…and the fungi are everywhere. At this time of year, Nitobe Memorial Garden is loaded with all sorts of interesting fungi. I drop in often enough (it’s near work) to check the progress of things that grow.
Here’s one more quick study that has become a favourite.
August is the fastest month of the year. This year, at least in my neck of the woods, it was the month with a bit of a reprieve. The weather cooled down, we finally got some rain, and the fires burned with a little less intensity. Covid didn’t though – it’s still burning through.
With all the turmoil, Lori and I have managed to more or less keep up our daily drawing practice. We’ll also be posting another little “gallery” of new top ten favourites at some point. Maybe.
Here are a couple of recent daily drawings by myself and also one of Lori’s that I particularly like.
An energetic watercolour sketch by Lori Fillo:
And, finally, I actually managed to finish a painting. I’ve been slowly working on it over the past several months. (That’s my mother standing there.)
Alouette Lake, Acrylic on paper, 30″ x 22.5″/76cm x 57cm
It’s fun to draw people but in situ they move around too much which frustrates my perfectionism. I tried a quick drawing of a friend recently trying to get the gestures rather than ask them to pose for a moment. Sort of worked, but not really – though it’s a good exercise for honing your observation skills and for just drawing in the moment, forgetting about making it “perfect”.
My preference naturally is a willing model or a photo reference for figure drawing. Here’s some quick sketches of a couple of individuals caught in The Vaccination Line, and one of a health care worker from last fall.
Working with light and shadow is difficult (for me). Using ink and wash I did some small drawings looking at light and trying not to get too carried away (as usual) with detail.
Small drawings still, in an effort to keep doing something every day without it becoming an onerous task. I’m working on enhancing the daily drawing practice with more studies, exploring different ways of looking at a subject. With that in mind, I played around with an intriguing image of the remnants of an old tree:
Some evenings I wander about looking for something to draw. Silly, right? There’s stuff everywhere! A thing has to strike some interest though. Like this:
(What exactly made it more interesting? I really don’t know…)
Stymied one evening while lurking on TwitchTV in EricAllenLive, wondering what I should draw, it suddenly became obvious:
And, yes, we’re related. In a pandemic, lurking is considered a visit.