Module A Exercise 1

Woke up to the sound of banging and sawing...Tommy the roofer's back from his holiday :-)

David was playing golf at 11am so after lunch I headed to the study to get started on the first proper exercise on my drawing course. I really should have had the exercise completely by last Friday (I spent far too long on the warm up exercises last week, one of which I've put in extras) as my phone pinged mid afternoon to tell me Week 2's exercise was now in my inbox!  

From now on all the weekly course exercises will be completed by the Friday so I am ready to start the next exercise on the Monday.  I don't want to fall behind!  I wasn't planning to take my sketch book to Skye but I think I will as I am sure I will be able to squeeze in an hour or two while we're away and take the pressure off cramming it all in when I get back.

My first reaction at seeing the reference picture last week (D still not printed it for me so had to work from the photo on the lap top) of three onions, a garlic bulb and two cloves was how boring but I soon learned it was anything but.  

As I did as I told and focussed on shape, form, curves, lines, tones, highlights and shadows, the onions and garlic slowly disappeared before my eyes.  In their place came a collection of interesting shapes and textures and I became totally absorbed in capturing their likeness and working out their positions relative to one another, the negative spaces between them becoming just as important as the shape of the object themselves.

I stopped to answer the door (delivery) and realised my right hand was aching.  I'd been sketching for almost two hours!  It does say the exercises will take 2 - 3 hours to complete but they don't have to be completed all at once.  It's something I will have to be careful about as overdoing it could easily lead to pain and stiffness in my hand.  I will have to be smarter with my time management especially as crocheting Nikki's blanket will also be hard on my hands. 

Anyway I plan to upload my weekly course exercise sketch along with the warm up exercises so that over the course of the year I will (hopefully) be able to see some progress :-))

Backblipped perfect gift :-)