Every day in May no. 31 - the last one!

This is the last post in the Every day in May challenge initiated by Frenchtoastgirl. The aim was to do something creative every day for a month, but I decided to do a finished drawing every day, just to see if I could pull it off. So, here are a few thoughts on the Every day in May challenge, now that I have worked my way through it:

The best part of it all, is that I have discovered that it is ALWAYS possible to find some little time to draw every day. Blogging about it was a bit harder to fit in to the every day schedule. Posting on my blog takes a bit of time, since it includes scanning and editing the image(s) in Photoshop and writing about it in another language than Swedish.

A not so good part was that I actually grew tired of it all before the end of May. Drawing almost turned into a chore, which is something that I don´t want my drawing habit to be. And the fact that I decided to post the drawings on my blog every day made it even harder, because then I felt the pressure to do not only a drawing, but a DECENT drawing every day. The freedom of doodling away kind of got lost, and I think it shows in the drawings towards the end of the month.

BUT then again... when I look at my tiny Moleskine now that May has come to an end, I feel incredibly pleased with the fact that I filled it. I did a small amount of work every day, and in the end it paid off. Not that my goal was to fill a book, but I suddenly discovered that by the end of the month I have quite a body of work here, that I didn´t have before.

So, my conclusion is that what I should do is keep doing SOMETHING every day, without limiting myself to drawing only. I have lots of ideas about paintings to paint, little projects to work on, but I often get stuck in the thought that I don´t have the time to do it right now. This month has proved that wrong. Right now is the only time I have, and I should start a habit of realizing my plans bit by bit every day instead of waiting until I get a huge amount of free time to spend on it. That huge amount of time never seems to come along.

I am very pleased that I participated in this challenge, I have learned a lot, and (despite a slight boredom at the end) had fun along the way. And kisses and hugs to all of you who checked in here every now and then and left encouraging comments - it is much appreciated! Thanks!

19,5 x 13,5 cm, Lamy Safari, Noodler´s Black and Kremer watercolours on a sketchbook page.

Every day in May no. 30

I had very little time to draw today, so I decided to go all sketchy and do a fast one of a lamp in the house. I didn´t quite get the perspective right, but that was not the important thing. Taking a few minutes to draw in spite of heaps of other things to do was what I wanted to achieve.

There is one day left of May, and I will have the great pleasure of doing the last drawing in my new - BIGGER - sketchbook. This was the last page in the tiny Moleskine Watercolor!

12 x 8 cm, Lamy Safari, Noodler´s Black and watercolors on a small Moleskine Watercolor page.

Every day in May no. 29

This is the first drawing in this May challenge that wasn´t posted on the right day... But it is posted before I went to bed, so I still count it as the 29th! :)

Now here is something I find difficult - fingers pointing towards me. Take a look at that index finger, and try to figure out how far apart the knuckles of the index and the middle finger must be, according to this drawing... Oops.

This is one of the things where my brain just can´t let go of it´s knowledge of the world. I usually don´t find it that hard to draw what I see (or just about) instead of what I know, as long as I take my time and really LOOK before I draw. And theoretically, it shouldn´t be harder to draw hands than to draw a box or a flower or whatever, as long as you draw what you see. But with forshortenings of the hand, it seems to be impossible to overlook what the brain knows and what the hands feel. I mean, the hand is my drawing tool, it is part of my body, I both FEEL and KNOW the shape of it. What the eyes see doesn´t seem to matter in this case. Isn´t that odd?

12 x 8 cm, Lamy Safari and Noodler´s Black on small Moleskine Watercolour page.

Every day in May no. 28

Don´t you just hate it when you have to clean your fountain pen? I dropped my newest Lamy Safari on the floor at work today, and the ink in it - there was very little left - turned to bubbles from the blow. Somehow bubbles are not good to write with. I shook the pen trying to get the ink out, and before I knew it I had ink in the cap, on the table and all around. Stupid me. So when I got home I cleaned it and refilled it with my new fav ink, Noodler´s Lexington grey.

That´s when the bad part starts. When you start drawing, the pen writes with water. Then, when you have drawn for a little while, the line turns the lightest light grey you ever saw. A little further on, you have a shy grey line that actually shows a slight difference from the colour of the paper. Aaargh! I don´t have the patience for this kind of thing!

So, today´s drawing was made only to wake up the pen, and as you can see, I was quite frustrated here and there. I tore up the surface of the paper trying to get some visible lines, and some lines are drawn at least four times...

8 x 12 cm, Lamy Safari (obviously) and Noodler´s Lexington grey on a small Moleskine Watercolor page.

Every day in May no. 27

A single tree study is all I did today. I think it turned out quite ok. It´s been a fantastic summer´s day today, hot and sunny, and I was fighting a hungry little bee while painting this in a park near home. I loved climbing trees when I was a kid, and this is the kind of huge, solid and safe tree that still makes me want to climb it and sit up there for a whole day in spite of my age.

8 x 12 cm, Lamy Safari, Noodler´s Lexington Grey and watercolours on a small Moleskine Watercolor page.

Every day in May no. 26

Just a little experiment with Kremer watercolours. Tried a light wash (raw sienna and irgazine red) over the whole page except the flowers, and then a dark wash (quindo rosa d and pthalo green) over the background, leaving the lighter wash on the plant.

Today was not a good drawing day, and I guess this was an attempt to make something out of a rather dull drawing. I´ve often discovered that drawings that you don´t like tend to shape up if you just don´t give up on them too early. Or, if the drawing doesn´t get better from your hard work, at least you often learn something in the end. For example that quindo rosa d and pthalo green make a pretty interesting grey. :)

8 x 12 cm, Lamy Safari, Noodler´s Lexington grey and Kremer watercolours on a small Moleskine Watercolor page.

