Zig-Zag hair-do

Today I sketch Miss Iris's braided hair for 'zig-zag' item on Wetcanvas's Scavenger Hunt#276.  She just turned 7 yr old a couple days ago.  Done in my A5 Japanese sketchbook with watercolor and pencil.

Merry Christmas 2011

Dear friends, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Best wishes and thanks for stopping by so often. I have been sketching almost daily but my recent schedule and the young kids just overwhelming for me. So I am glad I get to did this holidays sketch.

Seascape memoir still-life

This is a sketch of things I got from several of beach trips.

Fruit & Veggie Medley

I love to sketch stuffs from the kitchen. I find going to the market and buying these models home an absolute art-life-rewarding. The sketches contain, two peppers, a tomato, an orange, and a pink dragon fruit.

The eighteen month baby.

Well, I try to record Miss Lily. She will turn eighteen month in a few days. She is a big baby, husky like a Ukranian weight lifter, and can be very loud and ruthless. Luckily today she was having a nap that I can sneak in a sketch of her mighty legs.

Family sketches

The first one is Miss Lily napping and the other one is when the whole family hang out on sofa watching TV. Done with Faber-Castell pen and Winsor & Newton watercolor in my family sketchbook.

Shoes I rarely wear

This is about 11x12 inch charcoal life-sketching on newsprint paper. Can you believe?... I shipped this pair of shoes back with my other 40 boxes of stuffs from the USA in 2001. I totally forgot where they were until a couple days ago that I opened one of my last box and found them.

Life Drawing Class#4

These drawings are from my recent life-drawing class on newsprint size paper using Chinese ink. The earlier short poses are meant to be gesture drawing, with one stroke of brush to represent a leg, another stroke to represent an arm, another stroke for the torso, etc.... I did not do that well with this earlier part of the class. But later, we had a couple of longer poses (20 minutes) and a few of 30 minutes that I get to play more with multiple brush strokes and negative painting. I think I feel more comfortable at this stage. It was a good learning experience.

Life Drawing Class#3

These are from my 3rd life drawing class. All done with charcoal & the last two with Conte crayon. I really had fun in the class. Today the instructor, Brian Curtin, want us to establish the scale of the model with the reference chair. I found that a bit tough at the beginning to pair both of them together nicely. During the short warm up, I did not do as good as I want but once the class progressed to the longer poses I felt more comfortable with it. The model today was David. He was very good at posing in interesting angles. He said that he used to pose during his time at U. of Toronto for eight years.

Life Drawing Class#2

Three minute poses...



Five minute poses...



Ten minute poses...



Twenty minute poses...



Thirty minute poses...


Yesterday, we learn about shading. The instructor asked us to used no lines. I was having fun with the class again. I started the first few with pencils then switched to Conte crayons later. All done in newsprint size paper.

Life Drawing Class#1

I just went to my first life drawing class a few days ago. It was fun and exciting. The model, Rex, is very good at posing nice angles and the instructor, Brian Curtin, let us feel our way and explore with pencil line only, no shading, no measuring yet. The early poses are series of 2-3 minutes. Then some of 5 minutes. And later a few of 15 minutes. Some of later images were a bit too light to scan well because he asked me to draw with a very light-pressure lines. I can see my progress from can fit only part of the body to the paper at the beginning toward the end of the session in which I was able to put the whole body in the same size paper. Brian, also assigned me to do more advanced drawing. He asked me to draw the model for a few minutes.. then, went to the back of the studio to draw some more but this time from my memory... what a challenge this drill was to me. The session was so fun. I did a tons of sketch but some samples are shown below:

Beginning ... with pencil














End .. with some Conte crayons