Hello Everyone and Welcome to this weeks Drawing Challenge. Here are some pictures I thought you all might enjoy. They were taken when we went to The Kalahari Resort last month. I believe they are all good pictures and will make a great challenge.
The rules are pretty simple. All pictures must be drawn in either pencil, ink, soft pastels, colored pencils (watercolor pencils are allowed but must be drawn and shown first without water applied). So you may paint the pictures as well but a dry media drawing must be shown first. Ok so here we go....

1. Elephant carving on the wall in the Main Lobby of the hotel. I thought it was beautiful and looked so real I had to capture it.
2. Some kind of flower, suppost to be a sort of african magnolia flower.
3. Rose Bud taken at the resort.
4. Landscape view.
5. Last is my daughter Tuesday, I just loved her smile in this picture!!

So have fun and hope you all enjoy!!!

Great pictuers can't wait to get started

Hi Venus

Beautiful pictures! I hope to try one.......I have my eye on the Elephant.... at first glance I thought he was real ....Just one question...? How often do the hotel staff have to feed the walls....lol..

Hi Venus! I live in Detroit Michigan.

Detroit Mi.....Venus is near there and I live near lansing
welcome to drawspace .

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Here is my attemped .
I did your daughter with HB pencil and rose bud in pastels
You have a nice looking girl.

The tropical flower looks like a Lotus Flower to me. I really appreciate the pictures so that I can practice and hone my art. I have no means currently to place my work online so I apologize to those who would like to see my work. Hopefully with time I will be able to afford to get the needed scanner so that I can also post my drawings, paintings, etc. Thank you again.

greg no worries its not mandatory that you have your art online for us to see .. sure we would love to see it and maybe when you get a scanner we can but until then please feel free to look around and join in on the challenges .. they are very helpful .

My self imposed challenge is to only spend 5 hours per challenge. Thus the reason for only doing the facial.

I don't think I will try to do a portrait in 5 hours again. It's too tough for me. The result is problems with the tones and shading as well as some problems with proportions. The hair alone on this portrait merits 5 hours.

I guess I'll just need to find more drawing time to practice.

Thanks for hosting the challenge Venus!

Wow, Great job on the portraits Meow and Rj!!! I haven't chose one yet to draw, been busy either working or doing my colored pencil picture for the class Jeanette is running. I really want to try the elephant myself, Brian.

Starduskmoon, WOW its a small world, welcome to Drawspace..hope to see a challenge from you.

Wow Bob!

I know you mention you need more time for portraits..... but I think this is fabulous! She looks so vibrant and full of life.


Beautiful drawings Meow 2000!

Brian.

Hi everybody. Being from Alabama I felt I had to do the elephant....Roll Tide! I love these weekly challenges.

Meow .. I like your flower .. I chose to do it as well .

RJ very nice portrait ...

Pencil your drawing is very nice I almost tried the elephant but picked the rose instead

Here is my rose .. it does not come close to Venus flowers ( she is very good at drawing flowers) but I knew it would be most challenging for me .

Kim...that rose sure is beautiful

and Pencilinhand...I really like your Elephant I think it is great....It was not an easy one for me...

here is my attempt....thanks for the challenge Venus

Thanks for your comment Kim, Venus and Brian.

As an armature artist, I have not developed my skills to the point where I have enough confidence to just let loose and bang out a piece. I spend way too much time adjusting and tweaking.

In any case I'm happy that you liked the effort but...

Rj well for a amature you did an excellent job!! I really like it.

Brian and Pencil excellent jobs on the elephants!! I haven't gotten a chance to start yet but have plans to today!

Kim, you are too modest hun, your flowers are georgous that I have seen you do so far. Your rose buds you did are simply georgous and very delicate looking.

Brian David & pencilnhand love the elephants .

rjblanchette you are such an amazing artist .

Kim i always love your work .

thanks all for your nice comments

Ok like I said I was going to try to do the elephant. I don't think it looks too bad but the shading is not all that great. Animals are not my thing!! Like Kim said I am really good at flowers..LOL. It may have come out better if I spent more than a 1/2 hour on it too, but I just wanted to get a quick sketch done.

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I tried the elephant in one hour. I did a few tiny adjustments on the image. Pretty difficult. Was little troubling on form here and there. Used some white for the tooth

Loek.

Brian , Venus and Loek .. nice elephants

Very nice

Greetings from the Netherlands

her smile's very lovely

Greyman beautiful job!! I really like your portraits you have in your gallery.

thanks Venus
I wisit your page. you're doing a wonderful job. I've never seen somebody draws Flowers like you.
I didn't be aware of my talent until age 15. I Drew all my drawings while I was doing another thing. When I draw something I realy get bored, and can't draw wery well. You can notice that my drawings are very scattered. I want to ask how do you draw in long time and so orderly.
I'm sorry my english terrible.

Hi greyman.. Your English is fine.. I really like your art. I love your Manowar poster..

Hello Greyman,

I like your style!

I know you asked the question to Venus, but if you don't mind I would like to jump in to share with you my process to beat the getting bored problem.

