The purpose of a sketch a day is just to do it - sketch! It doesn't matter if it is an involved sketch or if it is a simple contour or gesture drawing. There are no rules except to sketch each day.
Life parameters can dictate the time investment, but a sketch a day commitment is designed to elevate the personal priority of sketching ... to enforce sketching. Making it into a "resolution" validates the activity (invests it with a bit of a challenge even!) and defends against competing demands. The sketch a day is designed for practice - to reinforce basic skills, and to provide daily contemplation on the issues of two dimensional representation.
Several of us are doing a sketch a day, and I would enjoy hearing from anyone else who decides to join in. We share our efforts, support each other, keep each other honest and... hopefully we'll have some fun doing this!
Click on any of the sketches to enlarge...
and don't forget to check out older posts!
very nice drawing! I'll say it again... you should be a Naturalist, or a nature illustrator. You have such a love, and feeling, for natural objects, and it's evident through the attention you give all the parts of this feather. I'm especially amazed by the way you've drawn around all the little fibers in the feather (not sure of the technical term), instead of indicating them by a sketchy line. You've erased out the highlights, and the fuzzy little clump near the base. You bring real art to the observation of Nature.
ReplyDeleteThank you. I tend to fret, while drawing, over the differences between detailing mechanistically, presenting the feel vs. the detail, re-presenting vs. representing or symbolizing, etc. and lean different ways with different objects but when I end up going with repetitive mechanical detail I at least feel like I'm getting some hand skills exercise at keeping a light touch and varying my touch, and some exercise in self discipline at not suddenly slashing away at it and calling it quits! And, sometimes, the discipline drops away into being meditative and tranquil and then it's a different matter. Anyway, feathers are constructed by multiple lines, standard shading is too... so I didn't really draw around each bit so much as just shade, did erase etc. as you've detected...
ReplyDeleteThis is a beautiful texture-ful rendition! I think it might be an owl feather; theirs are soft-edged and possibly rounder at the ends so they can fly silently. I don't think hawks depend on silent surveillance; they dive fast utilizing speed and surprise to get their prey.
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