Sketching in the Convent

Today I was sketching in my favourite part of Moscow, Kitay-Gorod. I entered the John the Baptist convent looking for the photos for my Moscow  Daily Photo blog. But instead - you see, I sat on a small stone flowerbed in the shadow and started sketching.

In half in hour the nun came out of this door and offered me the thick cardboard sheet, "No point to sit on the stone, sorry, but I did not find more appropriate type of the seat for you.".

A half an hour later another nun addressed to me: "Why are you sitting here? You can damage our flowers!" Definitely no sympathy to the artists here:-))

At the moment I finished, the thunderstorm started, the signal of the job done right.

Maybe I will add color later. Maybe not.

Rookiepainter Challenge

Pastel, A3

This imaged stuck to my head from the first glance. I have to do it. It is so very new experience for me to draw the porcelain texture on the birds and to do it white.
Jen from Rookiepainter has the talent to collect very interesting image for her 3 weeks challenges. I am glad to participate.
Somehow my hand picked up lemon green for the background. So the name of the sketch is "The  porcelain birds see the grass for the first time in their life". Too long. And sounds like drama.

In the Garden

Next visit to parent's place  gave me few hours for sketching outdoors and indoors.. Such a pleasure.

EDM. The Diagonals

Next task of the EDM challenge was to draw my phone. As I have two of them, it made the task more interesting and allowed to add diagonals to the composition.  When I finished, there were 5 diagonal lines involved. Too much. So I added the water jar, for the balance.

I also post the sketches I did these week, too busy for painting, but with small time pauses for sketching what I see around me. I hope next week will be more productive.

Faces are impossible for me. Every time I am trying to draw face, I fail. So the face here was added in the easiest way possible, at least this monster has nice body and smile :-))

Study Room

A3, Yarka watercolours, Arches paper.
Jeoff Kersey's lesson  from the book "Watercolour Tips and Techniques". His instructions, my realization.

Sketching the City

I try to enjoy every day of our short summer. This sketch is about the park near the Chinese Embassy (the building behind the fence) and about the Chinese man in red shirt, fishing. Now this day is pressed into my memory for long, because of sketching, I mean. When finished the drawing I went to local book store and bought two on sale books, "Etiquette for Dummies" and the "Science of Numerology", 1,5$ each.

I go on experimenting with my camera. It does its best, though I do my best to complex its life.

And one more shot from Georgia, great still life for sketching, I think. All these treasures were standing near one of the buildings, no owner in sight.

EDM # 12

I really like the project EDM. But for a time I was stuck with the drawing challenge #12 "Draw what you ate for dinner". Why? It is simple: I always grabbed the fork much faster than the brush. As a result when it was time to sketch, my model has been eaten. I struggled with myself for a month (the idea to skip #12 is good, but not my style). And recently I saw how my blogging friends Jennifer Lawson and Yasemin  participate so great in the project "EDM 30 days". So I decided to get together, find the will and draw my dinner before it would be eaten.
It was a very quick sketching.
It was the chicken with vegetable ragout. Very tasty :-))

To the Country

This weekend I went to my parents dacha (dachas located around Moscow and these little houses with little lots are very popular among Muscovites, as the possibility to escape the city and enjoy the country on week-ends or full time, when retired). And I did not drive. So here is a piece of the train station, I did it when waiting for the train and added color at parents' place.

Next day I could satisfy my hunger for painting looking at my mother's flowerbed.

Some of the sketches are good, some are weak, all are drawn on A5 drawing paper (which holds water surprisingly good) with Cotman watercolors.

I mixed up the warm and cool colors, received mud as the result.  And a good next lesson in my watercolor studies.
These are same tulips as in the sketch #2. I decided to forget the ink (did the outlines with yellow ochre) and to allow my hand to fly freely.  Aha.

And the little violets finished my "in the garden" painting day.

At Last!

Finally today I had the opportunity to paint something, after a rather vigorous and hectic week. I went to class and finished this still life, begun last Saturday. Of course, hardly anyone wants to try these grapes (yes, grapes, not an artichoke!) :-)) But here I feel freedom, which I do not have enough in the drawings, where the lines should be perfect and precise.



Yesterday we went for a walk in the Serebrany Bor (silver forest), a great park in Moscow, with lakes and pine trees. This picture was shot there. Suddenly we came upon a group of naked men, who calmly showed us there bodies, sunbathing. Whether they were nudists, or exhibitionists, or all together, I do not know. But only men without women. We realized that we wandered into the wrong place and quietly withdrew. No photos taken.

Novodevichy

Today I went to Novodevichy monastery, one of Moscow's must-see. I have never been there before and today was planning to find some special treasures for my Moscow Daily Photo blog (here). And I did.

I also found the scene which inspired me for drawing. I post all together the sketch - b&w and watercolored, and the photo. Without purpose to compare. What the point? I can not overdraw the nature, I enjoy drawing and recalling this scene from my sketch and my photo.






It took about one hour to put the sketch in recognizable shape.
Life is good.