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!

Thursday, March 17, 2011

March 13, 2011

    I had said I would probably do some more of the Girl Scout cookie trays. The last one (March 5) turned out to be more interesting to draw than I had expected, but this one (again in 2B pencil) was turning out boring and consequently I wasn't able to get myself to put too much effort into it. I was grumpy and dissatisfied. 
    I commented to my son; "You know what would save it - if I could put a realistic cookie into the corner of the tray, that would salvage this sloppy hasty  sketch... turn it into something more interesting". Too bad the cookies were all gone. I could imagine the waxy chocolate coating on a thin mint, but I would have a hard time drawing a very realistic one without one to look at. 
    Sympathetic, he headed off to bed then came bounding back - he'd remembered there was still one in a bowl of ice cream in the freezer! Dad hadn't wanted his dessert! The sketch, if not the day, was saved! 
    Of course, I had to lick off the ice cream, rinse it and pat it dry before I could place it and draw it, but it did add the bit of interest this light sketch needed. And of course, having licked the cookie, no respectable person would have returned it to the freezer...
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2 comments:

  1. Amy MannMarch 17, 2011 at 5:50 PM

    What a helpful son you have! I hope you don't mind my saying this, but I would prefer if you didn't use a straight edge... a wavery line has a lot of charm...

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  2. EmMarch 17, 2011 at 7:05 PM

    I don't mind in the least. I will probably continue to use a straight edge though, because my hand has too much tremor to get a straight line when I want it, and I do sometimes want a crisply straight line.

    Here, for instance, I do like the contrast between the wavery, crinkly lines of the interior and the crisper lines of the stronger rim.

    What I don't like about the straight edge lines here is that they emphasize the egregious error in the perspective (so it looks larger on the far side) and that I did not bother to clean up the corners, which to me looks rather like leaving the painter's tape up, or leaving the pins in the garment.

    Sometimes I will agree with you completely, or as here, partly, or sometimes not at all... but I'll always end up formulating for myself more clearly what I like and don't like and why, and what works for me or not, because of considering things you offer. I will certainly usually be more conscious now of the line I'm choosing to use when I do reach for a straight edge!

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