Welcome to the Drawspace Drawing Day Drawing Challenge (whew!) This week's special challenge in honor of Drawing Day has not one but two hosts: myself, and our own RJ Blanchette. We'll be posting new challenge photos throughout the week.

As always, the rules are simple: We post some photographs, you draw one or more, and you post your work. Then we can all admire the results, and discuss them. Post as many drawings as you like! Post them here,

You can get the most out of a challenge by stretching yourself: try something you normally don't draw, or try a new medium, or a new technique. As your hosts, we'll will be more than happy to offer any help we can give, everything from instruction to suggestions to critique: just ask!

Technically, this is a drawing challenge. We want to see work in pencil (graphite or colored), pastel, charcoal, crayon, pen, etc; but if you post a watercolor or two, we won't complain. We generally frown on digital art in these challenges.

Without further ado, here is the first batch of photos. This first set is from RJ's recent trip to Greece.


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I am so thrilled to read about this .. A million Drawings !! Wow .. Thanks for the Challenge Ernest !

Question... Since you will posting new references throughout the week do we wait until the 6th to post all of the drawings ?
Also.. Since I belong to Flickr and Drawspace .. do I post only to one site ?

No, don't wait to post your drawings! Yes, post to only one site!

(Actually, if you want to post your drawings elsewhere, feel free. But please post them here too!)

Steve, that is very cool -- one for the "less is more" file. You really managed to capture not just the subject, but the mood and the light, with a minimum of strokes.

I'm with Steve .. I loved the Man on the Bike photo..

As for posting to Flickr They say if you are doing the Drawing Day to title it so and put it in the Drawing Day set.. so I will just post it as a Man on a Bike Challenge .. That should take care of that ?

Hello to all of you participating in or following this Drawing Day Challenge.

Thanks for posting the photos Ernest.

Just a word about the photos.
I felt that the photo of the man on the bike would make a good challenge for a silhouette type of drawing.
Both Steve and Texas lady have already done a great job with this subject.

I chose the street scene for its detail and the strong perspective.

I liked the ruins for their textures and lighting.

The accordion player looked like a fun challenge for a portrait or as you can see in the other photo the details in the instument and his hands.

I liked the tree on the hill for the stong contrast. It will be a challenge going from the white light to the dark shadows.

I hope that you enjoy these images for the challenge and I'll be popping in each day to give some input on, what I'm sure will be, your great interpretations.

Happy drawing.

A quick charcoal to "understand" the accordion man

Nice sketch NVA.

I also thought I would give the accordion player a go.

I call this one "Street Music". I used 4H, F, 2B and 6B on an A4 size sheet of 160 gr. smooth printer paper for this drawing. I did it this morning so I guess it took around 3 hours. I generally try to get more detail but I thought it would be interesting to just move through the drawing without going back over sections to refine them. It looks alright from a distance.
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RJ, I really admire your patience and the work you put into each and every drawing, even when you sketch. Nice musician !

Thought I'd have a go at the street view. Sketch of the buildings and balconies, HB pencil on cartridge paper. It was fun to doodle after a while away from my pencils. The perspective was fun too !

Thanks for the feedback. You nailed the perspective in the sketch. It would be interesting to see you take it a little further. It is great to have you joining in.

Love the photos RJ, so much exciting texture and perspective ...wow!

I tried a portrait of the music player. Graphites on cartridge paper, measures about 8x9 ins

Thanks Cindy.

Yes there are some nice textures to draw in those ruins, but for the examples of perspective I thought I would give the alley between the buildings a try.
You said it; "Wow!". It took me around an hour and a half to get the sketch done with the perspective lines.
I don't have time to finish it so I thought it would be interesting to show how I sketched within the perspective lines and then how I started to add the detail to the drawing. To finish this I think I would need to spend 4 or 5 more hours on it.
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I love the way you captured his melancholy look. Nice job!

Sometimes a sketch can be very rewarding.
Just sitting back and taking in an image or scene and sketching it out. It's fast, fun and almost always comes out better than you thought.

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Norma! That's brilliant! I doubt I'll ever be able to get to that standard. I have no idea why? But I just cannot get the hang of portraits. Well done you!

