Cats!

I slept better last night and was awake and up by 8am!  Woo hoo.

As it was such a lovely day, D asked if I wanted to go for a run in the car this afternoon with my camera for a photography day.  I was sorely tempted but having looked at my to-do list (before swiftly hiding it!!) I decided to stay home and try and get this week's assignment for my drawing course finished...well started.

After lunch I headed to the studio but before starting my assignment (a still life of fruit) I got the painting I'd been asked to do by my friend R (after she saw a previous one I did) mounted and ready to post to her.  It's a gift for a friend of hers who's visiting later this year.  It will be heading home with her to the USA.

I thought the drawing assignment would be quite quick, after all it is fruit, not as complicated as figure drawings, but it took me just under two hours to the point in the extra pic.  I didn't realise maths was so heavily involved in drawing (maths was never my strong point) Well geometry to be exact!  It's as much (or more) about  the angles of objects in relation to each other and the negative space between them, as it is about the objects.  Although I've erased most of them, you can still see some of my guidelines in the extra shot.  I am finally learning to draw what my eye actually sees and not what my brain thinks it sees, which is actually very difficult.  

At first I drew the bananas as I thought I saw them but it looked all wrong.  Because it was!  lol. I forced myself to stop drawing bananas and just draw angles, shapes and negative spaces and suddenly it all fitted.  I am hoping the more practice I get the better I will become at ignoring my mind's eye!

I started shading, starting in the darkest darks but went a bit over board with the Mars black 7b pencil so the apples and two grapes I've completed so far do look rather black.  I am hoping it will all balance out once the lighter tones are added!  Stopped when my hip began to lightly protest.

Indian takeaway for dinner so we could sit back and enjoy the BBC2 evening of Kate Bush.  She is 64 today.

Happy Birthday Kate!  And well done Sydney :-))

And thanks for the links on FB this morning Jen :-)))