My Second Blog

I am very glad to say that from the day I decided to do it (towards the end of May 2012)  I have been quite regular with my "30 minute" sketches. In fact so far, on the days when I have not had the time to sketch during my lunch break, I have come home and managed to do one to keep going at almost a sketch a day. And I have been posting these sketches in my second blog to track my progress.

 I am hoping to achieve two things through this exercise: 1. To improve my quick sketching skills. My aim is to be able to sketch fast without sacrificing details (or at least the illusion of details) and to do that with a refined technique, and 2. To develop my watercolour painting skills.


Last Saturday I kept to my resolve to paint every weekend and did one small watercolour sketch - a landscape in monocolour. This one took me about 30 minutes but, when it comes to painting, I have decided not to impose time restrictions on myself since I will only be doing it at home and probably only on weekends.

 I had actually planned to do another one on Sunday but wasn't able to do that. Hopefully I will manage a cople of watercolours this weekend. Let me see...

I propose to share some (but not all) of these quick sketches on this blog too on a weekly basis. If you would like to see the rest of these quick sketches, or if you would like to know anything about the sketches that you see here, you could check out my second blog, Racing Against The Clock.

From Pen & Ink Projects and Challenges to Lunchtime Sketches

I was overwhelmed by the comments that I received for my last post and I thank all of you, the ones who appreciated my sketches and the ones who have encouraged me to take to painting and even offered suggestions on how I could get started. I have taken the suggestions to heart and soon I hope to start posting here in colour too. But, before I get to that I would like to finish what I started, which is a short account of how I have progressed to where I am today.

As I mentioned in my last post it was around 2007 or 2008 that I decided to concentrate on pen & ink. I was already a member at one online art community (WetCanvas) and I joined one more (I Draw & Paint) around this time. At both of these I started participating regularly in the monthly pen & ink projects/challenges. The drawings that you see here are some of those that I did between 2008 and early 2012 at these two communities. 

 Although I am fairly good at self motivation, I cannot overstate how much being a part of these two communities has motivated me to draw and has helped me develop my skills.

During this time I also tried my hand at watercolour a few times. These two were done late in 2010 and unfortunately, due to my lack of confidence in wielding a brush and the effort involved in setting up to paint, I have not put in the necessary time and effort since then to take my painting skills any further. Hopefully that will change now because I have drawn up an action plan to which I am publicly committing myself.

During the three months and more since my last post I spent hardly any time painting, drawing or even sketching. Finally, about two weeks ago, I decided to at least do one lunchtime sketch at work each day and post it in a new blog (to track my progress). I am happy to say that I have been fairly regular so far at this. Starting today I also plan to play with colour over the weekends and see where that takes me.

My thanks, once again, for your good wishes and encouragement.