Hello, fellow artists,

This is Elena hosting this week, inviting old and new members to participate with their sketches and drawings in our weekly challenge.

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.

Here are my pictures :

a hat as cold weather sets in in the Northern hemisphere.

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firewood for that chilly November night of the first snow

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three quinces ready to eat or for that jar of jam of granny's.
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oops, down the alley comes a lizard on a sunny day in Southern California

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and a bunch of rose hips for that cup of tea rich in Vitamin C(they say that rosehips contain 20 times more vitamin C than citruses)

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Wish you all having fun drawing any of these references graphite or Cp, charcoal, pastels, etc.

mmmm nices

Let me open this challenge with my sketch of the rosehips handful.

2HB and 2B on strathmore sketching pad, 9x12 in.

Great sketch Elena!
The pictures all look good too.

Thank you, Paulette.

Hi Elena

good pics as per usual!

Did a ten minute sketch (very rough!) of the quinces - chinese marker used

old picture of horsey
done in graphite

Hi Vicki, good sketch. Bravo!

Daniela I like your horsey.Por que no tratas de dibujar el sombrero de mi foto.Parece facil.

And my charcoal of the hat.

Hi, Helena
Here is my first contribution, hat in charcoal
Will come later during the week,
An

The hat seems popular this week. I tried it with soft pastels. Tried to upload, but said too big, even though I resized it to 480x332!

It went on to My Gallery! Don't know why it wouldn't go here.

Hi, An. Nice hat.

Norma if you have a drawing ready and doesn't upload do the folowing: Upload it to the gallery then copy the image link in the box right to the picture on the page and come to this thread and click the Insert image button and copy the link and there you are.
I can show you how to do it.

Norma's hat.

Thanks Elena. I'll copy that info. and use it the next time I have a problem. I usually don't have any bother uploading, but this afternoon Drawspace just wasn't being nice to me!!

Norma try to do it now and I will erase it from my post.

Oh Elena - I'm hopeless!! Tried out your instructions and landed up getting 'uploading' for over 2 mins. TRied a couple of times and kept getting it stuck uploading!!

Never mind, Norma. looking at your rendering of the hat I can say:chapeau(FR. hat off, bravo!)

Same handful of rosehips in oil pastels. Suggestions to improve it welcomed.

The colors are amazing! really caught the fabric the depth!

Elena, great choice of images. Your rose hips are very well done.
Vicki, great sketch.
Daniela, a great picture of the horse.
Elena, lovely hat, I think I'll try this one next.
An, great hat.
Norma, a lovely hat with great detail.
Well heres mine. I thought i'd have a go at the apples first.

Great drawing, Paul. Only that the fruit's name is quince. They are fall and winter fruit in the Northern hemisphere, natives of Black Sea and Caucasus.

Here is my pic of the apple and quinces.



I hope nobody minds my being pedantic about names but i think it's important to name our drawings correctly as long as they reflect a real life object.

Hello all you challenge lovers,

Thanks again for hosting Elena. The pictures are very good for the challenge.

I see some new faces here as well. Nice to see your drawings here Daniela and Alexandra. I don't believe we have met in the challenges before, but then I could be mistaken.

I went for the hat because I wanted to challenge myself by changing the light source. I had to use my imagination to try and make the lighting believable. It seems to have come out okay.
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I used a 6B, 3B, F and 4H graphite on some smooth printer paper. It took me around 3 hours to draw.

Nice variety in the challenge so far. I'll be watching for more art here as the week progresses.

Have fun,

Hello, RJ.Thanks for joining.
The hat looks good, yet the concave shape in the hat's crown left out is the the most interesting point of the reference and a challenge in its own right. But is was your choice to do it this way.

Hi Elena,

Your right. It's actually there but the scan is a bit bad. I upload this second one after playing with the contrast a bit. You know me, I always try to be inventive with the challenges. It's a good exercise for me.

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Thanks for your feedback.

Here is my take on the hat, done in graphite. My first post here.

Welcome to the challenge and Drawspace forums, Rhemoria. Your hat is excellent.

I bet by the end of this challenge we will have a nice collection of gentlemen hats ready for exhibiting.

Hi there, here is a wip if the logs in CP.

RJ A great hat. You set yourself a great challenge and I think you succeeded.

Rhemoria You have made a great start, your hat is superb.

Elena A great start on the logs.

Just a quicky of the lizard.
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Thanks Paul your drawing came out very well also. You did a very good job of rendering and handling the light source.
I liked your signature too. It looks like an easel. Was that the intent?

great sketch, Paulette.

I'm not good at shading and lighting but i tried. What do you think?

HI, Rohan. I think that the shapes are great and with practice you will be able to shade and highlight properly. great start!
Thanks for participating in this challenge.

This is my attempt.
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Great hat rendering, Odo.It looks fine to me even on the head in your avatar.

Thanks for participating.It's so much fun to see how our collection of gentlemen hats is growing.

giving it a try...

Hi katdyd. Nice quinces.It's just great to see new people taking part in this challenge.Thanks for joining in, katdyd.

Finished the logs but they seem to be a mediocre work; some combination of reasons, among them not my best week of artistic peformance.
Caran d'ache and Rose art cp on stonehenge pad 5x7in.

Paulette, A very good sketch, you have captured him very well.

RJ, Thank you. As for my signature, its my initials one on top of the other. P + A. I use this as a quick signature some of my other works have my full name. Some other artists in the past have mentioned that it looks like an easel.
As Bob Ross would say ' Happy accidents ' .

Rohan, great start, well done.

Odo, A superb hat very well rendered.

Katdyd, Great quinces, well done.

Elena, Well done, a great version of a complicated picture.

Hi Philomuse,

Your drawing and proportions look pretty good. You should go through the lessons in section F (Hatching) and G (Shading forms). Master those and you will be on your way to working out all those shading problems.

thank you for your advice, I'll definitely check out that lesson.

A very quick and very inaccurate drawing of Mr. Lizard. He has the cutest smile! Great photos this week Elena!
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Wow, Sandra! It surely smiles your lizard. Good job on his tummy, too.

10 minutes graphite sketch of the quinces.



I will have to fix the shade on the middle quince and rescan.

Thanks! He's a real cute lizard - large too! How big do they get? We only have the small ones here - about 6 inches in length. I want to add more detail to him, maybe I can get time this afternoon!

This photo is a close up. He wasn't too big.Maybe the tail...

my attemp at the lizard

Very good sketch of the lizard, Rohan.
What i want to emphasize for the lizard as well as for the quince is that the cast shadows are part of the challenge in this case rather than isolating the subject.
Please take a look at the lizard photo and notice the cast shadow how it blends into the belly area.Only in Paulette's lizard it shows.

This is so much fun, each time I post a new drawing I learn something new. Thanks for the advice, I will apply it in my next drawing

New definition of shape and volume by eliminating the lines and creating volume by value drawing.



as opposed to the contour lines visible in the initial sketch.



For realistic drawing one should concentrate on tonal value rather than on liniar shape.It's so easy.