrong purpose! :P ), and then signed it off with an HB pencil.
The source photo is from February 2016, when I put my glasses on to speak to my parents on Skype after I'd taken my contacts out for the night.
I discovered they were desperately in need of a clean. I started doing an ad hoc job with the cuff of my jumper. I managed to twist the frame just so, accidentally. I snapped the frames right in the centre of the bridge, as you can see.
They were almost ten years old then. The optometrist had told me I'd need to replace them soon, as the prescription was starting to be too markedly different to what my eyes were at that point.
The replacements I found were very similar. And then, when I had to change my prescription again, I managed to find identical frames. So my current glasses are a very similar frame shape in a very similar colour.
Unfortunately, I think my lenses are overdue to be replaced again because of further changes in my prescription.
I don't like my chances of being lazy and finding the same or similar frames again.
I may actually have to make a decision on something entirely different in a few months when I'm due for my eye tests.
rear window (you can see hollywood from here)
[I originally posted this image as early access for my Patreon patrons on 23 March 2021].
058 something something
Day fifty-eight of The 100 Day Project for 2021.
I'm calling this piece "something something". Not because it's not evident the source image is an ornament, specifically a paperweight.
But because my drawing of it captures none of that. And I knew it was unlikely to. Given my drawing skills and the fact I went into this sketch thinking, "let's just do something abstract and not worry about photorealism."
For the record: I would love to be able to draw this paperweight in a photorealistic style. Let's maybe give me a good few years before I can expect to manage that, though.
Instead, my sketch somewhat reminds me of the blobfish John Oliver was, once again, engaging with on the most recent episode of Last Week Tonight. Though not quite. I can't quite work out what my rendering reminds me of, really.
Nevertheless, I sketched what is now yesterday's drawing with a 4H pencil. Then I went over elements with a 6B, a 4B, a 2B and an HB pencil.
(No, I don't know what I have against odd numbers either. I'm quite fond of the number 13 and the number 9, if truth be told, so it's nothing personal).
To be honest, I'm not sure if this was a success or a failure. I'll let you guys decide.
Meanwhile, I have a conflicting relationship with what I refer to as 'dust catchers'.
As a kid, I know I was responsible for the gifting of many dust catchers. Items that served no other purpose but ornamentation and, invariably, they catch dust.
To my knowledge, my mother never threw out any of the dust catchers we bought her (at least not for years).
Whether it be a small, purely ornamental harlequin doll or a somewhat practical clear plastic earring ladder, all invariably purchased from our local chemist.
They graced her bedside cabinet with pride because she received them from her children. Paid for with their pocket money and delivered with love.
As I got older, I vowed not to give dust catcher gifts unless they also provided some practical purpose. Thus my oil/vinegar decanter gift to Simon for his birthday in 2019.
Having said that, I do have papers that could do with weighting, but they're not on my desk as my desk space is limited.
So, arguably, I could be a bit confronted by Simon's gifts to me in recent years. But I'm just not. Because they're beautiful.
And at some point, I really need to photograph them properly. Because, especially in close-up, they're truly beautiful.
They remind me of the marbles we had as kids, both in our collections and in the game of solitaire my grandparents had. But infinitely more detailed and intricate.
I don't know the background of the first paperweight he gifted me for Christmas 2018. But the one he found for me for Christmas last year and that I've attempted to render above is a Caithness moon crystal. It is small but exquisite.
At some point, I hope to attempt to draw a photograph I took of the larger one. Stay tuned.
057 view from a bed
Day fifty-seven of The 100 Day Project for 2021.
I thought I'd set myself a more simple subject today.
I sketched it with a 4H pencil, then went over the edge of the blue wall with a 4B pencil, the lampshade and the cornice with an HB pencil, and the wire and light fitting with a 6B pencil.
I've got something of a superstition going with these lampshades. Though I don't generally consider myself to be a superstitious person.
The first place I lived after I moved out of home was a flat owned by my parents. The previous tenants left one of these lampshades in what became my bedroom. I didn't really have much of an opinion on it at the time. I lived there for almost 5 years before moving to the UK.
I lived in four different places in under two and a half years living here that first time.
I lived in four different homes between the Gold Coast and Melbourne over the next two years.
When I finally moved into a place on my own in Brunswick East in 2004, there was one in my bedroom. I think my study had one also, but I can't recall for sure now. I lived there for four years and one month.
When I had to leave there, I managed another four abodes in less than two and a half years.
