Newest drawing 'Suits'

Yesterday I shared my current favourite TV shows, one of which is Suits. My posts about my drawings seem to be popular with you guys so I thought as we were on the subject I would share my latest drawing of the two stars of the show Patrick J Adams and Gabriel Macht. 

Some of you have asked about what materials and techniques I use for my drawings, so let me fill you in. 

I use a mechanical pencil, I have a few different ones but at the moment I'm using a Pentel twist-erase one because it has a nice rubber grip and I have 4B 0.5mm leads in it.

I use a fine tipped rubber by Tombow Mono Zero which is really helpful to rub out really small areas and fine lines. For blending I use Derwent paper stumps.

The paper I use is Bristol board, super smooth paper. 

Some people have asked how I get My drawings from the page to my computer, well I have a scanner. Most of my drawings are A4 or smaller so our HP printer/scanner is fine. I have to say it's really hard to get all the detail that I draw from the page to the screen, the scanner can never really pic up every line or the subtle shading in some areas, but I have managed to get the settings right for mine so they scan pretty well. There is no shortcut for this, it totally depends on your scanner settings and your computers settings too. It took me months of fiddling with settings to get it to the right ones for me, and my drawings.

To get proportions right when I'm drawing I use a grid system, I usually print off two versions of my reference photo and draw a grid over one of them to get the facial features in the right place. I draw a corresponding grid on my blank paper and draw in the main features of the person I am drawing. When they are in lightly in pencil I rub out all of the grid lines and move on to using the second print out to start working on the details and shading.  I would say I spend an averaged of 8-10 hours on a drawing over the space of three or four days, sometimes more, often I will start a drawing and then leave it for a few days, then go back to it.

I draw for fun, It relaxes me, I draw for me and I don't sell my fan art drawings.

You can check out some of my other drawings on my deviantart gallery

What do you do that relaxes you? That thing that's just for you?

Sammy xxx

Love it: Pencil Drawing

My pencil drawing of Leonardo Di Caprio 

My pencil drawing of Jennifer Lawrence

As well as being a Sewer/crafter I am also, I suppose an Artist, I find it weird to call myself that. I have always thought of artists to be a rather bohemian crowd, creating and imagining their world as they go. Most of us as children are given the impression that an artist stands at a canvas with a paint brush in hand, as I grew up I realised that there are many different types of  'Artist' and that a paint brush or indeed a canvas are not always involved. I am not a paint brush and canvas girl, I have tried it, and although I can handle a paint brush with reasonable dexterity {thanks to hours of teaching from my Grandpa} A pencil is my weapon of choice. 

I have also learned that flowers nor Landscapes are not where my love of drawing lies, I love drawing people. Even in other artists work I'm drawn most of all to paintings and drawings of People, Portraits.  H and I took a trip to the National Portrait Gallery last week, we were there to see a collection of photographs of Marilyn Monroe {which were Gorgeous by the way} but I was more amazed by the contemporary portraits collection, one artist in particular, whose work has amazed me before was Jason Brooks

Paul Nurse ('Paul') by Jason Brooks

 The most stunning thing about this painting... yes its a painting not a photograph, is its size. To give you some idea this picture below is a photo of the artist and subject standing in front of it at its unveiling.

Jason Brooks and Paul Nurse at the National Portrait gallery

Photorealism is a genre of art that fascinates me, I have a Deviantart gallery where I show off my latest drawings, my favourites gallery is filled with others work, the vast majority of which are pencil drawings by other artists.

Another artist who has been in the news alot latley is Kelvin Okafor his pencil work is astounding, not surprising that he has won several awards of late for his work. 

'Timeless' by Kelvin Okafor

I love drawing, I don't do it often, but when I do it gives me an amazing feeling. I like drawing celebrities, so I would say that my work was really fan art, but it is art none the less. 

My pencil drawings of Tom Hardy and Jensen Ackles

Anyone who commits pencil/pen/paint to paper/canvas/fabric is an artist, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Art is for everyone, by everyone, it is not elitist if we don't let it be.

The drawings I do are for me, I don't sell them or take commissions, I will occasionally draw one for a friend {H is the proud owner of  my drawing of Tom Hardy} as a gift, but that is it. My drawing is something that I do to relax, some people love a long bath or shopping {which I also do} for me sitting down with a pencil and a piece of paper and sketching a persons face until they look like who they are meant to be, is the best therapy. 

What is your thing? movies? sports? crafts? It's Valentines Day this week, aside from a person, what do you Love that is just for you?

Sammy xxx

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Live it: H's blue mad life

That's it, January is soon to be over! But wait this is not one of those beat the blues posts, this is all about my obsession with the colour blue!

As you may know by now I do love the colour blue, so much in fact that I have been known to buy notebooks, boxes or even seem rippers in the colour blue rather than any other colour.  Even saying 'oh well if it was in blue I would have it'.  I just love it as it makes me happy, there are lots of versions of it and as a very pale and blonde girl, it suits me.  So all round a good colour for me.

I am trying to move on, I buy green and purple things now too, but apparently that doesn't count as they are from the same side of the spectrum! Humph

So I thought it would be nice to show off some of my Blue to get everyone out of those January Blues and into well, just February!  I guess it would be red February with Valentines day and everything, but it just doesn't seem the same and anyway back to the blue.

So, first up is the flower you can see at the top of this post.  It was given to me by a friend way back at University as she knew how much I loved blue.  If that isn't special I don't know what is.  Throughout the different houses and different towns I have lived in since then, it has always come with me to cheer me up, so that really sums up the cheering up from the January blues hey!

Next is a new thing in my life, dresses!  It has been a few years now, but I still find it amazing that I wear them.  Even some of my friends who I don't see as often, still get a shock!  I used to be the girl ' most likely to me wearing jeans and trainers' and then I moved to London, lost a bit of weight and realised that no one cares if I wear a dress or not, its just ME who feels like they do!  So these are a couple of my current favourites.  The first one is from a shop in London which became one of my favourites, Joy.  Then the second dress is from a lovely shop in Reading called Frock & Roll which has been a recent purchase and I just had to have it after seeing it on their Facebook page!

Then of course I have to have a bag to match and a bit of green got in here!  It was a total bargain from Primark and just manages to get enough in it for a night away - I am the queen of packing the smallest amount I need, just so I don't have to carry much!  I love that its a bowling bag, but it also has a big old over the shoulder strap for free hands.

and of course, just like I was talking about it above, I have a pen that looks like a pencil, this was picked up in the shop at my work, The Lightbox.  I thought that it was such a cool idea and as a creative person, it was the best present I could give myself and so I had to have it in Blue!

One more thing before I go is that even my duvet covers have to have blue, all of them have blue in them, this one is the only one that has other colours in it! 

I get the feeling after seeing all these things that I do need to buy other colours, but it does help me with shopping as I can focus on colour and shape rather than all the colours and shapes.  That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it I guess!  I hope you have enjoyed a little bit of my blue mad life and it has cheered you up if you have the blues.  What's your favourite colour?  Does it make you happy?  Comment below and I can find out if I am the only mad one out there!

Love it

H