Tractor doodle 2

Still practicing grid creation for the January push.

Tractor doodle

I plan to do a nice drawing per day in January next year! Slowly getting back.

My favourite sketches of 2013

Here are my favourite sketches of 2013!

Golden Pass train

Holidays

Again plants from imagination. Very short session!

Quais Fleuris 3

Did this half page from memory. I am back using stabilos, even if the line is less clean .

Quais Fleuris 2

Sketching again before rowing session. Not much time for practice this week it looks like.

Quais Fleuris

Drew some plants from the lake promenade. Will do more of this this week.

Lombardo building

Sketched shortly this small building at the train station. Architecture drawing is hard ;)

Balcony

I am again in Montreux. Quick doodles on some plant there. Not much time today.

Recovery day

Could only complete this tractor from imagination today. I did in in the tram, it was difficult to do straight lines.

Tractors

My son and I took a box of chalks outside. I asked him what he wanted me to draw. ;)

Pop corns

Did a page of popcorns. Experimented with different way of doing things. It was quite relaxing :)

Aloe doodles

This week will be plant week. I started it with those Aloe plants from memory. Using again the fountain main, which I am getting used to.

Locomotive Notes

Here are the notes I took about the proportions of the 3 locomotives I draw last week.
What's missing here are the width indications.

I plan to practice drawing these 3 locs from memory in the upcoming days as warmup. Here is an example.

I did this page with a fountain pen, a Lamy Safari instead of the usual  Stabilo. 

Very nice pen with very equal line but unfortunately, it's difficult to vary the line width. Will try to use it this week.

Am843

Had only time for 2 am 843 loc thumbnails today !

Tram 2000 "Pony"

This is a type of tram running in Zurich. They are in the process of being replaced by a new generation of tram codenamed Cobra.
I dig up blueprints of this tram to check the proportions.

Tomorrow, will try to do a review of the 4 locomotives I have done this week along with notes how to draw them.

Crocodile Loc

Worked on the Ce 6/8 I, the "crocodile". Wanted to play around with the markers but it didnt work very well. ;)

C 5/6 locomotives

Wanted to learn how to draw a basic steam locomotive.

I used  the classic C 5/6 "Elephant" swiss loc as "reference" but I simplified it to make it more tractable ;). Quite happy with the last one!

Am 843

Did again a page of car (inspired by the Riley Sprite 1936)

And also started on the am843, my favourite locomotive here in Switzerland.

Convertible doodles

Tried to sketch from memory the 1934 Riley Spitfire I saw yesterday. Here are the one that I can show without being to embarassed.

Even if it's not very clean, clear or accurate I liked doing it because I could focus on just drawing.

Oldtimer Treff Zug

Was at a gathering of classic cars today in Zug.
Here are the side views I did. Atempted some 3/4 but got lost ;)

Arthropod Weekly Review

Re-sketched all the arthropods I did this week. From imagination with reference pictures to do the details.

I like the fly best and the mosquito the least. Next week, I will try the same workflow (memory vs. reference) with locomotives.

Grasshopper

Attempted grasshoppers today.
As usual this week, a page from imagination first, to sharpen my attention. Haha, how embarrassing.

Then after browsing some reference pic and taking notes...

Last pic is definitely over rendered. Not a very good day today but I learned a little bit about grasshoppers.

Stag Beetle

Today's insect is the stag beetle.

First, tried to draw it from memory. Big fail as usual haha. ;)

Then I took notes from photo references and tried again.

Spiders

No insects but I wanted to sketch an european garden spider-like spider, which are very common here in Switzerland.

First I did a sort of brain dump sketch, i.e a sketch of what I remembered (i.e not much).

Then I dig up some reference pictures to see what I missed (shape of the abdomen, size of the legs, ect.)

And tried again.

Comparing with the reference pics, the proportions are still off but it's an improvement over the first attempt. 

Mosquitoes

This week is insect week and today is mosquito day. I sketched them from imagination with the help of photo reference to better understand how they are built. The top left one is the first I tried. The rest were selected from the next ones. I sneaked a nautilus I saw in Vienna. Fun stuff.

Flies

I did some thumbnail studies of flies. First few are from memory, then I used reference photo to help me spot the mistakes and the last two were done from memory again.  Wings and legs perspective are the big challenge. Also the leg posture is something I don-t understand very well.

Vienna Natural History Museum Day 2

I spent the whole afternoon sketching like a mad man at the Vienna Natural History Museum. Here is the raw result.

Some sketches are not very good but I am happy I can draw that long, almost 3 hours.

On the plane back, I tried to draw what I remembered. 

Line is a bit dodgy but I like this exercise.