When I returned to London in 2011 and found a room in a shared flat, there it was. Hanging above my bed. I lived in that flat for almost three years before moving downstairs into my landlady's garden flat with Kyle.
Her flat didn't have one. We had to move out after less than nine months.
Our next flat didn't have one either. Our relationship ended, and we moved on again after about a year and a half.
When I moved in here, there was already a smaller colourful patterned version hanging in what could have been my bedroom.
But I took the lounge room for my bedroom, and there was a bare bulb suspended from the roof above my bed.
So I knew what I had to do to make this my home and not have to move on again before I was ready.
I took the source photo on 4 June 2016, lying in my bed, a little over a month after moving in.
At the end of April, I will have lived here for five years.
untitled #8384
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 21 March 2021].
Another new image from my late bloomers series, this time a diptych.
056 elephant slide
Day fifty-six of The 100 Day Project for 2021.
I didn't allow myself enough space for this guy, and the tusks are a bit off. I managed to correct the left leg length (elephant's left leg; not what the viewer sees as left) in overdrawing the original sketch.
As has become my wont, I sketched the elephant slide with a 4H pencil. Most of the overdrawing I completed with an HB pencil. The shadowing in the elephant's interior was done with a 2B and a 4B pencil.
The source image for today's sketch was taken the day before the referendum on Britain leaving the EU took place. I took it after a morning spent wandering on the shingle beach at Dungeness.
I was slathered in sunscreen, and the cooling sea breeze deceived me into thinking I wasn't burning, though the mirrors in The Pilot Inn told me otherwise when we paused for lunch.
Foolishly, I went back out on the beach to continue taking photos after lunch without reapplying sunscreen.
That sunburn was horrific. It was the worst I had experienced in years. I've posted photos of it previously.
It was probably the worst sunburn I've experienced, even by comparison to one I acquired, wearing the same dress, at Southend-on-Sea in 2018.
Despite hurting like hell and my skin peeling for months, it came and went. I had ridiculous tan lines created by the straps on my dress and bags many months later, but now you'd never know.
However, the impact of Brexit on the UK will last far longer than the burns and then tan lines of my foolish decisions in 2016 and 2018.
At least once a week, it's confirmed to those who voted remain that this was the wrong decision.
And it was a decision driven by disinformation campaigns sponsored by the Leave campaign, UKIP and the Murdoch media.
The Murdoch media that's also responsible for so much of the political mayhem currently taking place in the US.
The same media responsible for the anti-vaccination rhetoric permeating almost every country globally.
The fact Rupert Murdoch is an Australian has never made me proud to also be an Australian. It has largely had the opposite effect.
Similarly, if I already had UK citizenship, Nigel Farage would make me ashamed to hold that citizenship.
The damage continuing to be done to the world by entitled white men will never be something I forget.
Whether purely political for the purposes of greed. Or reinforcing inequality by silencing diverse voices, embracing racism, endorsing white supremacism. And/or destroying the environment for the sake of their own personal wealth.
I will never forget.
In that way, my memory is very much like an elephant's.
055 gasometer
Day fifty-five of The 100 Day Project for 2021.
Okay, who had 'gasometer' on their 'A Sketchy Practice' bingo card? 😉
In case you wondered why it took me so long to have a go at one of my favourite subjects, today's sketch is the perfect answer.
They can seem quite simple and straightforward, but they're actually quite detailed, and I failed on this in so many ways I'm not going to bother to count them!
Arguably I started off okay-ish, working from left to right. But then I completely missed all the lines of perspective. I'm going to blame it on lack of sleep and a long week and not be too hard on myself about it, though.
Sketched in 4H, then drawn over somewhat messily with an HB pencil.
Today felt like a complete write-off in some ways but was generally a good day. It involved some paid work, some sleeping, another video call which made me happy, and some chores. Shortly it will include some eating, TV and more much-needed sleep.
Subsequently, the weekend will consist of more paid work than planned. Hopefully, it will also include some flat-cleaning and, even more hopefully, some photo editing around both of those things. As well as a fourth video chat in three days. Eesh, I'm tired again already!
AND I'll lose an hour on Sunday morning! No! I'm already short on hours in the day!
I hope your weekend is shaping up to be a good one x
054 corner house
Day fifty-four of The 100 Day Project for 2021.
Despite this being a 20-minute sketch, it was possibly one of the most hastily executed for the project so far.
After sketching over 50 of my photos - both those specifically shot to sketch and others from my archive - finding the next one often takes as much or more time than drawing it.
