EDM 33 An Eye

Bella is Italian for 'beautiful' and my girl Bella is just that. Just a pencil sketch, but I enjoyed it. That fur can go on and on forever can't it?

EDM 32 Something Metallica

Hillary and I went to Auckland Museum and chose a Spitfire plane in the War Memorial section to draw for our "Something Metallica". It wasn't a huge plane, but in a small space, it was difficult to get right. So difficult that I decided to choose this old money box instead, and vow to go back and have another try at sketching the plane.

EDM 31 Something You Collect

I have a love of handmade wooden things, especially dolls and old toys. This is my collection of French Wooden dolls.

EDM 30 A Chair

This is THE MOST COMFORTABLE chair in which to think, read, drink coffee, natter, sketch, be. Sketched with a Staedtler Triplus Fineliner in about half an hour. Another "no fuss" approach to this task. I am enjoying the fact that quantity brings with it courage in drawing. 'Just Do It' is my new guideline.

EDM 29 Something Architectural

Have been grappling with perspective for the last 3 weeks at art classes. Love this local church and am pleased with my "no fuss"approach to this sketch.

EDM 28 An Appliance

I chose a shaver for my appliance, because they don't get much use here in November - in support of Prostrate Cancer Awareness, the men grow moustaches so it's called "MOvember ". This was my first attempt at using a fine black ballpoint pen and not too shabby a result I thought.

EDM 27 A Book or Books

I guess this pile of books sums up quite a few of my interests. For sure, I never get tired of their contents.

EDM 26 Anything You Like

This cute little pin cushion was give to me years ago by a fellow calligrapher and sits on my desk. It reminds me that we all need to hold hands to make the world go round.

EDM 25 A Glass

Pencil sketch, water colour pencils but no water used. I found the angles interesting; I always seem to pick a difficult arrangement, but then I enjoy the challenge of drawing it, and hopefully it's of interest to the viewer too.

EDM 24 A Piece Of Fruit

 

A nectarine. And a bit of work to do on fruit.

EDM 23 Your Foot

Found this challenging, probably because my foot was resting on a footstool and the angle was odd. The curve of the arch took lots of trial lines and lots of erasings. I thought the shape was simple, but no. Well, it's all about a challenge, isn't it.

EDM 22 A Piece Of Clothing

Crazy design, designed to drive you crazy trying to capture it with w/colour pencils.

EDM 21 Something Old, Antique or Vintage

Probably not what you'd expect for this exercise, but my beloved Book Press is definitely Old. I bought it 6 years ago and it was in a real mess - rusty, dirty, paint peeling, inhabited by spiders. I enjoyed restoring it to it's present beautiful state.

EDM 20 Something "Dad"

This is a bit teary for me - Dad passed away last year, and I'm still finding it difficult to deal with. Parents are such special people and you only get one set, so tell them you love them while you have the opportunity.

EDM 19 Something You've Made

I handmade many of these beautiful bookmarks. They were purchased by friends for gifts as well as for themselves. I kept only two for myself, and this one adorns one of my very favourite books.

EDM 18 A View From A Window

It is nice to back onto a reserve. Many varieties of birds visit on a daily basis, as well as neighbourhood dogs with their owners. When there's no dogs around, my cat Bella and I sit in the reserve and enjoy the peace.

EDM 17 A Musical Instrument

I lived in South Africa for 2 years (many moons ago), and this is one of my very few souvenirs from that time. A cool instument.

EDM 16 A Favourite Tool

We have a local French Market that operates mainly on Saturdays. It's amazing. It's called La Cigale. I bought these for $10 and they are just the coolest tool for chopping herbs in triplicate!

EDM 15 Tree, Trees, Leaf, Leaves

I sat on a boardwalk bench with the wind tossing my hair everywhere, and my watercolour paints balanced on my leg while I painted this - not bad, considering!

EDM 12 What I Ate For Dinner

Baked Beans on toast! Bean There, Ate That.

EDM 14 What I See When I Get Up In The Morning

My favourite book, given to me many years ago by a very dear friend. I use it as a perpetual calendar with friends' birthdays noted in it. I'm a cat lover and have never become tired of the beautiful cat photos in my "Cat Lover's Companion".

EDM 13 Telephone

Thank goodness for this old 'phone in the laundry - it's the only one that works during a power cut.

EDM 11 Glasses or Sunglasses

I got my sunglasses out of the car and casually dropped them on my desk and this is how they landed. A bit of a challenging angle, but it made me look very very closely at them and I enjoyed drawing them.

EDM 10 Your Hand or Someone Else's

My EDM partner in crime and I got together for a day and worked on a sketch. I drew my hand holding a coffee cup, looking at it in a mirror, but I couldn't get the foreshortening of the back of the hand right. The next day I was having lunch with my father-in-law, and surprised him when I asked him to stop eating while I took a photo of his hand, and voila! This is much better than my first attempt.

EDM 9 Organised Chaos

One of my very favourite things in my studio, is this wooden box of stamps that I have made. They are mainly carved into corks, or have been carved into an eraser and then mounted on corks. A huge challenge considering my very limited experience with the unforgiving watercolour medium, but after a lot of effort, I am quite pleased with the result.

EDM 8 Watch

I should have picked the gold watch - trying to paint leopard pattern is tricky!

EDM 7 Jar Bottle or Tin from the kitchen

MMMMmmmmm Manuka Honey, a specialty of New Zealand.

EDM 6 Favourite Toy

This toy is a sheer delight and it was enjoyable to draw.

EDM 5 My Bed

Who'd have a bedspread quilted in 1" squares? Me! It's white so I didn't try to paint it as I found it challenging enough to indicate the gazillion squares. Obviously the cat was of more interest to me, but she wouldn't stay in the same position for very long.

EDM 4 Draw Your Mug

I am really pleased with this! Things are looking up.

EDM 3 Purses Wallets Bags

Quite enjoyed doing the wallet though I now have a problem with the paper in my sketchbook. It's Canson Montval 185g watercolour paper and it's not handling a lot of water very well as the colour is pooling and creating an undesirable effect and I'm not experienced enough to know what to do about it, other than try and use less water.

EDM 2 Lamp

I'm lovin' this drawing challenge - it's making me look at things very long and hard, and see details I've never noticed before.

EDM 1 Shoe

Second attempt at this shoe - the first one looked like a shoe worn by one of the seven dwarves. Shape's a bit off, but the drawing's progressing Ok for a newbie I think.

In The Beginning ... Day 4 - Breakfast

Somebody look at my picture and said "nice tamarillos". Duh. Tomatoes on Toast. I must need more practise. Didn't realise how difficult it is to draw toast - all those holes !!!!!!!!!

In The Beginning ... Day 3 - Breakfast

I hadn't seen Lisa for ages and we caught up for breakfast on Day 3 of my new drawing programme (which she didn't know about). She thought I was nuts when I took a photo of my meal so I could draw it when I got home - well - what else?

In The Beginning ... Day 2 - Breakfast

  Well, this drawing thing is heating up and I found it difficult going from simple objects to a very complex bowl of bircher muesli. Damned if I know how to show yoghurt without the use of shading or colour. Oh well, it's only Day 2 after all.

In The Beginning ... Day 1 - Draw Two Simple Objects ...

  And still on Day 1, another two warm-ups. I heard Danny say on the video instructions to fill in the white spaces, so I did ... with watercolour. My friend pointed out that Danny said "fill the white spaces with comments". OOps. Oh well, I think a bit of colour cheers up these drawings anyway.

In The Beginning ... Day 1 - Mug'n Cups

Well, here's part of Day 1, and yes, it does look like a 5 year old did it but things can only get better huh.