We took a trip to my Cousins place in Northern Michigan this March. They have a small farm with Llamas, Alpacas, Goats and chickens. They also have a small woods with Maple trees. My two youngest sons and I went to help them out, er, well we tried.
Now I know that you all want pictures of Llamas and Alpacas, but you'll have to wait till I brave up and get closer! In the mean time this is about Maple syrup.

These are the maple trees, tapped with pails collecting sap.
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The tractor brings the collector up to the woods, well it will when it gets out of the mud.
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You of course have to have a farm dog.
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Here is the evaporator that will reduce the sap to syrup.
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This is the Father in law (to my Cousin) who watches the temperature gauge, keeps the fire going and will answer all our questions.
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The syrup is at the right temperature to open the valve.
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Yum, yum maple syrup! Although I believe there is still more straining and boiling to do, we were heading home, with a jug of last years syrup, sh-h don't tell the kids. They're sure they made it start to finish.
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All levels of drawing are encouraged to participate!

The goal of this thread is to enable and encourage individuals to practice their drawing skills, learn new techniques and have fun! If you just want to sketch that’s fine. If you want to create a complex, detailed drawing, that’s great too. You will get out of this what you want. The references used are from my own personal reference library of images that I have photographed and I release them here as not under copyright, meaning you can use them as you wish for drawing.

You will be challenged by some aspect of all references most likely as you all will have different strengths and weaknesses in your ability to translate the images to paper.

Reminder:

This is a DRAWING challenge. Therefore please confine your artistic endeavors to some form of drawing: graphite, coloured pencil, pen and ink or charcoal.

There is no ruling on what size your final drawing or sketch should be. Smaller, sketchbook sizes will provide a smaller file size which is easier for loading onto the thread.

If you would like assistance or advice, please ask for it and I will be more than willing to try to guide you.

This challenge will last for one week. At that time, all challenge drawings should be submitted to this thread.

I have offered 3-5 reference images to choose from. The images are also provided in greyscale. Seeing the images in black and white gives a better sense of basic values.

I have kept the images to simple shapes that still provide challenges. Block out your basic shapes first then work the details into them, rechecking proportion and measurement against other reference points in your drawing.

If you have an interest in hosting a challenge, please see the list in the pinned area of general discussions.

Quick draw of Daddy-in-Law. Charcoal. 30 min. Photo under a desk lamp light. 23h10. Paris.

WIP I've been having fun with the metal pot of syrup. I love all of the cast shadows and syrup bubbles!
I didn't get too far yet as I had my grandson here for a little while. He just left so I'll get back to it soon.
Now that I have it posted I can see all of the little problems - like my pot is a little lopsided, among other things!

Okay, I'm just about finished. There are probably a few touch ups I could do but I think I am done drawing for the night.

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4 x 6, #2 pencil

Looks great to me. Love the reflections on the bucket and the maple stained back panel

This is fantastic! Well done!

You guys are good..

Paulette, I love these photos - and maple syrup process. Lucky you having a relative in the business! Yummm

NVA, great job on the cousin's father in law. That's a pretty good likeness for just 30 minutes. In charcoal for sketches that quick, I like to use a broad stick of it and just swipe on values and shapes on a really big sheet. Its great fun

Bk, I love the syrup bucket image too and hope I can find time to do it. Your drawing is wonderful. Lots of shine and hot bubbly syrup.

Marissa, nice work on the flowing syrup. If you added more darks to the pot, that stainless steel would really shine.

I'm going a slightly different route with this. I will be creating a watercolour with this first image of the father in law. There has been some confusion over allowing other media into this drawing thread. You can use other media, BUT you have to first post the skeleton - the drawing - of your piece. And with watercolour especially, if your base drawing isn't good, then your painting won't be either. Also, it is not necessary to post the time it took to do your drawing here. I find it puts pressure on others and unless a time line is assigned, a drawing should take as long as it takes to do.

So here is the initial value map drawing of The Master Syrup Maker. I will update it as I go, providing I don't screw up the watercolour too much!

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I found the picture amazing .. I never new any of that ..so for me it was a lesson on making surup .

Gee, Thanks for the hint. I wasn't happy with my pot. I've already tossed the original but I burned in some darks in photoshop to see what a difference a dark would make. :
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b]NVA,[/b] great job on the cousin's father in law. That's a pretty good likeness for just 30 minutes. In charcoal for sketches that quick, I like to use a broad stick of it and just swipe on values and shapes on a really big sheet. Its great fun

Thank you, IslanderNL. I'll try on big sheets. A number of exercises are needed. If something correct comes out, I'll post it here. Thank again
NVA

Oh my! You guys are great!
I have to run but will be back to comment.
Company called minutes after I sat down, now I'm yelling at the kids and husband to clean.
Thank goodness they call first!

interesting challenge this week..thank you for the wonderful pictures Paulette! mechanical pencil..about an hour and half drawing time

Lovely drawing Katdyd, there's lots of texture going on here that you've captured beautifully.

I played around with watercolour on my initial drawing today and this is the final result. For me, these things always look better in real life. Either that or my scanner (or me) never get good images for online images.