There are plenty of my photos I want to attempt to draw. But how much time I have to draw each day generally dictates what I take on. Often more macro/abstract elements can take as much, if not more, time than photos of a wide vista.
Yesterday it took me almost 30 minutes to find a suitable photo. That meant I started sketching about three minutes before I was due to have a Skype call with my friend Erin. Despite allowing myself about 45 minutes after finishing some client work. My sketch delayed us starting our chat until almost 30 minutes after our planned timing.
Obviously, I didn't like being late to the call but, given we can talk a lot when we do have a chance to Skype (we clocked up about three hours last night!), I didn't want the sketch hanging over me while we chatted, putting a time limit on our catch-up.
Thankfully, Erin understood. And it was a good thing I completed my sketch before we spoke, as we didn't finish up until almost 23:45. Allowing for the image search would have meant I missed a day of my project, officially, if I'd sketched post-chat.
And then, as I was closing off this post, my Dad became free for a "short chat", which turned into an almost 1.75-hour chat. So my sharing of yesterday's sketch has come even later. No regrets, though, as it's always good to natter with Dad.
My sketch of a tall thin building on a curved road in Cambridge from my travels with my parents in 2017 (my Mum's final overseas trip) was executed initially with a 4H pencil. I then hastily drew over the darker elements and shaded them with an HB pencil. I then went over the outlines of the lighter areas with the 4H more heavily.
053 sunflower
Day fifty-three of The 100 Day Project for 2021.
As I was drawing the sunflower, I swore I would end up missing a petal or adding a petal that wasn't there.
When I was adding the leaves behind the flower, I thought I had done precisely that.
But it seems, looking at my sketch next to the source image now, I somehow rotated the petals in one direction and the leaves in another. Consequently, it created disorientation that meant the leaves on the right are all out of whack.
The large leaf on the left was intentionally excluded as I ran out of space on the page. Despite the sketch appearing in square format above, I photographed it in portrait format. I then used the fill tool, set to 'content aware', in Photoshop to recreate a square canvas during editing.
I used a 4H pencil for the initial sketch. I then went over the leaf outlines with a 6B, the leaf veins with a 4B, the petal outlines with an HB pencil and the petal details with a heavier 4H. The disc florets were drawn over with a 2B pencil.
What is now yesterday was a better day mentally, emotionally and nutritionally than many of my recent days.
Even though I found out the client work I'm doing might start to become more erratic. That's mostly fine with me as I want to seek out work more up my alley and pays better, though obviously more uncertainty right now isn't helpful.
Related: If you or anyone you know might like to become a patron, please send them the link to my Patreon. The more, the merrier :)
Aside from existing projects and others on a slow simmer, I had an idea for a brand new photography project on Wednesday evening. I'm hoping to share the first image from the series next week.
I'm also hoping to share this month's Love letter to London with you later this week. I had planned to share it with you last week, but my life right now has been all curve balls and no mitt or helmet.
I hope you're all doing okay. This lockdown has been hitting me and others I know in London harder than the one that started about a year ago.
Life isn't rushing back to "normal" (and I'm not sure I want it to, in some ways). But we're getting closer to safely open up, and I'm pleased my parents and many I know have already had their first dose of the vaccine.
052 ivy
Day fifty-two of The 100 Day Project for 2021.
Full disclosure: I ate yesterday's sketch subject today. It was delicious.
This afternoon I took up the offer of a lovely neighbour to join her and her two doggos for a walk.
I needed to get out. To speak with another human being in person (my flatmate is a human being, but we don't really talk in the same way I do with others). And get some vitamin D (albeit mostly muted through sunscreen and a winter coat).
I finally saw the development that's replaced my beloved gasometers up close.
While the playground is well-planned and spacious and obviously already well used, the trade-off is two and, eventually, three tall apartment blocks.
Blocks that may or may not actually become fully occupied. Not something I welcome to the area, given so many similar local developments, often with very low occupancy. Likely not including many affordable housing options and pushing up the purchase and rental prices in the area.
It's also disappointing the River Moselle, one of London's subterranean rivers, has been uncovered but not incorporated into the development.
Admittedly, it's more of a brook, or even just seems like a sewer at this point. But, given time and care, I'm sure it could have been rejuvenated and add a natural feature back into the area.
Instead, there's a water feature which - while peaceful - is a heavily sanitised version of a natural one.
Today's sketch was drawn with a 4H pencil. The outlines were drawn over with an HB pencil. And the leaf veins and other lighter lines brought out more with the 4H pencil used more heavily.
