Sunday Sketches - playing around with backgrounds

Sunday sketches - rainy days

Sketchcrawl 15 May 2010

Today was sketch crawl day on Lamma Island. Five of us met up in the Green Cottage, Yung Shue Wan Main Street before heading off to sketch this lovely island. Today was 30 degrees and 95% humid so we didn't stay out for long.

The top two images are of one of the pagodas on the island, this one is just behind the fishermen's village. And the bottom image is Vicki, one of the sketch crawlers. Her legs aren't as wonky in real life. I will post a link to everyone's work later this week.

Let them eat cake!

I am on a diet, so instead of eating cake I am drawing cake. This is a little orange sponge cake with lemon icing.

Serves 12
150g unsalted butter, softened to room temp
150g caster sugar
200g self-raising flour
3 eggs
Grated zest & orange juice of 1 large orange

For the icing
Grated zest and juice of 1 large lemon
175g icing sugar

• preheat the oven to 180c. Grease and line the base of 20cm cake tin
• in a large bowl, beat together the butter, caster sugar, flour and eggs until light and creamy. Stir in the orange zest and juice, then spoon the mixture into the cake tin and level the top. Bake for about 30 mins or until risen and golden and it feels firm to the touch. Leave the cake to cool in the tin for 5-10 mins, then take it out of the tin, peel off the paper and leave to cool completely on a wire rack.
• to make the icing, keep a little lemon zest back for the decoration, then beat the icing sugar, lemon juice and the rest of the zest together to make a smooth, runny icing. Using a palette knife, spread the icing over the top of the cake and let it drizzle down the sides. Leave to set. Scatter over the reserved lemon zest and decorate with Easter decorations.
  

recipe from Tana Ramsay's The Market Kitchen Cookbook.

She's got legs!

I had to get my photos taken for my new business. I really don't like getting my photos taken and in my head I am far prettier than I actually am. I was a little disappointed with the results. I look a lot heavier in the photos than I thought I was and I have a double chin!!! So this post is to celebrate the bits of my body I do like. My legs!

Which part of your body is your favourite and what do you do to emphasise it?

Hats off to you!

Aah big floppy hats. Gotta love them! I look terrible in a hat. Always have. From woolly hats to sports caps. I just look funny!

What kind of hats do you like?

My love affair with watercolours

I have a love/hate relationship with watercolours. I find them difficult to use as they're a little unpredictable. I've been practicing with them by painting landscapes - another challenge to me. And have not enjoyed the process at all. But yesterday I used them in a face, and for the first time, I have to say, I really liked using them!

New faces - my creative space

Last week I did the sketch below and told you that I would play around with it. And here are the results!

The original sketch.

In stripes, THE fashion story for 2010. I'm stripe mad - I have five stripey tops and two stripey jumpers so I'm very happy!

I'm kinda liking this blonde version of the sketch.

I adore the orange and grey together.

And this teal blue and grey is good too.

A little Italian flavour, inspired by watching The Sopranos all weekend.

And finally, this one is for an old friend from Scotland who now lives in the US and who bought this sketch!

I'd really appreciate your feedback on whether any of these would make a good print.

Dim sum and then some

The dim sum ladies on the island

Morning from sunny Hong Kong! I got up extremely early today so I could have dim sum for breakfast to ease the pain of getting back to work on a presentation that I have to do tomorrow. Cha siu bao and ha gow are my favourite, which is basically pork bun and little shrimp dumplings. Yum! This food definitely makes everything seem so much better.

I was working on the presentation yesterday too - it's a toughie - 30 minutes! But stopped for a little break to do this sketch. I think I'm going to play around with this sketch later today....watch this space.

Remember to enter the COMPETITION! Details are in the blog entry below.

Mad Men and Sunday sketches

I've had a very lazy weekend. We've not done very much because I was sick yesterday and today it has been raining heavily. So this afternoon, we watched a little of Mad Men. I'm still not sure about Mad Men. While I love the sets and clothes, it's all a bit slow for me. But it's a nice way to spend a lazy afternoon and I did a little sketch inspired by the 50s clothes.

Sunny new prints for a sunny day

Today was a beautiful day! The weather is changing, and it is now sunny, warm and fresh on the island, which put me in the mood for creating some summery sunny prints.

This week's art class - colour!

Just finished Roz Keep's art class on the island. I haven't drawn anything for about a week so felt out of practice but desperate to start drawing again. I've been having withdrawal symptoms! I have even been dreaming about drawing and creating things. Does anyone else experience this??

Today, we learned all about colours, which I can vaguely remember from art classes about 20 years ago! And while it may seem extremely basic - it is so good for me to learn the absolute basics again otherwise I would cut corners by using paint straight from the tube or pair colours that really don't work together.

And I even managed to squeeze in a little sketch of the fishermen's village. The water is REALLY that colour!

Fishermen's village, ink and watercolour, 2 Feb 2010

I can't get enough of nudes!

I love women. I think women's bodies in all shapes and forms are beautiful. So I've thoroughly enjoyed my recent life drawing sessions and then developing these sketches into prints for your walls. Below is how I transform a sketch into something worthy of a frame!

The first drawing was a quick sketch of the model. The second drawing is a photocopy of the first, which I then drew over with ink and lightened on my computer. The third drawing is the ink sketch scanned in and the background changed. I then decided that the style of the head did not suit the body, so removed the head and the arms and this left me with a torso. I then changed the background to pink.

More versions of the nude print for different decors

This one is A4 print with white border and is US$15. The tones in the above print are really soothing and will look great in either a living room or bedroom.

A pink illustration for bedrooms. This is only US$10.

Larger prints will be available soon. Watch this space.

Life drawing

I recently did some life drawing, which was soooo good. I haven't done any drawing of this kind for many years so it was very daunting, but great fun!

I have no formal training in art so a lot of it is instinctive - so some sketches work, some don't! But I like this quick sketch. This sketch is available for sale online as an art print for US$10 only! It would look great in either a white or black frame. (You can pick up cheap but nice frames from Ikea.) Just go to my etsy shop - click on banner on right hand side - or email me direct for my paypal details. Email: queeniebeeart@gmail.com.

Art class on the island

It was gorgeous today for Roz's sketching class at the fishermen's village, Lamma Island. It's been grey, wet and cold for the past few weeks so it was lovely to sit out and sketch while feeling the sun beat down on us. Even if we still had to keep our big coats on.

My sketch is below. I wanted to try ink for the first time because I have seen so many fantastic ink sketches on the http://www.urbansketchers.com/ blog. Ink is a bit tricky though as it's not very forgiving if you make any mistakes (and I made quite a few).

Have a great week!

Groovy baby

I drew this 60s sketch in ink and pencil (top left) and then coloured it in using my computer (using Paint so that's why it's a bit rough). The image below was created by a free ap on my iphone - silly but fun!

Fashionable lady

This is a quick sketch I did in ink. I scanned the sketch in, then made two copies - I filled in her eyes and lips with ink for one of the prints, the other in pencil. Both give very different looks!

I plan to spend this afternoon creating a new Queenie Bee portrait. Watch this space!