For quite a while a lot of my daily drawings have been of miscellaneous foliage rooted in various yards throughout random neighbourhoods. Foliage is not my favourite subject and it was getting tiresome. So we decided to try “Theme” weeks to get our interest piqued again and to keep up the daily drawing momentum (we haven’t skipped a day yet!)
We started pretty simple by choosing from “animal, vegetable or mineral” and picking a subject from one of these areas. The first week of June became “Rock” week, and, except for one lazy evening when I quickly drew a portrait of Dwayne Johnson on my phone, the results were a lot of fun and turned out OK. (Actually, drawing Dwayne Johnson was fun too.)
Pencil drawing with watercolour wash and pencil crayonPencil drawing with watercolour wash, charcoal pencil and pencil crayonPencil drawing with watercolour wash and pencil crayon
Which leads into the next week which became portrait week and when I got obsessed with doing a decent sketch of BC’s Provincial Health Officer. Normally, I can capture people but for some reason, as the week progressed each sketch looked less and less like her. I’m posting the first drawing which is the best of a bad lot. One day, I’ll get it right.
I can’t believe I’m working on daily drawing #122. I’m afraid to take a day off in case I lose momentum.
Artist Lori Fillo and I have set up a gallery page showcasing 20 of our daily drawings – 10 each of our favourites, or at least 10 that we’re reasonably comfortable with displaying. And we’re going to keep going! In fact, Lori’s just texted her latest (I sent mine earlier today for a change). I’m not going to wax on about how helpful and supportive this exchange has been, but I would recommend it to anyone, particularly for artists like me who struggle to keep a practice going while holding down a “day” job. Sometimes it’s hard but it’s amazing what you can come up with even when time is limited (and even if it’s just a quick sketch on your phone. Yes, I’ve done this.) I’ve pleasantly surprised myself upon occasion, and I have to admit my composition has improved big time.
The drawings are “as is”, not colour-corrected, not adjusted in any way – just as we texted them to one another. Authenticity, right? Here’s the link to the “A Drawing A Day” Gallery.
This cartoon might be a little subversive – is Mother Nature responsible for the Pandemic? Is she feeling bad about it? But now she’s thinking that there are some silver linings so maybe all the suffering won’t be for nothing? Daily Drawing April 20th:
Roar Radically: UBC’s Bill Rees, Professor Emeritus of human ecology and ecological economics at UBC, talks about Not “Roaring back” to our pathological, polluting and wasteful “normal” economy once we make our way through the global pandemic (Times Colonist, April 19, 2020). Instead, actually seeing how phenomenally the environment responds to decreased human activity – once we take our feet off the gas pedal so to speak – should make us use this terrible time to help plan a comeback that, as Dr. Rees puts it, “repairs the social and ecological harm the current system creates.” It’s Earth Day – here’s hoping.
Best of 100
A few more days and I’ll have reached 100 consecutive Daily Drawings! My fellow Daily Drawer has already reached that goal. So, what we’re going to do is each select our 10 favourites and post them on a separate gallery page on my site in the next week or so. Stay tuned!
