I will get better.... I promise!

It is already more than one month into 2012 and no new postings here yet! Perhaps I can embarrass myself into getting into a drawing/painting routine. I still am struggling to keep at it and not sure what the problem is.
If I start putting up my sketch book doodles, I expect that will spur me on to do more practice since the sketch books tend to be pretty rough and ready and not really ready for "prime time"...not that this blog is prime time!
 The only thing I've done in past while of any note is the bird identification cards I gave Adrian for Xmas and I did not scan them before they made into his Xmas gift pile; i only have drafts/preliminary sketches. I'll have to borrow them so I can scan them. I do have a photo of all of them together which I will try to dig up and post.

Mountains

Not sure why I included this; the scan has washed out the low values so it looks worse than it is. I will try to do another using my camera and see if it helps.
This was my attempt at using water-soluble graphite.

Grand Mosque, Manama Bahrain

This was done the weekend before the uprisings; lucky timing on my part.

Quick sketches from coffee shop in Karlsruhe, Germany

Near MEC store in Victoria, B.C.

Mosque in Khobar, Saudi

This has really faded from the scanning process. I drew this one since it is very different from most mosques in Saudi: this is coloured and typically they are plain white.

Book characters - version 2

I have a plan to do a book for Adrian and the characters will be birds; this was second batch, in pastel. Colours are faded from the scanning process, not sure why.

canoe cove marina - new paint job

Fisherman's pier in sidney B.C.

Something new, almost

I've still not done any drawings other than messing about in my sketch books, so I've decided to post some of them from various times this year - if only to show that i'm not completely dead in the water.

These are in no particular order.

Doodles from a newspaper: a pencil and an ink contour drawing.

I'll let you figure out who they are.

Is this necessary??

This is the new home of Indian billionare, Amdani. It is 27 stories and has a staff of over 500 to run it!

Chimp

Yikes...no new postings!!

I will try to get more postings done in new year; I have not drawn much since I've been working in Saudi - i seem to have "drawing block" of some sort. I would have expected that drawing should be a good stress relief etc. However, i don't seem able to get inspired; i'll work it out and get more stuff posted in 2011.

For now, happy holidays and a happy new year.

Practise makes perfect.... or at least better

I came across a quote attributed to an 'old school' art teacher who answered, in response to the question "how do I improve my art?", " take a stack of paper equal to your height, draw until the stack is gone and you will have got a lot of bad drawings out of your system". 

I have to do more drawing and stop worrying about how 'good' it may or may not be. I seem to have 'drawing block' again and I need to just draw. Of course, I won't inflict the results on you via this blog!

Raven - Charcoal

Second Raven in charcoal;

Raven-- pastel

More experimenting with pastels.

Pencil Raven

Not happy with this but I've put it up now. I'll try to fix the shading on the feathers.

Portland Island-sunset

 

A flock of ravens is called a .........

I wanted to check that what I read was correct that a flock of ravens is called a "coven of ravens". According to http://www.birdnature.com/groupnames.html it is NOT. A group of Ravens is a "congress" or an "unkindness". Other interesting ones are  a "tidings" of magpies, a "parliament" of owls [ I'm sure a flock of owls is probably as rare as a sitting of our own parliament!], and a "host" of sparrows. Since unkindness sounds disparaging, i'll go with a "congress of Ravens"

No drawings yet, just trying to be sure the title is correct.