Norma this is wonderful. You seem to have a good hand for portraits. Well done!
Trish

RJ, really good atmospheric prospective. This is a quick sketch? Man, you are good!
Trish

Well thanks, folks!!

Accordion Man....

This begs the question, what did you use to create this wonderful drawing? Very well done!
Trish

My all time favorite .. a product called Liquid Pencil .. Derivan makes it .. I believe Jerry's Artarama has it in their catalog.. If you can Google a You Tube Tutorial on Liquid Pencil you can see how it is used.. I like the re-wettable and I use the #9 Grey.. I'm hooked

This is an exciting challenge and I decided I would use the opportunity to loosen up and do quick sketches...lovely reference photos to work from!!!!

Lovely job on all of the sketches posted so far!!! I took a quick shot at the accordian player nothing spectacular just loose, fun and about 5- 10 minutes playing around with it! This was done with carbon pencil.

Enjoy!
Laura

Gosh Laura! This is 5-10 minutes work? So very good! I wouldn't have been able to achieve that after several hours. You did a great job.
Trish

Another small sketch of the man on the bike. Great photo!

Texas Lady I always like your work with the liquid graphite. I often visit your gallery.

Hi Laura, as you saw from my last drawing on this thread I also like to sketch. Mine take a bit longer than 10 minutes though. Thanks for joining in.

Sveta - The credit for the guy on the bike photo goes to my son Nicolas. Actually he took all the photos. Thanks for joining in.

On another note, I drew a black horse with an online drawing tool on Facebook for Drawing Day. If you are a member of Facebook you can see the video of the drawing here

Give it a try.

**Looks alright from a distance** ?? You're kidding yourself - this looks MORE than alright to me...

I tried, but there was a 'problem' - said to try again in a few days.

I don't want to take away from our challenge, but getting to a million drawings will take a big effort from many different sources. In any case thanks for trying.

I did a summer time drawing directly at Pencake. Maybe you can see that one?

Great photos, great drawings. Thanks for the challenge!

Here's my version of the man on a bike

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Lovely drawing! What did you use to create it?
Trish

Thank you.
I used ink on watercolor paper (and it still wrinkled a bit ). Did an underdrawing with graphite, then used a brush to color it in with ink, and finally added some strokes in some places with a pen.

Yes, got that one OK. Fascinating to watch.

Nice work from everyone here. I like this challenge, I also decided to draw the accordion man.
This is a pretty rough sketch that I did in about 30 minutes with graphite.
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Hi,

Thanks for the upload. You did a great job capturing the emotion in your sketch.

Thanks!

Interesting technique. I like hop you managed the deep black for the silhouette without much bleeding of the ink.

Hi All....

The accordian man has become very popular. Nevertheless, here is my very rough sketch of him using an HB pencil on copy paper. Just trying to limber up after a long drawing drought.

Maire

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limbering up or not it is going to go toward the 1 million drawings! Thanks for the upload.

Its been awhile since I have tackled a portrait so I decided to do the music man. Not my best work, but then again not my worse either so I will submit it. Used Derwant Drawing pencils on Strathmore Bristol smooth.

Happy Drawing Day!

Here is my sketch of the music man.
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This one was actually last weeks challenge but I got around to it today so I am adding it here. I'll leave it up to you whether to show it in the Drawing Day or not. Colored pencil on MI-Teintes, had to scan this one as my sweet pup ate my memory card.....

Hi Nancy,

Great duck, and great initiative. No problem with posting an image from last week.

Didn't find out about Drawing Day until 11:00pm local time...so here's what I sketched between then & midnight. H, HB, 4B, 6B graphite pencils.

hi I am new to this site and have just discovered the challenges, what is the time frame on this, I will give it a go but as a learner I am a bit slow.

Thanks for joining in. We'll work on getting the word out a bit differently next time. 1 million drawings in a day is a tough goal. I think it will take a few more years for the organizer to get enough input. So spread the word and keep an eye out for version 2010.

No problem there is a challenge each week. For this challenge, the last day for drawing day 09 was Saturday. But like I said, "Keep a look out for version 2010."

A total of 18 drawings to add to the goal. Not a very impressive figure but for those who participated I was impressed with your work and I thank you.

All the best,