Rachel Millar, lettering artist, on today’s Adobe Live ‘From the Sofa’ session.
Link
Rachel E Millar signwriter (or signpainter) and lettering artist based in Glasgow, Scotland.
Rachel Millar
Category: Drawing
Thomas & Tony
Today’s Adobe Live From the Sofa session, introduced by Tony Harmer, featured the 3D designs and illustrations of Thomas Burden.
Thomas Burden: wearegrownup.com
Thomas Burden on Instagram
Wild Yorkshire on Instagram
I’ve been posting on Instagram more regularly since I worked out how to upload images from my desktop iMac. It’s pretty much what I post on this wildyorkshire.blog but with the emphasis more on the images. Recently it’s been mainly cartoons interspersed with a few wild flowers from our lockdown exercise walks but I will have to get back to a bit more drawing from nature for my Wild Yorkshire diary in The Dalesman.
You can find my Instragram page at www.instagram.com/wildyorkshire
From the Sofa Fresco Session . . .
In today’s session, the 42nd of the live ‘From the Sofa’ sessions that Adobe has been putting out since the lockdown began, we were invited to draw along with illustrator Rachael Presky (who I briefly sketched as the workshop got underway). It’s rare for me to laugh while I’m illustrating, but today . . .
Although my character ended up looking like Catweazle, it’s actually supposed to be Tony Harmer, design ninja, in the character of Biggles. Tony’s cat, also in flying outfit was supposed to be adopting the Tree pose too . . . but it looks as if the duo are dancing the Highland Fling.
It’s drawn in Adobe Fresco on my iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil using the ‘Blotty Ink’ pen and the ‘Natural Brush’.
Taking part in the ‘From the Sofa’ design challenges can seriously damage your reputation as an illustrator.
Thanks to Rufus Deuchler for his advice on what is and what is not anatomically possible in Cat Yoga positions.
The Lockdown Lepidopterist
We’re setting off this morning on our longest expedition since the lockdown began, all the way to Wrenthorpe Park on the other side of Wakefield, six miles away to up in two separate twosomes with my Lockdown Lepidopterist friend Roger and his wife Sue. Roger has put his time to good use by capturing aspects of butterfly behaviour that he wouldn’t normally have had time to sit and wait for, such as butterflies laying their eggs on his carefully tended backyard nettle patch.
This was the birthday card that I drew for him a couple of weeks ago. You can’t buy this in the shops. Even if they were open.
Pen v. Pen
Now, I like fountain pens and I like technical pens, but which is best?
Just starting my homework for this week on Mattias Adolfsson’s online course, The Art of Sketching: Transform Your Doodles into Art.
Common Objects
It’s good to have a new sketchbook and to have an aim in mind. Alongside my fantasy pen illustrations for the Mattias Adolfsson’s course, I also need to draw everyday objects, which will be my starting point for more imaginative drawings.
Objects do have a character, a life of their own. This selection from my drawer includes a homemade clinometer, used to measure the angle of dip of strata, which dates back to when I was taking an A-level in geology, but didn’t have the funds to treat myself to the real thing. I bought a cheap plastic geometry set from the Eagle Press in Wakefield, stuck the protractor to an offcut of hardboard from an unfinished acrylic painting and added a plumb line made from a thread with a small nut attached. The larger compass-like instrument in the foreground is a map measurer. It’s so much easier to plan routes for walks in these days; I’m spoilt for choice for digital maps, the Ordnance Survey is my current favourite.
Despite all the advances in technology my Olympus Pearlcorder microcassette recorder still has its uses. Yesterday I recorded a list of plants as we walked along between the hedges of a sunken lane. It was a cool morning but I can operate the Pearlcorder even with my gloves on. In contrast, when I’m using my iPhone, which I love, as a camera I still occasionally brush against some peripheral icon and end up getting a screen with my Twitter feed and messages on it. The Pearlcorder has reassuringly chunky buttons.
When I left art college and set myself up in my first flat, I decided that anything that I bought – for instance a bread knife, a bowl or a bread knife – had to be practical but also drawable, which for me meant the sort of object you might see in a storybook. So instead of going for the latest shiny designer teapot with its chrome and pyrex, I would go for the traditional brown ceramic version. The veg brush on the right has my ideal combination practicality and drawability and it we bought it at what must surely be the most design-conscious retail outlet in the Peak District: the shop at the David Mellor cutlery factory at Hathersage. Look forward to visiting it again after the lockdown.
Crafts
Finally, here are a couple of Barbara’s lockdown craft creations: a tote bag using curtaining material from a bag of remnants from the much-missed Skopos in Batley and, a new venture for her, an embroidery based on some natural forms she’s been drawing recently.
Drawing Pens
As well as the fantasy pens, I’ve been adding to this A3 sheet of pen studies over the last week. The red fountain pen, the Osmiroid B2, is one that I probably haven’t used for decades but I found that I still had a cartridge that fitted it, so I cleaned it out and drew the Osmiroid ‘tipped medium soft’ with it to finish off the sheet.
And here’s the final sketchbook spread of my fantasy pens. I had a space bottom left to fill so I finished off with a Metamorphosis Pen (apologies for my spelling) and Big-Fish-Eat-Little-Fish Food Chain Pen.
I’m looking forward to Lesson 2 of my online illustration course. Luckily there’s no time limit on completing assignments.
Pots of Pens
Our first assignment on Mattias Adolfsson’s the online illustration course The Art of Sketching: Transform Your Doodles into Art (see link below) that I’ve just started is to get our pens together. These are a small selection . . .
Next is to produce a sheet of observational drawings of some of those pens, trying out different techniques as we go. I’m still only halfway down my A3 page but the good news is that, with all those pots of pens, I won’t run out of subject matter.
I’ve already made a start on the next stage of the assignment, which is to take things one stage further and draw a sheet of fantasy pens. It doesn’t matter how silly the idea is.
Link
The Art of Sketching: Transform Your Doodles into Art
A course by Mattias Adolfsson, Illustrator
Cuckoo Flower
I’ve started a new sketchbook for an online illustration course (more of that later). We’re asked to sign our name on the first page and write the date . . .
The difficult ones first! I knew it was the 2nd.
I had an idea of how I’d like to draw the unfurling croziers of the male fern, growing by the pond. It didn’t work out the way I’d hoped, probably because I wasn’t close enough to take in the detail I’d intended to add.
But that’s an advantage of a sketchbook, as opposed to a commission, I can relax and move on to the next drawing. Really enjoyed drawing these.