3 Materials Challenge: Day 5
I wanted to draw today’s subject “live”—not from a photo—but by the time I got around to it, I felt a little rushed.
I don’t know… I feel like these sketches should be effortless, or at least that I shouldn’t put a lot of effort into them. Lazy sketches where I don’t even try to get everything (anything) “right”. That’s for a few reasons:
- I’m not using a (graphite, erasable) pencil to sketch out, so it would be challenging to capture shapes and get proportions right.
- I want to emulate that carefree style that doesn’t care if things look wonky.
- This needs to be fast, because otherwise it’s too intimidating and time-consuming—and then I’ll want to give up.
Of course, this is more easily said than done, and once I start, that inner critic pipes up. I’m still doing it, but it’s not always easy to keep the enthusiasm!
Anyway! Today’s three materials are a hot pink brush marker from Hello Hobby, another Kalour color pencil (Orange, C003), and a Bic Intensity marker in “Rambunctious Red”. (I like pink, orange, and sometimes red together!)
The subject, as you see, is a sewing machine—one you may have recognized from photos in other blog posts. As I mentioned before, I drew it “live”, though I’m not really sure what difference that makes, with an inanimate object like a sewing machine.
The Endless Art Challenge
Before I decided on a whim to start the 3 Material Challenge for January, I’d already come across a different type of art challenge that caught my eye.
“The Endless Art Challenge” is simple: It’s a deck of 90 cards that can be mixed and matched for creative inspiration. There are 30 cards in each of three categories: Subject Matter, Color Inspiration, and Wild Card. You take one from each section and make something based on those three prompts. The idea is that you interpret these prompts through whatever medium (or mix of media) you like.
The back of each card is decorated with a different artwork, and another option is to use one of these for inspiration—redo it in your own style, as they put it.
You can strictly follow the first three cards you draw, or you can keep shuffling through them until something clicks.
For my first challenge, I really wanted to just do exactly what each card suggested.
First prompt: Architecture. Okay, sounds good!
Second prompt: Pop of Neon. Well, probably not what I would’ve chosen for myself, but I guess that’s the idea!
And the Wild Card says…
“Make It a Self-Portrait”
…What?
Okay, fine, there are probably a lot of ways to make something that incorporates both architecture and self-portraiture, but to be honest, I just wanted to do something easy on a Saturday afternoon with not much time before supper! So I just drew and colored in the first thing that had popped into my head when I read those three cards. That’s right, I drew a house with a face and hands.
If there are any children in the room, send them away. Shield their innocence from the nightmarish result of my first Endless Art Challenge!
This is easily one of the weirdest and (for some reason) most disturbing things I’ve ever doodled…
But I gotta say, the resemblance is uncanny! I really captured my essence in this bizarro self-portrait.
Okay, not really. I didn’t even try to do a self-portrait, because I can’t think of many things I’d less like to draw! I’m not a self-portrait person. Should’ve asked when I was five! The house-woman is wearing glasses (that look like a bandit’s mask), but that’s where any resemblance to me begins and ends. (Thank goodness!)
After all that “must follow the cards faithfully” stuff, I didn’t even really manage to get a neon in there, did I? The marker I used for touches here and there was supposed to be neon, but I’m not sure it worked. Oh well.
This was obviously awful, but I won’t be beaten. I’ve already started another art challenge from the cards, and I think it will be better than the first. (It almost has to be better, right?) I’ll share it here, when it’s done.
Snapshots From Home
Walking by the atrium door/window this afternoon, I did a doubletake. There was a segment of pine tree trunk suspended nearly horizontal, cradled in the limbs of a crepe myrtle at the bottom of our back yard. !!!
This was unexpected! We’d been home in the house, playing a game, when it must’ve happened, and we hadn’t heard a thing. Yes, it was a bit windy this afternoon, but nothing particularly violent. We hadn’t even noticed that the tree (just outside the fence) was dead, or at least hadn’t thought about it recently. We’re lucky it didn’t hit us or one of the dogs. Part of the trunk broke and fell in the yard, but the other part caught in this crepe myrtle, breaking a few large branches in the process.
There was still daylight, but it was fading fast. We didn’t want to leave the trunk there, in case it might fall on one of the dogs, so we used the electric limb saw to cut a few branches, then managed to wiggle it down to the ground.
We’re expecting frigid air in our area, this week. Our pipes are wrapped up, along with a few other minor preparations. I hope we’ll all make it through this without too much trouble with frozen pipes or heating issues!
A line of unsettled weather will be moving through later tonight, and when I went out with Luna for a few minutes, earlier, the sky was beautiful. It was my favorite night sky— a mix of clear and clouds, with the moon illuminating the fast-moving clouds and making them seem to glow as they rush on their way. There’s something absolutely magical about that type of sky. There’s something magical about the wind itself. It makes the world come to life and gives you a sense of possibility and anticipation. If I had to choose between a world that was always still or one that was always windy, I’d go for the wind without hesitation.
