The end result from a long day

I was supposed to have gone to a life class today, however, due to having worked 50+ hours last week I was too tired today to be going anywhere. I also found it difficult to settle to anything and in desparation decided to go and draw the steps in our back courtyard to practice perpective, by way of a follow-up to the drawing of boxes. To shake myself up a bit I grabbed a silver metallic marker and a sheet of dark blue Murano paper.

I found the sloping sides of the old oil tank to the right to be quite a distraction in getting the step edges correct, and as I was using an indelible pen I had to really concentrate. I didn't quite get the upper steps right, and got carried away drawing the shelf of tiles that I forgot the doorway of the logshed bisected them.

Feeling rather dissatified I went back in to type up a commentary on a van Gogh drawing. Having done this, I began to look online for some further information about van Gogh's drawing techniques, and found myself on the website of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. Their interactive kids zone included an online doodling app so inevitably I started to try it out. I find digital drawing difficult and frustrating, this only gave you 4 line widths and black, which I think simplified it no end. I produced a suggestion of a landscape- interestingly drawn with the mouse using my wrong hand- I use a mouse with the right hand but write and draw (mostly) with the left. I then noticed you could print out your mini masterpiece so here it is below.

Feeling rather more motivated at this point I went to try out a new set of conte pastels and produced a doodle which started to turn into a still life, though of eggs or loaves I'll leave you to decide. I worked on Murano paper which although it has a textured surface seemed to get saturated with pastel quite quickly, despite trying to apply it thinly in layers

At this point I was forced to abandon work as shopping, cooking and my son turning up unexpectedly used up the rest of the afternoon, and it wasn't until after dinner that I decided to tackle a subject I see every day- the saucepans lined up on the shelf above the range. As they're cylindrical they made a good subject for my next required exercise. I used a 3B pencil on cartridge paper.

They proved quite difficult particularly the ellipses at the bases, as some protrude over the shelf edge and others don't. Having established the basic shapes they looked quite bland until I had outlined some of the shadow and highlight areas on them.

By this point I really had the drawing jag going and went back to the studio as I realised that I had more than enough cylindrical shapes in there. I gathered up paint cans, masking tape, paint and mediums and arranged them on a table, adding a brush to unify the objects.

I decided they looked best in a square frame, and pencilled in the main shapes before inking with a disposable sepia indan ink pen.
I've left the arrangement as it is because I want to try a version using cross-hatching and contour shading. I also think its a nice group to practice negative space observation, so if the weather isn't kind enough to go out tomorrow I will have no excuse not to draw something!