Sketchbook Journal: Heron

A face a day (12): farmers

Some more quick portrait sketches, (from the Drawing Lab book, a face a day exercise) some better than others. I´m practicing doing pen sketches with no pencil pre-sketch - so every mark is final! I´m also practicing doing it fairly quickly like an on-the-spot sketch, rather than the larger portraits that I spend hours on. The sketch above and the larger ones below are about 1.5 to almost 2 inches tall and are done with a very fine 0.05 technical pen. The smaller ones are about an inch tall.

The sketches are of photos of famers in the Station Country book, about farming throughout New Zealand. The farmers tend to be outside in the photos, squinting into the sun!

Altering a women´s sunhat pattern

When you draw up a pattern for a women´s sun hat, or use an existing pattern, there is often lots of altering required to make it fit yourself. Here are some thoughts on that. Probably a good idea to red the previous post on making a women´s sunhat pattern too.

Obviously these are just hand written notes. If anyone in internet-land can´t read my writing, drop me a line in a comment. Why would anyone put these on the net you could ask? :o) Well, with two young kids this is the only place I can put these notes and find them again. The real notes have probably been made into paper airplanes, scribbled on, spilt on etc by now ;o)


Altering the top of a hat


Altering the crown and brim. This is the method to use if you want to change the style of a hat. It is hard (although not impossible) to alter a pattern in this way and keep the same ratio between the top / crown / and brim. When you alter that ratio between those pieces, you change the style of the hat.



A simple method for doing small size alterations for the crown and brim, while keeping the same style of hat (ie - keeping the correct rations between brim / crown).

Making a women´s sunhat pattern

Some thoughts on making a women´s sunhat pattern. Obviously these are just hand written notes. Why would anyone put these on the net you could ask? :o) Well, with two young kids this is the only place I can put these notes and find them again. The real notes have probably been made into paper airplanes, scribbled on, spilt on etc by now ;o) If anyone in internet-land can´t read my writing, drop me a line in a comment.

Some thoughts on making patterns for different sunhat styles:


At the end, after you have checked that the length of the seams are the same length on the pieces that will join up, you need to check that the curve of the pieces is even all the way along:

How to sew a women´s sun hat

Here are some instructions on how to sew an adult women´s sun hat. I think there are many different ways to do it, but this is just the way that I have figured out for myself. It is very windy in Wellington, so I´m aiming to not just make any old hat, but specifically one that will stay on a strong breeze (which is the purpose of the string casing etc). I´ve made a couple like this so far here and here. Even though the pattern was different, the basic sewing instructions were the same.

A face a day (11): drawing pensiveness

Another portrait from the face a day exercise in Carla Sonheim´s book Drawing Lab. This one is of Dr Weir from the tv show Stargate Atlantis. She is supposed to be pensive, staring into the distance. It makes me think, what makes a person look pensive, as opposed to sad, concentrating etc? I think drawing pensiveness entails having the eyes squinting slightly, but the cheekbone muscles not raised (as they would be in a smile). The rest of the face is also totally slack - especially the jaw, which should be loose, and a little forward, I think.

I haven´t concentrated as much on shadow, or value, as my plan is to go over this sketch in pen and ink. I almost can´t bear to though, in case I mess it up... I used H, HB, 2B, 6B, 8B pencils, and a blending stick slightly.

Pencilcase

I´ve finally found a use for this fabric. My collection of drawing pencils & pens etc has grown too big for my other one. The pattern is from Soulemama´s Creative Family book. Once you have made one of these, they are so quick to make. I even got it done while my two kids were sitting beside me watching (and helping) the sewing machine wheel to turn.

Some sketchbook entries

A few entries form my sketchbook. I´m still just doing pen, as getting watercolours out is too hard with small kids around. I might try watercolour pencils at some point though.




I´ve entered the last photo in this month´s Sketchbook Challenege, the theme for which is trashed, ruined, and decayed.

Another sun hat

I´ve had another go at making a sun hat pattern, and I think I´m happy with this one. The top is an altered version of Lotta Jamsdotter´s sun hat - keeping the general shape mostly, but resized for my measurements. The base is not unlike the previous sun hat I made, but slightly less wide.

The Woman in the Moon print

This is a linocut I´ve been working on for several months! Finally finished. It is an illustration of the first myth/tale in James Riordan´s great (but sadly out of print) book The Woman in the Moon. I am really happy with this, as it has turned out the way I envisaged in my head.

One of the activities in Carla Sonheim´s book Drawing Lab is to illustrate a book or tale you like. I started to do this, and decided to make it a linocut instead. However, I have also been researching using different materials, block printing inks, and did this on blue vinyl instead of lino.

The blue vinyl is like butter to cut. I did find that it printed a lot better than lino, whether using oil based or water based block printing ink, and regardless of the quality of the paper. SO I might move over to the blue vinyl now perhaps. Also, I have had alot of trouble with crumbly lino (even after heating) which is apparently what happens when the lino is past its use-by-date.