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NVA, great job, you really caught his look.
He watched that temperature gauge for hours on end.
Our taking pictures and asking questions was a good break from watching.
Although while one of my sons was helping, he got talking too much and a small fire started.

Barb, so great to have you back on the forum!
I just loved the mixture of metals, wood and reflections.
You did an excellent job showing these.

Marisa, good job on the pot, the reflections on the syrup are great and the added darks make the pan.
You know the watched pot thing?
Well I thought going from 218 degrees to 219 degrees would never happen and he wasn't opening that valve until it got to 219*!

Jeanette, I always love your sketches! I can't wait to see the water colour.
I love the name The Master Syrup Maker!

Katdid, lovely job on the tapped trees.
The first day the buckets were half full, but the next day they were only 1/8 full.
If I understand correctly, it has to freeze at night then warm up above freezing during the day, so the sap starts to run.
When the buds start to come out they stop taking sap, because the syrup will be bitter.

Ah great work Jeanette! I love the skin tones.

Paulette4, you must be happy that we work so seriously on your photos!
Now, thank a lot to IslanderNL: you are a wonderful and generous professor! I learned much from you, but I'm low and need time to digest!

wwoowwwww...realy good work

Wow,the drawings you guys have made are just amazing ! I hope to be able add so much detail and texture my self one day
Here is my humble,and first,attempt on the weekly challenges. I have had a tendency to make too dark outlines,and overall very much darkness,so that is what I been focusing on not doing here.And,concerning that,I am pretty happy with it.
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Wonderful work Zaynab Issa!
Great texture and reflections and not an outline to be seen!
The snow in the woods was a couple feet deep, except around the trees.

Wip. I doubt I will have time to finish it this week! I'm away to Ireland until middle of next week. This is a perfect picture for those wanting to practice perspective. You can see I have drawn a few lines onto my board.

Paulette – Nice pictures and very educative to me. Thanks for the information.
NVA – Excellent drawing
Bkluver – Absolutely fantastic
Marisa – Nice drawing
Katdyd – Very well done
Jeanette - Excellent watercolor paint

I´m very busy this week. I will try to do some but not sure yet.
Cheers,

And with watercolour especially, if your base drawing isn't good, then your painting won't be either.

Question? What about those who use watercolor without reference lines in Pencil as you did..for those who like the loose control.. I can't speak for those who chose to do it that way but I have seen it happen on the Challenges and they are breathtaking works of Art....Showing the skeleton drawing may only consist of a few watercolor lines in the base drawing ?
Just curious.. And thanks for clearing up the issue of media used..

Fascinating set of pictures, Paulette. Thanks for letting us see them. I had seen the process of producing maple syrup a few years ago while visiting a friend in Canada. What I always will remember is going to a pancake picnic in a village hall afterwards, where pancakes were served and you could put on as much maple syrup as you wanted - yummy! The only thing that bugged me a bit was that the pancakes were accompanied by sausages. I carefully kept the sausages apart - to me they just didn't go.

Its a valid question and the answer would be that unless there is a drawing for the base for the image, it should go into another thread on its own or to a thread dedicated to that medium. First and foremost, this challenge thread is to push drawing skills which should be the base. Colour is an added bonus. Yes some sketches can be direct in watercolour or oil, but they demand a different set of decisions over drawing and could demand a thread of their own.

This a very quick sketch of the commander-in-chief of the maple syrup operation.

15 minutes, faber castell 2 HB draft pencil on Strathmore sketch pad 9x12in.
The reason for a few minutes sketches is to develop the ability of capturing the essence of a reference in a few quick lines.That's why challenges are so great in this respect as they provide the opportunity to do so to one or more reference photos keeping you in shape for later and more elaborate projects.
Thanks for the challenge, Paulette.

Maybe we should have a monthly watercolor challenge? I set one up just in case.

Great topic! IslanderNL, could you lead a thread on the subject ? For example, "Watercolour, how I proceed". Each of us has his (her) own way to draw with watercolour. Personally, I draw directly. At most I use a sharp pencil to have some very very slight coarse highlines, then draw with colours. Sometimes with several layers (six, seven) very very slowly, drying each time with a hair dryer. Othertimes (most often) I use large quantities of water. It seems there are dry and wet techniques of watercolour. Others draw all details then colour flatly. You should lead this topic, IslanderNL. You are a great and appreciated prof! Noblesse oblige!


ADDED: Sorry, I have not seen that mmgalitz has just opened a thread on watercolour, classically, with (beautiful) photos. Other media are however admitted. The topic I suggested is different, we should be clear to avoid misunderstanding. Thank.

Managed to get some work done on this .

It was never my intent to derail the drawing challenge by adding a watercolour. However, its leading to some interesting discussion that we can take to the thread mmgalitz has created.

mmgalitz, good idea to add a thread for watercolour. If it were my thread, I'd limit it to two weeks and offer just one image. Yes a single image may not appeal to everyone, but often when we push ourselves to create something outside our comfort zone, we learn a lot. Just my thoughts on it and no need for you to change anything.

