It Was Fun, But I'm Not Doing It Again!

The final assignment in Draw It Like It's Hot! -- Koosje Koene's online course in food drawing -- was to put together a recipe and submit it to They Draw And Cook, a website that describe itself as "Recipes illustrated by artists from around the world". And indeed, that's what it is.

I never imagined that I would agonize so much and for so long over such a simple order, but I did, and later I will give all the gory details, but for now I will just show you what I came up with in the end, and submitted to They Draw and Cook:

Click to enlarge.

Even though I cheated ever so slightly on the image proportions, my submission was accepted, and here is the proof: http://www.theydrawandcook.com/recipes/pickled-jalapeno-peppers-by-gina-bisaillon

For me, the best thing that came out of this project--several good things, really--among them:

1. I stuck it to the end, and finished the drawing. For this I have to thank Tommy Kane (see my previous entry about this and the Sketchbook Skool course); I kept hearing his voice in my head, saying "Finish the drawing!";

2. The picture of the jar turned out really nice, and in fact, because the whole thing is a collage, I will detach it and keep it as a small painting (the jar part is 3" x 3");

Watercolour and colour pencil on Arches hot press paper. Click to enlarge.

3. Although I used a photo of a jar as a model for the container, and I did cut a carrot to make sure I had the pattern right, everything else about that project came out of my imagination. Although this may not seem like such a feat to you, it's a breakthrough for me.

4. I learned to use all my different versions of Photoshop and Photoshop Elements to clean up a picture, and best of all, to stitch several parts of an image to create a panorama. You pretty well have to acquire this ability in order to submit a recipe to They Draw And Cook because most scanners will not accept anything longer than letter-size, and TDAC requires submissions to measure 16.66 inches wide and 6.25 inches high (5000 by 1875 pixels)!

This means that now I don't have to worry about photographing an object, a room, a landscape with a special app that I only have on my iPad! Instead, I can just use my regular camera--yay!

The They Draw And Cook website is a very successful project, but to tell the truth, even though most artists I know are pretty good cooks (as for me, I'm a retired chef and my recipe is one I actually use), if I'm going to look for a recipe I will first of all think of one from someone who is first a cook, then an artist maybe, but not the other way around!

The Perils Of Drawing With Ink

This is a self-imposed assignment that I gave myself because I'm between courses this week-end. Sketchbook Skool ended on Friday, and Koosje Koene's Draw It Like It's Hot starts on Monday.

Compare the copy with the original*, and you'll see why if it hadn't been for Tommy Kane's voice in my head, saying "Finish the Drawing!", I would have scrapped my first attempt.

Oh, well, those are the perils of drawing with ink--as in no pencils allowed at all!

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

By the way, if you can't find the mistake at first glance, you're in good company (maybe)! When I uploaded the sketch to the skool site, Tommy himself commented, "If you didn't say anything I would never have noticed." Perhaps he was just being nice.

I can't help wondering if and how the mistake could have been avoided by using Marc Taro Holmes' "dot plotting" technique--if only I could figure out how to apply it to my own drawings.

The other part that bothered me was how the words "Ontario Fruit" had turned out. I must have been very tired when I got there--the drawing took several hours--and afterwards I felt I could have done better.

So this morning I re-did that part. Just to see if I could. I'm glad I didn't realize I would spend HOURS copying two words!

As an exercise in patience and "seeing" (looking at the shapes, not the subject), it was worth it, and I like how it turned out--don't you?

Pilot Drawing Pen, Watercolour Pencil (for the red),
Tombow Calligraphy Pen (for the black)

* I took the photo afterwards; the drawing was done from the actual basket.

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Last Week Of Sketchbook Skool

We all fell in love with this last week's instructor, Tommy Kane, and tried our very best to get his approval on our assignment, which was to draw our own kitchen, in his own style, following his rules:

• No pencil lines, only ink
• Slow down (take at least 4 hours to do the sketch)
• Ignore the mistakes and finish the drawing

This is what I came up with:

Tommy liked it.

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About Sketching Animals

Did I tell you I had signed up for a klass at the Sketchbook Skool?

Yes, I did. 

Four weeks done, two to go--and so far, so good.

I loved Danny Gregory, the artist, the teacher, the philosopher, the person.

Koosje Koene was her usual delightful self.

Prashant Miranda was a joy to discover.

Jane LaFazio has so many talents she makes my head spin.

This week, we've got Roz Stendhal (how do you get such a literary last name?), and she's into animals. Trouble is, I'm not.

Don't get me wrong: I love animals. On my farm, I loved my dog and my goats and my chickens and my turkeys and all the birds that came to visit and the howl of the coyotes at night; in downtown Montreal, I was delighted that a family of skunks had elected domicile under my shed; and here I love to watch the deer and the foxes in my backyard, and the moose in the woods; I feed the hummingbirds and photograph the goldfinches....

But I'm not interested in sketching them!

Watercolor on 5" x 8" Moleskine notebook
Click to enlarge

However, I'm paying for practising my sketching, so today I made this animal sketch in my journal.

The text at the top says: "This is going to be a difficult klass for me because I am not interested in animals unless they are food. (Sorry about that!)"

Yet Another Start to the Journey

How many times have I announced that I was joining a course, a class, a workshop... and then my work didn't improve one bit?

Too many, I know.

Well, I have found another one. Maybe it will be THE ONE? Check it out: