Learning to Draw – My Go To Project

On November 19, 2019November 18, 2019 By Dartmoor YarnsIn Drawing, Sketching6 Comments

As I’m sure you know, I like to draw in natural light, but with the shorting days of winter I’ve been struggling more and more to do so. The other morning I woke up half hour early – while it was still dark – and wanted to get half an hour’s sketching in before I had to get on with the day. I’ve been thinking for a while that I ought to try the standard art class exercise of drawing the corner of a room.

Thinking this was something that the quality of light wouldn’t mater so much for, I decided to make a start on drawing one of the corners of our kitchen dinner.

20191118_12212100 — Obviously this photo wasn’t taken that first morning. And, no, I’m not going to draw all that junk on the table.

I quickly realised this sketch was going to take quite some time, but that was fine, because the walls, windows, curtains and table weren’t going to get moved in between. It was something I could pick up when I had some time to draw, but it didn’t matter what the light was like until I wanted to work on the shading.

This is how far I’ve got having spent a couple more half hours on it…

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So nice to have a go to project I’m happy about drawing in dimmer light and don’t feel any pressure to finish in any particular time frame.

Until next time,

Bekki x

Sunday Sevens 2019 #34

On November 17, 2019November 16, 2019 By Dartmoor YarnsIn Sunday Sevens16 Comments

Welcome to my Sunday Sevens – a post where I share seven (or so) photos of my week away from the blog.

We’ve had yet another week with a ridiculous amount of wind and rain. To make things worse the temperatures have dropped to an very unseasonable level. We even had snow on Wednesday. The last time I remember snow in November was 30 years ago.

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To make things worse the central heating decided to play up…

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Unlike the last couple of weeks I’ve managed get out on more than dog walks.

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On Wednesday I went to a talk by ecologist and wildlife artist John Walters. John draws all his subjects in the wild. After the talk he gave us a demonstration of his techniques…

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And on Friday we went to the Camping and Caravan show..,

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Couldn’t believe the size of this ‘caravan’…

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Inside was a home from home…

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It even had a fake fire and full screen TV…

And finally, I had a few complaints last week that Harry was too difficult to see camouflaged by ferns, so this week here’s a slightly easier ‘Where’s Harry?’

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Until next time,

Bekki x

Scrap Happy Christmas – French Knitting Christmas Cards

On November 15, 2019November 28, 2019 By Dartmoor YarnsIn Christmas, christmas knitting, Scrap Happy26 Comments

While I was rummaging through some of the girls old pencils that I’ve held onto (just in case) I happened up this…

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I don’t remember them having one, but they must have.

I’ve never really liked French knitting. It’s fun, but what the heck do you do with all those knitted worms? Any sensible suggestions would still be most welcome.

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I put the knitting dolly back in the bag of pencils, but my subconscious clearly didn’t forget about it, because when I thought about making some Christmas cards, I realised worms knitted from scraps of yarn can make Christmas wreaths and candy canes.

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20191114_15545500 — I inserted florist wire into The candy cane to keep it bent.

Once the knitting and stitching was finished, I rummaged in my box of ribbons salvaged from Christmas crackers.

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I also dug out a couple more ribbons salvaged from elsewhere, but I can’t remember where..

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Tied them in bows…

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And attached.

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I printed Merry Christmas’s on some cream paper…

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… cut them out and stuck them, along with the candy canes and wreaths, to card blanks.

Christmas Wreath Card

I even personalised some.

Candy Cane Christmas card

If you like the idea of using your scraps, click on Kate or Gun(first two names in the list below) and join us on the 15th of every month – or just those months you feel like joining in. Here’s a list of both frequent and occasional Scraphappiers (?) if you want to see what everybody else is doing.

Kate, Gun, Titti, Heléne, Eva, Sue, Nanette, Lynn , Lynda,
Birthe, Turid, Susan, Cathy, Debbierose, Tracy, Jill, Claire, Jan, Karen,
Moira, Sandra, Linda, Chris, Nancy, Alys, Kerry, Claire, Jean, Johanna,
Joanne, Jon, Hayley, Dawn, Gwen, Connie, Bekki, Pauline and Sue L.

