Friday July 30, 2010
If you love color but find paint difficult to handle, colored pencils are an excellent choice. It takes a little longer to achieve large areas of color, but you have a great deal of control, and can create the most beautiful, jewel-like effects with careful layering. Good quality colored pencils have much more pigment in them than the cheap children's ones you probably remember from school, so you can get really intense color - especially if you use a nice 'toothy' watercolor paper which grips the fragments of colour. (A hot-pressed paper that doesn't have too much 'size' or glue in it, which has a smooth look but feels velvety-rought to the touch).
Learn basic colored pencil techniques
colored pencil drawing tips.
draw a candle flame in colored pencil
draw shiny metal
rose in colored pencil
Thursday July 29, 2010
Hobbies can be wonderfully sociable things. It's funny that 'geeks' have a reputation for being antisocial, but the tabletop
wargaming club that my kids go to must have the friendliest bunch of people I've ever met! Older players make a lot of effort to encourage the younger ones and the shared enthusiasm they have for their game is contagious. I've also enjoyed a local
knitting group, and playing in musical ensembles. A new hobby might be just what you need if you're a
freelancer working from home or a
stay-at-home parent
Image (c) Kate Pullen
Start a New Hobby Week - Day Four Roundup
Wednesday July 28, 2010
One of the first things you'll want to do is buy a sketchbook. Before you do so, it's a good idea to do some sketching on loose paper or sketch pads first, so you get an idea of the size and format that suits you best. Some people like to sketch in a very small notebook like a Moleskine, while others prefer a larger sketchbook like one of these Sketchbook Top Picks.
Once you've chosen a sketchbook, it can be a little daunting to make a start - all those perfect white pages! It's important to keep your sketchbook in a way that suits your personality. Some people's sketchbooks are very clean and full of crisp drawings, while others get carried around the countryside and full of scribbles, ideas and collected bits of paper. Maybe you'll find a happy medium. Here are some tips on keeping a sketchbook to help you find your way.
Until you've built up the sketching habit, finding subjects can be tricky. Here's an article with five pages of ideas on still life, sketching landscape, portraits and figures, and sketching animals, and abstraction.
Wednesday July 28, 2010
Start a New Hobby Week is in full swing with loads of great tips and ideas for getting started with a new hobby. This could be a great time to get back to hobbies you've once picked up and put aside. Or even to find out about your family's hobbies! My daughter has just started attending ballet classes, so I might need to have a bit of a read of our
Dance Guide's
advice for parents. Here's some more topics to explore:
Image (c) Kate Pullen
