Drawing and Sketching for Art Class

In the Monday art classes I'm taking at On-Track Studios -with Pam Padgett teaching - we are supposed to do a lot of sketching.  We were "assigned" to do three sketches before tomorrow's class.  Okay, I did my three sketches - plus another small one, and I can see where sketching could be helpful.  It makes you look at values more closely - proportions, depth, perspective etc.

To help with sketching - using charcoal so it's black and white - I can take a photo with my phone and then save it in black and white.  Then I use that black and white photo to help me see value as I sketch.

This first photo is from an online group on Facebook - the Art Sherpa.



And this is my drawing of it.  Rather elementary-looking, but at least I have the general shapes.  I want to paint it and see if I can make it better in color.



I set up a couple of still lifes in my studio.  I only sketched the one below.  I photographed the other one and will save it for another day.  It was interesting to me how, when I converted the photograph below to black and white, the flowers seemed to have almost no shading.



So the black and white photo made the still life much less interesting to me.  The flowers became white blobs (to me).



My drawing reflects my disinterest in it.  I tried to get the background dark - which meant I had charcoal dust everywhere!  It was a mess!



I took this photo of the lighthouse when we were in Maine back in September 2016. When I saw the pink flowers blooming, I stood beyond them so they'd be in the foreground with the lighthouse behind them.  I really want to paint this scene one of these days.

Now I see that the lighthouse in my drawing is leaning to the right.  LOL!  However, I can also see how sketching it first will make it easier when I finally paint this.



Last winter Ron and I visited a farmer that was processing and selling his farm-raised beef.  We bought a quarter of a cow, I believe.  This cow was standing in a pasture right beside where we were talking to the farmer.  So I snapped some photos.  I've wanted to paint this ever since then.  Sadly, I think this particular cow was the one the farmer butchered for us.  He mentioned that the cow was in that pasture to get him ready to be "processed."  I try to not to think of that sweet face when I get ground beef or roasts out of the freezer now.  LOL!



I only began on the drawing of the cow's face.  I've got to enlarge the ears.  It's pretty amateurish, but I think it's recognizable as a cow.  So at least there's that.