Surprise flower bouquet

I was in Prague on my godchild's third birthday, so last weekend we celebrated it belatedly. I wasn't expecting to receive a beautiful bouquet, though, which was a lovely surprise.

I have no idea what the flowers are called, but they enticed me to pick up my pen and watercolours.

This type of subject is quite complicated to me, because I tend to lose myself in the details and not know on which leaf I left off, for example.

I really took my time for this one, overlooking any impatience that I was occasionally feeling.

Looking back, I know exactly at what moment I should have stopped: the background. Or at least the greenish colour I put on the corners.

Lesson learned for next time!

Trying to imitate Tommy Kane

Slowing down with Tommy Kane

It's already the last klass of this semester at Sketchbook Skool. I have to say I haven't been very dilligent these last couple of weeks... But I intend to catch up on that now!

This week it was Tommy Kane's turn to give us his insights and advice on sketching. I already knew his art and was very curious about this particular klass. I have to say his videos were probably the most entertaining of all so far.

His approach is very different from what is mine right now. I tend to be quite impatient and I think it shows in some of my sketches, so when he tells us to slow down it doesn't quite mean the same to him as it does to me.

His homework was to make one drawing of our kitchen. Nothing complicated with that. However, when he asks us to take AT LEAST THREE HOURS to do it, it gets slightly more complicated for me.

What he wants us to do is to look as long and as intently as we can in order to put in as much detail as possible, work with crosshatching (which I don't master at all!), etc.

This drawing, which took me a bit over two hours to make, was as far as I could get right now. I think I managed quite a bit of detail in there, but I am not satisfied with my crosshatching at all.

I intend to give it another try soon. This exercise is teaching me patience and not to stop my drawing prematurely.

I'm quite proud of the reflections on my owen and microwave, though :)

One more very important piece of advice is to never abandon a drawing, even if we are not satisfied with it. Another important lesson that I intend to take with me along the road. I know that many of the drawings I'm not satisfied with are actually just not really finished.

Latest portraits for JKPP

Here are some more of the portraits I made for Julia Kay's Portrait Party and did not get around to posting.

Constantine's photos offer a variety of funny faces to choose from. Not always easy to portray, but certainly an interesting challenge.

Constantine

I chose the next one because I liked the challenge of replicating the light shining on Amy's face. The lips got slightly too big, but it turned out to be one of my favourite portraits so far.

Amy

Mireille's photo inspired me a immediately. I exactly knew where I was going with it and which medium I wanted to use. Also one of my favourites.

Mireille

On the contrary, with this one I just went with the flow and saw it slowly develop.

Cooper

A few days in the Prague

I was invited to a couple of friends' wedding in Prague, which felt like the perfect occasion to go back to this beautiful city where I once used to live.

It had been 3 years since my last trip to "the Prague", as the Czechs say, and I was very excited at the idea of sketching the city a little (besides meeting my friends, of course). I didn't use to sketch back when I was based there.

However, since I had so many people I wanted to see, I ended up making almost all my sketches on my way there, haha.

There are no direct flights from Luxembourg to Prague, unfortunately, so I had to take the train to Brussels airport first.

and very uneventful, too...

After the check-in I waited about three hours at the airport, plenty of time to do some sketching. Here are a couple of drawings I'm more satisfied with.

Strangely enough, I only noticed this piece after sitting for at least one hour...

Some kids came to play with Budgie when I was almost done.

Once in the plane, I had to make the traditional plane sketch, of course.

It all started from the window.

And now to the only sketch of the city I actually made. It was on my first morning there on Jiriho z Podebrad, a beautiful square in Vinohrady where I remembered some very convenient benches, perfectly suited for sketching.

The weather was gorgeous and I was waiting to meet a friend. This must be the most complicated building I have sketched so far and I'm quite happy with the result.

I kept thinking that I was a masochist and telling myself to be patient and keep sketching.

To be completely honest, I made a few more drawings, but they were mostly doodles not really worth mentioning. I will only post a few graffitis I copied from the John Lennon wall, which is a place I love because it is constantly changing. It looked completely different from my last visit.

"Láska" means "love" in Czech

To round up the whole trip, one more plane sketch. I discovered milk in small paper bags like the ones for sugar. I had never heard of these before and found them quite strange. I guess it must be condensed milk.

I was not sure whether this person was a man or a woman at first. It was a man.