Learning to Draw #5

On November 13, 2019November 11, 2019 By Dartmoor YarnsIn Drawing, Sketching, Uncategorized18 Comments

We’ve had such miserable weather over the last week even the daylight hours haven’t offered much in the way of decent light to draw in. And even when it has been reasonably bright, it’s rarely been when I’ve time to draw.

On the positive I’ve found time to draw every day – although I haven’t managed an hour’s worth every day, which is my goal. Here’s what I’ve drawn…

Quite pleased with this one – especially as I was battling fading light at the end – apart from the thickness of the veins on the bottom leaf…

Anyone remember Ugly Mugs? BTW the light was coming from the other direction to the photo when I drew it.

Again the light is different in the sketch to the photo – still, allowing for that I’m not too pleased about this one…

Big mistake with this one. I should have concentrated on the bridge, but got distracted by the details in the background and ended up hurrying the bridge as I was running out of time. The massive shadow on the left – which I ignored – also made this hard to see sufficient detail. I’ll draw this again I’m more proficient and when I’ve taken a better photo…

5-10 minute sketches…

And finally, the pine cone hubby brought home for me…

This was hard! And looks more like a pineapple. Another one I’ll be returning to when I’m more proficient.

Until next time,

Bekki x

Sunday Sevens 2019 #33

On November 10, 2019November 9, 2019 By Dartmoor YarnsIn Sunday Sevens10 Comments

Welcome to my Sunday Sevens – a post where I share seven (or so) photos of my week away from the blog.

Although there’s been heaps of rain and lots of flooding again this week, it is finally beginning to look a bit like autumn…

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Harry blends very nicely with the changing colours of the ferns, which means it’s time to play Where’s Harry? He’s visible in all these photos – I promise…

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As well and torrential rain and sunshine, we’ve also had thick hail – well you know what we say in the UK, If you don’t like weather, wait 15 minutes.

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To help keep warm I made some Butternut Squash and Red Lentil Soup…

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This year the fungi seem to have been reluctant to show themselves, but finally they seem to be appearing. Unfortunately this cascade of toadstools looked much better in real life…

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Once more I’ve mostly hidden inside this week apart from going out for dog walks, but I did make it out to book group. We discussed The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neal Gaiman. Some people very much enjoyed it, but although it was inventive, I felt it was far too much of a junior school age children’s story for it to be presented as adult reading matter.

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Hope you’ve had a great week.

Until next time,

Bekki x

Stumpwork Embroidery Ta Da!

On November 7, 2019November 6, 2019 By Dartmoor YarnsIn Embroidery12 Comments

I started this a while back thinking it would be a a nice quick project. It’s the first stumpwork embroidery I’ve done, but that’s no excuse for being so slow. I was slow because I got distracted by other projects. But finally I’ve finished….

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The pattern is from Sachiko Morimoto’s book Stumpwork Flowers. There’s quite a few pretty flowers in this book, so I’ll probably be having a go at a few more.

Until next time,

Bekki x

Learning to Draw – Perspective

On November 5, 2019November 4, 2019 By Dartmoor YarnsIn Drawing, Uncategorized4 Comments

Saturday before last I had a good chunk of time to myself. I was getting a bit bored working on shading, so decided to learn about perspective.

I started by watching a few YouTube videos and reading a few tutorials about one point perspective. I then worked on the exercises from this tutorial.

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I then looked through some of my photos and chose some suitable for drawing in one point perspective. I started with this tunnel…

It seemed like a nice simple drawing and the construction meant I didn’t even need to rub out my construction lines apart from at the entrance…

I didn’t shade fully as it seem a waste of time and graphite.

Next day I attempted a sketch of one of the streets I took a picture of when we visited the Netherlands…

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I simplified it a little by removing the bikes

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At the end of the week I had a go at working on two point point perspective. I chose this picture…

Having drawn a fair amount of detail I realised I’d drawn one line going back to the wrong vanishing point and ended up rubbing most of my sketch out. I then realised that although the door looks as if it comes out of the wall at the bottom left of the door, the pub sign runs flat along the wall above it! Knowing this was impossible, I put the sketch on hold until I pass the pub again and can see what the heck’s going on…

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