051 meringue
Day fifty-one of The 100 Day Project for 2021.
My flatmate made meringues this evening while I was out at the supermarket. I came home to a glowing light from the oven in the otherwise pitch-black kitchen.
Some of them have a bit of darkened colour on the top, indicating they were perhaps in the oven slightly too long. But all appear edible. And the ones baked on the middle shelf (including the one I drew today) look perfect.
My rendering is not great but not terrible. Probably the most glaring issue - for me - is that the shadowing on the meringue vs the meringue's shadow is not differentiated enough.
I used a 4H pencil to sketch the meringue initially. Then a 4B and a 6B for the shadowing, and an HB pencil over the outline.
I'm not sure you'd know what this was without the source image. But I imagine meringues aren't heavily used as source images for sketches, so I'll try not to take that personally.
Meanwhile, I have a question for those of you who are creative types who follow me:
How do you cope with/reconcile your family, your significant other and/or other creatives you know and are close to, not engaging with your art and creativity? (Whatever form that may take).
Do you:
a) Take it with a pinch of salt. What do they know?!
b) Feel bothered by it sometimes but not put too much weight on it because everyone's artistic tastes are different.
c) Struggle with their lack of engagement and see it as a reflection upon your practice, your skills and your art generally? If you can't engage those closest to you, how can you engage anyone else through your art?
I'd be really interested in your honest answers. As brief or as detailed as you choose to give them x
050 cameo
Day fifty of The 100 Day Project for 2021.
Halfway, thank goodness.
Today has been emotionally calmer, also, thank goodness.
And more productive for my own work, though I will sneak some paid work in shortly.
As it's day 50 today, I prioritised my sketch and sat down to do it while the daylight still prevailed (even if it doesn't as I write this).
There are myriad issues with the details of her hair and her top. And lots of other imperfections.
And with the way I've rendered her, she's actually more of a portrait than a cameo. But I'm moderately happy with today's effort.
The cameo necklace serving as today's source image was actually bought for me by Simon from a charity shop somewhere in Australia on our road trip in 2019. He bought it with the intention of me using the necklace to replace the ones that had failed from other pendants.
He didn't realise how much I like cameos and that this was a perfect find for me. The salmon pink colour also works wonderfully with pale pink and vibrant green dresses. So the necklace has proved useful, but as its own piece, it's also perfect.
I sketched this in 4H, then drew over most lines and shading with an HB pencil.
crown of thorns
[I originally posted this image as early access for my Patreon patrons on 14 March 2021].
049 ring
Day forty-nine of The 100 Day Project for 2021.
I think I thought this would be easier to draw.
But for some reason, my eyes and my hand couldn't coordinate to really make it work. And, to be honest, my heart wasn't in it to make it work any better than this today.
I think that's part of why I've always struggled to draw.
I can visualise myself drawing effortlessly, skillfully. I can imagine my hand and fingers guiding the pencil to make the lines just so. But the communication between my hand and eyes is never as strong as I think it is when I imagine drawing something.
There was a second or two when I almost tore out the page, put my visual diary away and crawled back into bed.
But I'm a completist, so I determinedly fought the urge. I focussed on the photo on my phone I'd taken earlier in the afternoon when I'd felt more positively. And I finished it. But I think my internal struggle shows in the finished product.
What started as a better day - a day of rest, self-care and a much-needed pep talk full of positive distractions from a friend - unravelled when gently poked later in the afternoon.
I'm still feeling raw and vulnerable, and I don't know when that feeling will stop. I wish it would stop.
I sketched with a 4H, then shaded and drew over the outline with an HB pencil.
048 intersecting
Day forty-eight of The 100 Day Project for 2021.
I know it's lame. But this is really all I had the energy for in the last hour of yesterday. And I didn't even get the perspective from the photograph right.
The source photograph was taken in 2017 in the church in which my great grandparents married.
Except not really.
Because on the third night of the London Blitz, at 22:20 on 9 September 1940, a bomb destroyed the majority of St Mary's Church in Islington, London. Leaving only the tower and spire intact.
A church by the same name still stands there. But, in reality, it's not the same church.
I visited the church with my parents in 2017 when they were in London last.
This was a photograph I took with my phone of the flooring inside the church. It made for a simple subject for today.
I wavered about shading it but decided not to.
The initial sketch was drawn with a 4H pencil. I went over the lines in 4B for the edges of the blue circle, 2B for the yellow one. And HB for the edges of the cream shapes (or whatever colour you want to classify them).