Trombone Sketch

I was listening to some ska music off youtube earlier today, and it inspired me to sketch a trombone. I would highly recommend checking out Alpha Boy School. I was thinking about a conditiom/skill that some have, where they see music as colours. Each tone represents a different colour. I even know someone who has this. It is called synesthesia. I wondered to myself... if i had to associate a colour with this ska music what colour would i use? I think i'd have given it a nice golden yellow... warm with touches of brown within it. This line of thought led me on until i decided it was time to try sketching my trombone.

I love the way a brass instrument hits and reflects the light. I find trombones to be especially beautiful, with their simple lines and smooth flow. Of coarse, this has nothing to do with the fact that i am biased towards trombones, being a player myself :).



I am so pleased with how this came out. I love the smoothness and the shading here. Very proud of this :). I am very happy that my sketching is progressing.

Sketching

I bought myself a sketchbook a couple days ago. I bought a fairly nice one, with watercolour paper (just in case i feel the need). I like the thickness of the paper, and the smoothness. SO much better for drawing than in my altered book... essentially on pages in a book, glued together. The glue left bumps, they weren't thick enough, they had text on them... it just wasn't working for me. As fun as my altered book is, i think i am ready to step things up a bit :).

The skull was drawn yesterday, looking at a skull sticker i had. It was practice for the skulls on yesterday's 'Styx' ATC's. Today, i was at Kelly's blog, Soul Humming (which i adore) and saw a post of a fabulous piece someone created from recycled junk mail (by the way, happy earth day all!) I loved the lines of her face, and decided to try sketching it. I am still not at a point where i can sit and draw without looking at something and sort of drawing it in a VERY similar way, but i think this was good for me, as it was in a different incompatible media, and i was not able to simple replicate what was already done. I am quite pleased with how these sketches turned out :).

Buddha Sketch

I have been getting braver... I have always been avoiding sketching and drawing. I often feel dissatisfied with results, and feel nervous whenever i am drawing. However, i know that sketching and drawing skills are an important part to making art. So, a good way to get over this is to just jump into it, and keep trying.

I was so pleased with the Tribute card i created, i have stepped up and tried another project using sketching. I found a beautiful pic of a buddha statue online, and so i'm trying my hand at making my own sketch.



So, this is my sketch here in my 'practice book'. I bought a book at the second-hand store. I have made pages with painting, sketching, collage and much more. For many of these ATC's and other projects, if i want to practice a technique before putting it with the more expensive materials etc. Maybe i'll post more pics later? I am thinking of going and buying a sketchbook instead of this book here though, i find the text in the background can occasionally be a welcome texture, but often is distracting of clean, clear lines. I could always add the pages i've created so far into the sketchbook. I really like Mary
Ann's hand made sketchbook that she has posted on her blog. Maybe something like that could be cool?

I could wait and see what the journal i get from the swap i did a couple months ago on swap-bot turns up. I am beginning to think i got burned on that one, as it has been over 2 months since the due date for the swap and i still have not received my journal as part of the swap. Sigh. I put so much time and effort into the one i sent away (as you may have seen in posts from about a month ago) that it really sucks to get burned, and have nothing sent back to me in return. I really hope the person i sent mine to (which is a different person than the person sending to me) likes the one i gave them, because that would make it better. Sigh. THen again... the one to me is coming from Singapore. Maybe it's still on it's way?? I am hoping against hope for that.