Taking the challenge posted my Mark Holmes in his blog -and Liz Steel-, they do this every year. Here some of my sketches. I decided to focus on figure this time
OneWeek100People 2020
Challenge
One Week 100 People Challenge
Following the challenge that Marc Holmes posted in his blog:
I decided to take part this year. I love sketching people. from gesture to expressions, from loose to detailed. I thought this could be a good opportunity to warm up as I haven’t been sketching much lately. Today is Day 4. i will be adding one last day tomorrow. I hope I can make it! I used the Pentelbrush for most of these.
Update Friday March 9 3:04 pm challenge completed!
Large Scale Portrait
I worked through Christmas on a 20×30″ watercolor portrait. I rarely do life size in watercolor, my tools are selected for the scale I work the most, which is 11×14″ or 9×12″ so it was challenging to work with little brushes.
Another adjustment comes into play, being able to keep a good distance from the work so proportions are not off. For this particular job I pre-penciled, which I do very rarely. I wanted to get detail eventhough the provided image was low resolution.
Pictures are flat and there’s camera distortion to be compensated in “selfies” working from life is easer as you can observe in 3D and go around the subject or get closer if needed.
As I wanted to experiment before doing this project I did some practice testing with materials, color, and applications as a warm up. I did one in Prismacolor (previous post), and a couple of small watercolor, both 9×12″
Here they are: (no pre-pencil)
Given the fact that the image they gave me is low res. I decided to go for watercolor.
For the commission, I started with the pencil phase
I followed by inking it
I proceeded with a first wash and corrected the jaw line, it was too wide.
The completed first wash, dried
I applied the other layers
The final work
In the end I realized that I need a big mop brush to do a more splashy background and hair, but there is always next time!
Likeness was good and layering I think was ok. I’ll try with a more detail reference image next time, and see what I can do.
The Arches paper is 300lb cold press which is great for layering as much as needed and good support.
I used Daniel Smith watercolors for this.
I think I learned something 🙂 and I also need to go shopping for brushes!
I have some videos of the process in my Instagram @laurasfiatcreative
Inktober 2016
Some of my works in ink for this month. One sketch/day following a trend started by artist Jake Parker http://mrjakeparker.com/inktober
Many artists follow this globally every year and it’s nice to see so many sketches in social media all in ink for one month. There are some prompts but I usually do what I feel like. This month I have been having fun with an app: Sktchy where people upload their selfies and you can pick one to draw. The cool thing is that there is a slider and you see the before and after to compare picture vs art and people can comment and “wow” it.
All of these are done in my new Stillman and Birn softcover betaseries and using a Lamy pen, the Pentel Brush and several inks from Goulet Pens
Botanicals
I decided to try a new subject series: Beautiful flowers, with a little more precision than my usual sketches.
For this series, which I plan to sell as notecards I used permanent ink and some, I colored them but I prefer black and white as the watercolor hides my lines because I like to paint heavy on the tint. I’ll try to so a softer more transparent wash next time.
Yet.. I still prefer black and white illustration.
As usual my favorite paper Stillman and Birn notebooks and Higgins permanent ink. The platinum carbon pen is the best for fine lines and it never cloggs. I am becoming very fond of sketching with nibs too.
Here the drawings:
Sketchpad Project -Mini Drawings
This collection of mini drawings are 4″ x 3 1/2″ and part of a big accordion-like sketchbook with 31 squares.
Here are three more of the collection, recently made with Urban Sketchers Boston site visits
First image is one of the gallery rooms at the Museum of Natural History at Harvard; second image is a well know site, Acord Street In Boston, MA; the last one is an interior at the Tower building at Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
These were done with a Lamy Safari EF, the paper feels like Fabriano with texture, not sure what paper is as I was given this little sketchbook as a gift and it was hand made by my friend Di Metcalf who runs an art store in Cape Town SA
Sketchpad Project 2014 Days 1-7
A mini sketch per day
This collection of mini drawings 4″ x 3 1/2″ will go on through the month of August, one/day, done on site, with time-stamp and Geo-location just like last year, same format. At the end of August the mini sketchbook accordion will be sent back to Cape Town, South Africa for exhibition. Thank you Di Metcalf for the sketchpad Project!
Only in Blue
We are a group of 150 artists and illustrators that share work and techniques
https://www.facebook.com/SketchingWorkshop
we often “play” challenges like this in which we limit the materials and try to come up with something creative, then play a guessing game to see who drew what.
We call it Sherlock. In this case, we limited the challenge to just a few list of materials and one color
Drawing trees with twigs
Made some pens from twigs following instruction by artist Ch’ng Kiah Kiean in making your own drafting tools.
Sketchpad Project Days 16-24
Continuation of the project day by day sketch during the month of August this sketches are done with a Lamy SF fountain pen, scanned and the coloring done in Photoshop with my own made PS brushes.
Boston Sketcher 