Elena, nice sketch. Its good to set limits for yourself to try to improve hand/eye coordination. In art classes, we start out with gesture drawings that range from 10 seconds to a couple of minutes before moving on to 30 and 60 minute poses. Learning to see shapes and put them down almost without thinking comes with time and practice.

NVA, I'll try to share in a separate thread how I create a watercolour. Yes, there are a number of techniques with watercolour to give different effects. As with everything, practice and understanding how paint and water and paper work help enormously. I've been doing some alternate techniques with watercolour lately which others may find interesting and like to try.

Steve, this drawing is coming on well. The shine is appearing on the metal quite nicely.

Sounds like excellent advice for the next challenge! I'll go ahead stop this challenge for May 17th since I'm leaving town that day and won't be back until June 10th.

I tried to draw your cousin's father-in-law. I used 2H, HB and 4B graphites on cartridge paper.

Thank you Mumwond, pancakes almost always get served with bacon, sausage or Canadian bacon.
My Mom puts out three different kinds of sausage.lol
Great work on the portrait you really caught his look!

Nice work Elena! I like the minimal shading, very effective.

Songsparrow, this is really coming along , the wood looks great and the reflections are starting to come through nicely.
Good job with the perspective!
That whole top piece, the green and wood, lifts up so he can see inside the different chambers.
The wood for the fire goes in at the doors and the ash comes out the bottom.

Sorry, Paulette, I'm just an old fashioned Scotswoman, but bacon and sausages go with eggs. Pancakes are for a sweet! Keeping them apart on my plate worked fine and I had my two courses which were both lovely.

The farmer dog. I draw directly with my pen-stylo. No eraser, of course. Many mistakes, alas!

Hi NVA, I don't know other than the jaw I would say you did a great job.
And as far as the jaw goes it looks correct and well done, just not to the picture, we will call it artistic temperament!lol
This dog would run through the fields in snow taller than him chasing the snow mobile.
It was quite funny, since the snow was melting, you would see him on the top running along then suddenly he would disappear because he hit a soft spot. then he would have to jump out of the snow. It was amazing to see him keep up with the snow mobile.

Mumwond, Jeanette put her picture on her blog and some one else was saying the same thing as you.
Maybe it is a Canadian thing? It reminded me of the way we ate pancakes the whole time I was growing up.
A pancake stack - pancake, over easy egg, pancake, over easy egg, pancake, butter, cover it in syrup.
LOL now I bet that really sounds gross. But boy does it bring back memories. LOL

The first time I had pancakes with an egg on top was in British Columbia back in the 1970's. It was good and occasionally, I'll still have pancakes that way. I also like pancakes with sausage. I like pancakes period. Lately I have been making a whole grain version with frozen blueberries. We only use pure maple syrup in our home.

Jeannette, which image pushes you out of your comfort zone? I'd love you to try the manatee. That looks like a tough one

Got inspired by the maple syrup man!
Thought I would give the coloured pencils a try; here is the result!

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Hello All,

I am new at drawspace and have just been reading and looking at all the art and comments and I have already learnt so much.
I am still new at drawing but have attempted one of the pictures from this weeks challenge - please feel free to give me any tips or comments so that I can improve.

Ciao Tania

Welcome, TaniaBee! Very good drawing! You may like to get more volume by varying light an shadow and make clear the light reflection (just an idea, Tania, your drawing is very good).

Thank you for you advise - I will def try that with my next drawing Thank you for your kind words as well.

Hi Kalinga,
That is a lovely coloured sketch!
He made for a great subject to photograph, even though I had only just met him, he had no problem with me clicking away with my camera. lol Just went on talking and telling us about the syrup and how they got the equipment from one of the local schools, that no longer used it. Funny there were no maple syrup making classes at my school.


Nice work TaniaBee. That little corner, made for a coming together of many different textures, and showed the result of many hours of work. I talked to my Aunt, they had a bumper crop of syrup this year. When I was there they thought it was going to stop, but it got cold and more snow again right after I left. In fact my Aunt says they still have snow piles!

Thanks Paulette!
I think he had that Ballard Street-look, which I love

I only have had maple syrup once, many years ago, when my dad brought it home from a trip from USA. Now I want to have it again! Yum!

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Here is my quick sketch in my moleskin sketch book with a 5b pencil.

Please tolerate e....am just another new comer

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Always....
Unnati

Hi Unnati!
Well done on the syrup pan!
Good to see you join in.

Just want to say thank you to one and all for joining me on my Maple Syrup Adventure.
Give yourselves a pat on the back for putting pencil to paper and getting more practice!

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Thanks Paulette & oliverandjazz for such encouraging words.

Though sometimes the syrup pan looks like as if it has frog in it
I will try better for next weeks challenge

Always...
Unnati

Hello people,

I have seen many works in this wonderful challenge, I ask permission to make my contribution, feel free to make comments.

I do not have many materials, which were used some pencil hb, 2b and 6b do not measure the time for this drawing, but was done in goodwill.

Congratulations to all.

Wosniak,
Wonderful work, I'm glad you were able to join!


Anyone who has started this and still wants to post at a later date may feel free to do so.
You will just have to search for the thread as it will no longer be pinned.