Dumb movie and bad conte crayons

I saw possibly the dumbest movie last night. the Dukes of Hazard. I was expecting a dopey movie, but yikes! This was awful.

Saw Time Bandits with my son tonight. I saw it in the movies when it first came out and still liked it. My son thought it was great.

On to the contes. I'm just not getting the hang of the conte crayons. I was way overworking the pot on the right and finally decided to call it quits. I'm going to try one more conte crayon drawing then move on.

Conte drawing...take two

After a miserable first attempt, I turned the paper over and started fresh. Yesterday I plowed in with reckless abandon with the conte crayons. This time I took it slow. drawing ovals has always been difficult for me, so of course that is what I choose to do for my second attempt with the conte crayons. I had a fleeting thought. I have been working so much from reference photos maybe I lost my touch with life drawing. It is much easier (for me anyway) to work from a photo. Time to get out the old sketch book and start drawing from life again.

I didn't finish the drawing last night but here is a photo of my set up and progress. The white in the drawing stands out much more in the photo than live. I think the flash had something to do with that.

Conte Crayons

I tried the conte crayons last night. The results are mixed. I enjoyed trying them and will try another piece tonight. I was a little heavy handed in my use. But you have to learn from doing. I got some good advice for my next piece on wetcanvas from Robin who has posted here. Hi Robin :-)

Fire Flower

Here is my latest flower. I am not that happy with it, but what can you do? I think it a composition thing. There doesn't seem to be one. Maybe if I play with the cropping a bit.

I started out using tube watercolors, but soon found I am not good at mixing colors and applying them, so I went back to using watercolor pencils. I like the watercolor pencils a lot, I'm glad I bought them.

Now on the some conte crayon drawings. I have never used conte crayons before so this should be interesting.

Iris's

Well, here is the first of the flower series. I had planned to go heavier with the inking and put in a background but I was too happy with the piece as is and am afraid to ruin it. It has a stained glass feel to it. I want to push that idea more.

Times Three

I'm still working on the large size flower piece. It is taking longer than I excepted. Over the weekend I had an extra few minutes so I wanted to get down an idea I had for a charcoal piece. An hour and a half later I was still working on it. I finished it last night. It came out pretty different than what I had in mind. That is what is great about charcoal. I can add, subtract and move things around without a problem. Now to finish the flower.