I simply break the drawing down into several smaller drawings and draw them one at a time.
For example a portrait with a draw time of 30 hours I would first do the line drawing I might start getting board, so I will put it down and pick it up the next day or when I'm in the mood. The next session I would just draw the eyes. This gives me a good base to judge the darkest (pupil) and lightest (white of eye) tones to better judge the toning I want for the skin etc. From there I would just move onto the next small part of the drawing that interested me. The trick is to be patient and not try to complete those more complex drawings in one sitting.

That's interesting, if you jump from one area to another how do you stop your hand rubbing on the areas you have already done?
I like your drawings, by the way :-)

Hello Andrea,

To protect the paper from being touched by my hand, or anything else for that matter, I use a hand guard. I made my hand guard out of a clear plastic folder. I have a portable drafting board that I use and I attach the plastic hand guard to the drafting ruler that came with it. I'm able to move it around any place I want on the paper. The fact that it is clear allows me to see the underlying parts of the drawing. You can just clip a paper hand guard to your drawing board with two clips. You need two so that it does not move and smudge the graphite.

You are not just protecting from touching the drawing but the paper as well. You need to avoid any risk in getting a palm or finger print on the paper. The oils will not allow the graphite to adhere to the paper correctly and I know of no way to fix this.

Greyman, good question. I spend alot of my time on the computer looking through tons of free photos at various websites for inspiration. I don't do like alot of other artist and draw everyday. Usually, I have to have the feeling to draw when it I sit down and do a piece. I can spend hours on one drawing and finish it within two days. Normally I wait til night time to do anything as I have 4 children and that is very demanding. So in order for myself not to become bored with a drawing I am doing I have to like what I am working on first in order to get the effects I want. Taking breaks as Rj said and coming back to a picture helps as well. Ohh and thank you for the compliment on my flowers, I have always loved the beauty of flowers and really enjoy putting it on paper.

Thanks for all advices. you're so nice...

I'm really enjoying these converations with you about techniques, Bob -- thanks for sharing this information. This is the kind of stuff we really need to be discussing here, IMO.

The picture of your portable drafting board is really interesting. I have a laminate drawing board I use, but it doesn't have the rulers and things, just a pencil tray. A lot of people I know use a piece of paper (I like to use tracing paper for the translucency) as a hand guard, but I've never heard of someone clamping it down. Leaving it loose seems to work OK for me. Did you find you used to have an issue with smearing just from the hand guard?

Hi Ernest,

Quick answer as not to take away from the subject of the challenge. Yes smudging but also movement could grind the graphite into the paper. Although both problems are rare I prefer not to take the risk.

Ok so yea.. this is my flower for this weeks challenge. I hope you like it I used a combinations of 525 2H and 525 F Graphite Pencils to draw it. I really enjoyed drawing this picture.

-veronic.aa 13 yrs old wonder beauty


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Nice job!

Hello again. Everybody's drawings look really great. It's amazeing to me how people can draw the same things different. I like that, always have. I guess that's something really cool about art, you get to see the world the way other people see it.
I wanted to try another challenge this week and I thought this was a good one. I scratched my frist try at it, didn't like it all. I think this one looks better, but I did it pretty quick. Maybe 2 hours. I'm proud of it but think I could have done better. Alot of should of's and could of's about it. But....

I think the elephant is better. But this is nice too. Also it's better than mine. I drew it in about 45 minutes.

Pencil fantastic job on your portrait of Tuesday as well!! Portraits are really hard for me and take alot of time to get the proportions right. So I usually stick to easy stuff like my flowers...lol

Hi Greyman thanks. But mine's not any better or any worse than yours, it's different because we are not the same person. You can't compare your self to what everybody else is doing as far as better or worse. You can get really depressed and stop drawing altogether. Happened to me once, twice, a few times. But yours is very good, I liked it. And you show you've got major talent in your gallery. Very few people in this world can do what you do.
I don't like saying any one is at a different level than some one else, but sometimes that's true. There are people that amaze me and I think I'll never be that good. But if I keep working at it I can learn and grow one day I'll reach a new level myself. So can you or anyone else. If you see something some one else is doing and like, try to add it to what your doing. And pretty soon you'll amaze your self when you look back at your older stuff. Happens to me all the time.
But just always remember your art is yours and mine is mine, it's going to and should look different, just like handwriteing, it belongs to you and no one else. And and your art will always belong to you, even if you sell it, it's still yours, forever.
Who else can say they painted the original Mona Lisa?
Keep darwing, and do not stop. Keep posting pictures for me to look at too.

Greyman, I totally agree with Pencil. Nobody is better than anyone else, some may have stronger areas they are good in but each individual is unique in their own way. I like everyone's art work. I see potential in all. It just takes alot of patience and practice, to succeed in different areas to build out strengths. If you practice everyday for at least an hour or so you'll be amazed how much that little bit of time will inprove one's skills.

Everyone is doing a fantastic job!!

I agree with you but if somebody makes too much more effort from someone else,I think his work of art is better.

Hi everyone.

I would like to congratulate every artist that participated in this challenge. Your work is great.

I didn't have time to participate this time. I hope I'll will have time to draw soon. I kind a miss that. I just come in and check on others work every 3 or 4 days.

Have a good summer.

Mecharver