THURSDAY, JANUARY 11 @ 7:00PM ET on YouTube & Twitch
It was just a matter of time before we devoted a full week to drawing CATS!
We will be joined by our friends from @beateasel on Twitch - our very first mini ART HANG PARTY! raid train! It’s very exciting. Andrea is usually streaming as we are ending, so we often go and visit her after and hang out watching her paint incredibly realistic and weird things. She’s starting her stream early so she and her community can come hang out and draw with the ART HANG PARTY! community! It’s going to be a very fun time!
It was Andrea’s choice to draw cats, so I have a bunch of very silly cat poses lined up for us! Can’t wait!
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Next ART HANG PARTY! will be Thursday, January 18 at 7pm et on YouTube & Twitch
Theme: TBD!
Do you have an idea for a future ART HANG PARTY! theme?
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Watch past ART HANG PARTY! replays here
THIS WEEK IN MY SKETCHBOOK
MONDAY, JANUARY 1 2024!
Happy New Year Friends! 🥳
Let’s start it off with a fun scribbly time in the sketchbook, shall we?
Last week I took some photos of naked trees at the Music Garden (a park just down the street where my fav local willow tree lives), and here’s one of them. I used my little 3-colour watercolour set and laid down very loose blobs of colour, then patiently waited for it to dry (by patiently, I mean I got out my little hand-held fan and furiously waved at it, then used my brush rag to sop up the still-wet bits). I then used my Sailor fude fountain pen to add very scribbly linework overtop.
I think if I could only use three colours for the rest of my life it would be these!
If you remember from last week, one of my goals this year is work on illustration. Growing it as part of my business and expanding my skills. To that end, I remembered that Sophie McPike did a portrait class with Sktchy a few years ago, so I searched that out and got to work!
It was pretty much my whole afternoon and evening, but I watched and followed along with the course bit by bit and it was great! I really enjoyed how Sophie explained her process and gave little tips along the way.
And I’m really pleased with how my illustration came out! I opted to keep it quite graphic in nature, whereas her demo was a lot more contoured and textured and refined. I did that bit too, but I liked the hard shadows so I went with it.
Now I must find more reference photos and do 1000 more of these!
TUESDAY, JANUARY 2
998 more to go, LOL!
I spent some time during the day working on another portrait illustration. This one is based off of an old fashion illustration from 1957!
And here’s one from pexels that I did in the evening while watching the Celtics game.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 3
And one more to make 4! I now officially have a little collection, and have added them to my website. I think they look really nice together!
Now I need to go have a play in my sketchbook and get my hands dirty…
And what better way to do that then with a Scribble Brigade session with Sophie McPike!
The theme was “A New Leaf” where we did a bunch of 3-minute leaf studies. I pulled out the Kuretake paints (I’m going to stop calling them watercolour because the are more than that) and had a nice time letting the colours mix and do what they wanted on the page.
I actually totally forgot that I did this spread before Scribble Brigade! The left is a blind contour drawing of a propagated plant that sits on our kitchen counter, and the right is the same plant but using the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen. The background is some leftover acrylic paint from my raspberry painting.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 4
It was packaging day at ART HANG PARTY! I knew as I was pulling together the references for this week that it was going to be an enjoyable time drawing them all. Well, not all of them, because I pinned 122 photos, LOL.
Digital felt like the move today as there was so much colour on colour, and I used the Neocolor II-ish brushes for their yummy texture. We set the time at 5 minutes, which I was thinking was going to be a luxurious amount of time, but in reality still resulted in some slight panic. Perfect 👌
FRIDAY, JANUARY 5
I didn’t have much on this afternoon so I decided to set up my camera and film a little sketchbook session video!
It’s been really cold the last few days, like -10°C or colder, so when I came across a photo of people running into water it very much brought on summer vibes (even though it was a photo of a New Years polar bear dip!)
I pulled out my Holbein HWC watercolour set, but only used the Gamboge Nova, Quinacridone Magenta and Turquoise Blue, with a touch of Shell Pink. I was really loose with the colour, then also really loose with the Sailor Fude Fountain Pen overtop.
Do you ever just start something on a whim with zero plan but feel so compelled to finish once you start that you can’t stop?
Let me introduce you to every single paint colour that I own!
I haven’t counted them, but they measure just under 4 inches stacked, LOL.
What am I going to do with them? I have no idea!
SATURDAY, JANUARY 6
It was Art Date day with my friend Susie! After having some delicious hand-pulled ramen for lunch we headed to the Art Gallery of Ontario to check out the new Keith Haring exhibit.
Susie made a really cute reel of our day! (I’m planning on a little vlog, if it all comes together)
We took our sketchbooks, of course. I wasn’t even thinking about the Keith Haring exhibit when I picked out my very minimal supplies to take. Black, ultramarine and neon pink colour pencils. Just three! Who am I! They were perfect.
After the Keith Haring exhibit we made our way down to my happy place, the Group of Seven wing. We kind of breezed through it as we were kinda ready to hit the art store next door, but I did snap some photos of some Tom Thompson landscapes with fantastical skies.
We had an Art Disco livestream this evening (Ray plays house music and I do art on his Twitch channel) so I thought I’d so some studies in my sketchbook.
I used the Kuretake paints and Neocolor IIs. First I did the backgrounds with the paint, really loosely and just focused on best matching the colours and shapes in the reference. I tried to keep it abstract, not worrying if the paints mixed on the page when they touched. I worked on one paintings background, then moved on the next, and the next… Then I went in with Neocolor II to up the saturation even further and do a little blending where necessary.
I’m sure the replay will be up on Ray’s YouTube channel soon, which you should definitely check out! His set today was so good!
SUNDAY, JANUARY 7
At the art store yesterday I picked up some canvases for my painting collection (memories of my Grandma’s garden), including this cute ‘lil guy! I’m too lazy to go measure it right now, but I think it’s 6-inches square.
My grandma’s favourite flower was the rose and she was known for growing them. I’m pretty sure she had rows of them, but what I remember most is the trestle that sat alongside the laneway that was always covered in sharp thorny roses.
I based this rose off of the one that lives on my left forearm. When I got my tattoo of my first dog Dexter, love of my life, I surrounded him with flowers that represent all the strong women in my life. Well, not all, but most. My grandma (a rose), my mom (a lily), my two sisters (a dandelion and a lily) and my aunt Ruthe (a tulip). Oh and 4 little cherry blossoms for my nieces :)
On my tattoo, aside from Dexter, the rose takes pride of place. I like that I chose a small canvas for this one. I think it being so small, when all the other pieces are done, will make it stand out. That’s my vision anyway.
I applied a layer of neon yellow acrylic to the whole canvas, then went in with neon pink, red and white. It was looking a little flat when all was done, so I made a thin glaze of neon pink and applied it over the full flower to up the saturation, which worked well and kind of brought it together!
I still need to add a background, I think. Maybe. I kinda like the in-your-face-ness of it as it is now. I’ll let it rest on my shelf for a few days and see how it feel. What do you think?
Here is a photo of the freshly completed tattoo - the colours are getting faded seven years on! But I still love it!
VIDEO OF THE WEEK
Here’s the video of the quick little beach scene from Friday :)
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Ok, that’s it for me!
See you Thursday at ART HANG PARTY!
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Cats sounds like a good and funny theme! 😹
Here’s the link to Ray’s set from Saturday! https://youtu.be/7mY-Pxh8xfU?si=40n43LWafG43D17A