One Drawing a Day; week 2

In case you don't remember from last week, I'm participating in an online 'Artsy Book Club', the brainchild of blogger Cassie Stephens.  Our first book is One Drawing A Day, and we have just completed week 2 of the 6 week adventure! 

So week one started in a drab way, with the day 8 assignment to do three portraits of someone done in different media: one with charcoal, one with pencil, and one with ink (I used my bamboo pen again).  I'm not gonna lie; I was not feeling great and was grumpy when I started, and I got grumpier the more I drew.  Isolated in my grumpiness, I drew myself.  Here are drawings 1 & 3.  Drawing 2 is in hiding and has decided not to appear on the blog!  (Let me put it this way: am not particularly a fan of drawing with pencil.)

 

 

But then, wonder of wonders, the day 9 assignment finally let us start using color!  Hurray!  As per the instructions, I played with crayons,  first tracing my hand, and then adding letters, numbers, and whatever other symbols or doodles I wanted.  It was fun. 

On day 10 we had to do another portrait, using color inspired by light and mood, with pastel chalk and colored pencil for added line.  I decided to redeem myself by drawing myself yet again, attempting to smile even though I still had a touch of the sniffles.  

Day 11 assignment was to use watercolors washes for a quick sketch of an urban setting.  I put it off, claiming all sorts of excuses.  Day 12 was no better.  Using watercolor crayons we were supposed to make monoprints of a monument.  It was a monumentally unexciting idea to me, and... Well I put it off again.  I still haven't made up either of those days and don't know if I will.  But at least I did do some creative stuff, getting out in the fresh snow a bit with my camera.

Day 13 was a still life using colorful line. I tried it with colored pencils, didn't like it, and then tried again with water soluble crayons.  I wasn't crazy about it then, but I'm feeling better about it now.

Day 14 made me feel like myself again.  It was fun, and cheerful.  We were to use tube watercolor for shrubbery.  I don't have any tube watercolor but I do have gouache, and I haven't used it in years, so I thought it was time to get it out and use it.  The world is all white outside, but in my home I have a sunny bay window filled with happy house plants, so that's what I used for my subject.  The idea was to use no pre-drawing, just to squirt paint directly on the paper from the tube, and then use a wet brush to pull the color out in washes.  That's exactly what I did.  Here's my painting:

Hard to believe two weeks have already sped by since we began this project! I'm a little nervous about some of the challenges ahead, since the book will be sending us out to busy places to sketch people.  That seems intimidating, but I'll find a way to give it a try!