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Today I thought I’d share with you some of the sketches I have completed this morning. Recently I signed up to enter a competition called Create Longridge in which budding artists compete for a £2000 prize by spending all day painting in public in the small town of Longridge. This event has been very popular in previous years and is a great way to get involved in the community and to celebrate the arts.
This is all very exciting, but I have discovered that since applying for the competition I have encountered artists block! I have spent a lot of time looking at previous competitors work, searching new and interesting techniques on Pinterest and pouring through books to get ideas but all of this action has not only failed to inspire me but has also created doubt in my head and critical comparison has sneaked its way in.
SO after an evening of looking at art, a night of dreaming about art and waking up thinking about art I thought that today I would just switch off the comparison, stop the research and just do some good old fashioned sketch book work to get my creative juices flowing.
I decided to do some simple hand studies, using my own hands, so that I wouldn’t get lost in the google images vortex of procrastination!
My first attempt was of the above pose.
I started with a rough sketch in pencil and added water colour gradually in layers, using a wet on wet technique.
I added more layers of colour washes to add depth.
Then I finished the picture with some splashes and splatters to add interest. I liked this painting but I thought that the colours became to muddy so I attempted a different pose using the same techniques.
I started by drawing a very rough sketch to get the basic shapes of the hand on paper.
I then improved the sketch by adding more details and adjusting the positioning.
Next I started adding some washes of colour.
I continued by adding depth, evening out the tone between the lightest and darkest shades and creating shadow.
Until I got the finished product (with the help of few splashes and spatter of course!)
I feel like I’ve got my creative juices flowing again now, and hopefully I can get to practising ready for the competition with less of a critical inner voice!
Mushroom Moon Designs 