Numbers 10 - 14

Another lovely day, and some more drawing – it’s great to sit in the garden and draw, until it gets too hot.

I’m not sure if I can count these as two different ‘drawings’ as they are the same process – rubbings with oil pastels from the shell I was drawing yesterday. I actually made 4, but these two were the best, and I couldn't choose between the subtle and – er - the less subtle. Subtle used white metallic pastel, which I then overpainted with Wensleydale’s morning coffee – he’d finished with it, honest!

 

 

In your face was a black pastel overpainted with spent Procion dye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is my favourite of all the ones I’ve done so far – drawing all the little lines on the shell without looking at the paper. I can see lots of things in it – not all of them rude.

 

 

 

 

I also quite like this one, made with a constantly breaking pencil which I sharpened so often I began to wonder if it would last long enough for me to finish the drawing. I drew round the shell and then added ‘growth rings’ to the background. The 4 versions are 4 different scans – original, grey scale, black and white and my usual favourite, inverted colours.

 

Today’s final effort was made with a finger, white and brown inkpads and not quite the right colour of pencil. This one is growing on me -

 

 

 

 

 

though I like the inverted scan better. I love those subtle browns and greys, which are more true to -

 

 

 

 

 

the real colours of the shell. You can see where I got the idea of growth rings from.

Anyone know what sort of shell this is? I’m tempted to say oyster, but based on my very limited experience of edible oysters, that’s not right.

 

 

Busy day tomorrow, so I expect a drastic drop in production …