Hello, I hope everyone is having a good week. Myself, I am
on vacation from my real job as an IT Help Desk Manager and sitting in a hotel
with my drawing supplies. Currently my wife Tina is attending a Studio I80
Design Tool conference in Raleigh North Carolina. I came along to get some
quiet time to practice my drawing.
The drawing I decided to work on is one I have done a couple
of time in different versions. It is a drawing of a Quilt Barn using one of the
quilting blocks used in one of the many quilt designs done by wife. The actual
layout comes from a combination of references that I have utilized over the
years. The left side comes from a pencil drawing by Mike Sibley, a British
pencil artist. Mike Sibley has a teaching blog at https://sibleyfineart.com/ and I would
recommend checking it out if you have not seen it. His work is stunning. For the
barn reference I used a couple of drawing done by Diane Wright an American
pencil artist. Her work can be seen at http://www.dianewrightfineart.com/
and her work is also astonishing.
Anyway, for the drawing I started with a simple outline of
the barn and the tree to the left. I also added the fence on the left using a
simple one-point perspective set close to the center of the barn. Once the
outline was completed, I started to draw the grass and the tree. For this
drawing, I wanted to push the value range more than I have in the past, so I combined
a 2B General’s Charcoal Pencil with the normal Castell Pencil leads that I use.
The charcoal enabled me to achieve a darker value that I normally cannot get
with regular pencils. However, the one difficulty I ran into was that layering
pencil over charcoal creates a really shinny surface in direct light. According
to J.B Hillberry another American Pencil Artist. Using pencil over charcoal is
a great way to dray a shiny medal surface. I may have to try that someday, but
I digress here.
After I finished the tree, grass and fence on the left side,
I started working on the background trees. The furthest trees were drawn using
just a blending stump that already had some graphite on them from previous
uses. The background grass was drawn using small light strokes with a H and 2B
pencil. The middle ground tree was drawn using a 2B and 6B pencil.
Then I move to shading the barn. I started on the top part
of the barn using a 6B pencil to shade the boards and the top opening. Then
using the 2B charcoal pencil to create the dark opening. For the shadow areas
under the eaves of the barn 8B and 9B pencils were used. Once this area was
finished, I moved to shading the quilt block on the barn. It was shaded using
F, 2B and 6B pencils varying the pressure to get the correct values. Finally, I
moved on to finishing the remaining part of the barn starting with a used
blending stump to get the base value of the boards of the barn. I have found
that used blending stumps give a good impression of an old wood texture and
will make a great start to drawing old boards. Once the boards were roughed in,
I went back over them with H, 2B and 6B pencils. Then I used the 8B pencil for
the dark cracks between some of the boards to give them more of an aged look. Finally,
I finished the barn with an 6B pencil and the 2B charcoal pencil to create the
big door opening.
Once the barn was done, I moved to the right-hand side and
drew the foliage of the tree using 2B and 6B pencils. When drawing leaf trees
in the middle ground, it is important to leave small gaps in the leaves to put
in some tree branches. This gives the tree a little more interest. I drew the
tree starting at the top and just worked my way down to the base. Then I took
the used blending stump again and darkened the areas behind the tree to give
the impression of trees in the distance. Once that was complete, I worked on
finishing the grass in the middle and foreground using an H, F and 2B pencil.
Overall, I was happy with the results of this drawing. I
still see many areas that I need to improve on but that is ok at my stage of
drawing. After completing this drawing, I went to a local Michael’s art supply
store and got a frame for it. My wife and I wanted to give it as a gift to Deb
Tucker, who has be a true inspiration to my wife’s quilting journey.
If you enjoyed this blog and the images, I would love to hear from you, please leave a comment below on any
thoughts or ideas you have. Thank you and I hope everyone has a good week.
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