Hello Boys and Girls. Me again! I hope you'll all find time ti join in and have a go at one or two of my photos'. I think there is something for everybody here.

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 endeavours 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.


Steve.

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Thank you for hosting Steve!
I love the green on that building.
Nice collection of pictures!

hiya steve, those are some cool challenge pics...i will give her a go later on..today is a busy busy day

Hi Steve,
Lovely variety of pictures. All very challenging, with interesting perspectives and lots of bits to them. It will be tough picking which one to try. Decisions, decisions, decisions...

well i have taken three lol ...very challenging photos .

Thank you girls! I haven't tried any myself yet! Not sure which one to start with? Any suggestions?

Hi Steve... great photos for a challenge. I am going to attempt one or two this week. My 8 yr. old daughter is a budding artist and she would like to try one for fun. I am very excited for her to try this.

~ Chris

Me too! You're never too young to start! I hope you post up her work.

Very good photographes! It's really hard to choose just one.

steve, here i am forgetting what i have learned, i have tried three times (of course i chose the building)

I am reading the eye line here, am i correct..something is still screwy on my start..
this particular start my eyeline is around the top of the head..i think I need to move it up??
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Great reference pictures, Steve!

You need to get a couple of reference lines in to determine the eyeline. So a line down from the roof, and one up from the base will give you your eyeline.

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If you look at the guy in the doorway, and take his eyeline as your starting point! You won't be far off.

You really need to print this out to get any measure of accuracy!

yes i did have to print it out..i did that last nite and ran my lines like you guys taught me and i have it now..I have the baby this p.m..other annoyances at the moment, but I will get this one out soon..I love the challenge pics steve, and I love the perspective challenge it helps me alot to learn..

Well I started with this picture as well! I decided to do this as a pen and wash piece. I have drawn this very loosely and I've left out quite a lot of the clutter. I shall add some colour later. You can see I've used quite a large piece of paper for this. And I did use a ruler and measured quite a lot of what I was drawing. There were quite a few perspective lines all over this paper which I have now erased!

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I cant wait to see the final product...it is awesome already, whacha using for paper?

oh, and i found another way i was messing up too..I was using the side walk instead of the base of the building..I learn everyday...

Paper is 140lb Rough grain watercolour paper.

got to take time to try a least one of these Steve..thank you for the pictures! The train and woman beckons me..

Here are just a few drawings that my kids have done. My daughter loves to draw her own fashion designs and has been fine tuning since these pictures. She loves Van Gough Starry Night and loves to draw the Mona Lisa ( which I am trying to find the multitude of Mona Lisa drawings, Ava gave her Art Teacher at school a lot of her drawings) Ava won a contest at school to draw the cover of her first grade concert program cover, she was so proud of herself. The photo of Ava next to the Van Gough was a trip we took to the Philadelphia Museum of Art , they LOVED the Museum!

Gabe has been drawing these designs for about 2 years (on everything) He gets very serious when he starts to draw it's like he has an imprint of it in his brain and is drawing it exactly as he sees it and if he looks at it when he is done and it isn't what he saw he will crumble it up even if it is great!

When I first started to get more into drawing faces I would sit in front of the computer and watch tutorials on youtube and he sat with me one day and followed along, I was so impressed with his drawing.

The little painting that we think looks like a butterfly Gabe did when he was about 3 years old. I showed them how to fold their painting and see how it comes out and this one was great... so I framed it!

We have always done some type of art project every day whether it is painting, coloring with crayons, tracing. They love to get out all of their art supplies from their "art cabinet" that we made. Everything they need is right there for them and they don't have to ask me for anything because it's all of their own materials... we keep it stocked!

The best ones I have to say are the ones that are "Kodak moments" LOL We are re doing our kitchen and so I told them to make me some refrigerator art... they sure did! What turned out as simple finger painting turned crazy when I left the room for a minute, they finger painted each others faces ...and the walls...and the railings all the way up to their bathroom to take a bath. How could I not take a photo of them!

that is wonderful! keep up the great work kiddoes!
congrats to you for encouraging them as well

Absolutely! Well done kids. Keep practicing!

Thank you! I am so blessed with creative kids with unlimited imaginations! We all learn from each other.

Steve amazing work I also can not wait to see it done .. now I want to give that one a try lol

Hi, guys. Geetings from Beijing. I coul connect to drawspace but not to my blog or blogspot home. Lovely photos Steve. I will be for 6 days staying at Novotel Peace. Wish i could join you drawing.

Have a great vacation Elena. Take lots of photos.

fantastic watercolor, steve.

EXCELLENT WORK..It is a great piece, wonderful job

Steve ... !!!! .. wow... You should be so proud .. the amount of detail makes this painting Wicked Awesome ! I love paintings that keep your eye moving .. so much to take in .. I have to keep looking.. going back and forth from picture to painting .. Very interesting .. You and Kay certainly have the perspective bug.. anything I attempt to do like this looks as tho I was standing on my head trying to get it right.. I get so frustrated trying to make it look right.. Perhaps it's my dyslexia that causes it.. who knows..

Oh My God! Steve! That's freakin' awsome! I don't know how you have the patience to make something so detailed!
Toni.

It only took twenty minutes.

Echoing what everyone else said Steve, but I think maybe you should check your watch. Like Carol said it keeps your eyes moving to take it all in, so much detail. Nice!

Steve,
Will you marry me? LOL This watercolor knocked my socks off! Absolutely gorgeous.

lol. Thank you girls! I love you all. Trish, I'll ask the wife ok?

edit

Just found a link to this place! You should all visit Dublin!

Oliver St. John Gogarty.

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WOW! YOU ARE TRULY GIFTED IN THE WATERCOLOR CATEGORY. YOUR WORK IS AMAZING!

One of them is my wife!

I am totaly impressed steve because I worked on mine for a couple hours at least and this was all I got done then just gave up .. there was so much detail and measuring ...and i still feel like I got some of it wrong lol .

Oh Steve, I think I really messed up this time. But it's partly your fault too, because there were too many good pics to draw...

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how clever! an amazing drawing sipsik..a collage ..just in awe
kat

Now that's what I call putting all your chicks in one basket.. Absolutely genius !!

What a keepsake Steve for your Challenge week..
Sipsik .. You Rock !!

I agree that is awsome how you put it all together and it fits so well ...bravo to you dear .

That's so creative. I really love it

I agree. Just absolutely brilliant! I am amazed that you got it all in? What are you going to do now?

Kim. It was a difficult subject, that's why I left out a lot. Including lots of the bits you've put in. I'm afraid I just don't have the patience for long winded projects! But I like what you've done!

OMG that is truly wonderful Sveta..What an inspiration you are..

today is my day for the building, no babies, mom picked him up way late yesterday, he spent the nite before, didnt go home till 9 pm.
so I am eager to do this today


How did you get your lettering so perfect steve?

You guys all rock!

practice. Draw two lines then divide into small boxes. Put one letter in each box.

Sipsik amazing details, amazing composition, amazing colors , amazing artist. I am not one to worry about time when it comes to my art or anything where I am creating, it takes what it takes, but I am curious is this one that you just whipped out? It would take me a year to just plan this composition!

I didn't checked how much it took, but not very long. I didn't plan this composition, it just happened.

Thanks everybody for your nice words!

Now I'm going to keep working with my drawings from old photographs.

Hi Steve I hope your wife will forgive me for this!! It's the only one I will have time to do this week as I had visitors at the weekend and I'm having two of the grandchildren for the rest of this week. The wee boy, Scott, is 5 and needing school!!