Every day in May no. 25

Some houses in tha 'hood.

8 x 12 cm, Lamy Safari, Noodler´s Lexington Grey and watercolours (not Kremer´s this time) on a small Moleskine Watercolor page.

Every day in May no. 24

Some more Kremer testing today (see previous post). Out of lack of fantasy I just chose to draw what was in front of me - my left hand. How original.

The two new colours added to my Kremer box made a huge difference, the red seems less prone to make mud with yellows or blues, and the violet is clear and bright, and seems more transparent than the mixes I did before. I used it alone for the shadow on the thumb in the drawing above.

This summer I will take this box out to do some serious painting with it - on larger size paper. I can´t wait to test it with land- and cityscapes.

The drawings are 12 x 8 and 8 x 12 cm, Lamy Safari, Noodler´s Lexington grey and Kremer watercolours on small Moleskine Watercolour pages.

Every day in May no. 23

Got a package from Kremer pigmente in Germany today. I have their watercolour box, which is pre-packed with 14 different yummy colours. However, I´ve never managed to get a decent pink or a clear strong purple from it, so I ordered two more pans of paint to see what results I could get.

I haven´t tried mixing them with all the other colours in the box yet (I always do that when I introduce a new colour into a box, it´s a good way to get to know new pigments, methinks), but I played around with these two alone today. As pink and violet they are extremely much better - as in less muddy - than anything I can mix from the box. I quite like them. But the interesting part is of course to start mixing them with the rest of the bunch... Maybe you´ll be seeing some results of that here in the near future.

What you will NOT be seeing here in the near future is more pink eyes... yuck.

12 x 8 cm, Lamy Safari, Noodler´s Lexington Grey and Kremer watercolours on a small Moleskine Watercolor page.

Every day in May no. 22

I have found this fantastic source of crazy laughs, hilarious ideas and serious D.I.Y. instructions online, it´s called Instructables. If you haven´t seen it yet, go there and explore!

I love digital cameras for their versatility and ease of use, but I am all for really lo-fi photography too, because there is a certain magic about it. I build pinhole cameras every now and then and it never seizes to amaze me that you can capture an image of the world through a hole less than half a millimeter wide.

This page on Instructables combines digital with cheap lo-fi, now how can I resist something like that? I wish I had the name of the guy/gal who wrote the instruction so I could give some proper credits here, but whoever you are: Thanks for the idea! I´ve been playing with this for a whole day now, it is so simple and so cool! It´s even drawable!

8 x 12 cm, Lamy Safari and Noodler´s Black ink on a small Moleskine Watercolor page.

Every day in May no. 21

I went into town to run an errand after work today, and while there I managed to sit down for a few minutes and do today´s drawing. I decided to do some fast sketches of people. Difficult but fun - if you can let go of the perfectionist inside. None of these sketches took more than 30 seconds, most of them only half, and in that time you don´t get it right. It´s just not possible. And for me, that gives me a more relaxed approach to drawing.

I´ve done a few of these before, it´s a good drawing exercise. Feel free to try it, just shut your Inner Critic up first, because a lot of these sketches end up looking extremely weird. :)

What I do is sit down (with a nice cappuccino) in a place where a lot of people pass by, in this case on the second floor of a mall in Stockholm city, where you have a perfect view of the main flow of people on the first floor. Then I try to spot someone interesting down there, could be someone with nice clothes, a funny way of walking, or - to make it easier on myself - someone who looks like they´ll be standing still for a few seconds. And then I put pen to paper and draw away. I look more at the subject than at the paper, sort of a semi blind contour thing. I draw as fast as I can and I try to "freeze" part of the image of the people every time I look. For instance, I check out the head and shoulder and left arm, then I draw that - fast - and then I check out the other arm and one of the legs and draw that, and so on. If someone gets away before I´m finished, I either find someone else with similar body shape and keep drawing, OR they end up without legs, like the woman to the left in the top drawing.

This is more like playing a game than trying to draw people in a correct way. It´s tricky, sort of like crosswords or sudoku, but very amusing. And in the end, I often end up with one or two sketches that I really like. In this case, my favourite is the woman on the red background. She´s a darling.

Both drawings are about 12 x 8 cm, Lamy Safari with Noodler´s Lexington Grey on a small Moleskine Watercolor page. The watercolors were added afterwards. "Sunspot" is the name of a shop in the mall, I´m am in no way connected to them, never bought anything from them, and I won´t even tell you what they sell. I just thought the sign was cool.

Every day in May no. 20

I had a bit more time to draw today, and took a stroll through the center of Stockholm and jotted down a few lines here and there. Sunday mornings are perfect for drawing, the tourists haven´t yet come out of their hotels, the shops are closed so the inhabitants of Stockholm aren´t out either. The only drawback is that most cafes don´t open until ten o´clock...

Again, the small sized Moleskine Watercolor is hard to draw cityscapes in, it is too tiny. I never manage to squeeze in as much as I´d like to. I just can´t draw that small. For example, I wanted to have some of the modern buildings around the church on the topmost picture. The mix of old and new buildings is something I really like about Stockholm. But as I started sketching the tower, I realized after about eight seconds that there was no way I would even get the roofs of the modern buildings into the drawing. (That probably says more about the way I draw than the size of the paper - I´m sure I COULD get it all in there if I planned my drawing and measured everything in advance, but I´m just not like that.)

The good thing is that now there are only 13 pages left in this Moleskine baby. Maybe I´ll be able to fill them before the end of May, and then I can finally start drawing in my new book!

The drawings are all done on small Moleskine Watercolor pages, with a Lamy Safari filled with Noodler´s Lexington Grey. The watercolors were added afterwards.

Every day in May no. 19

This flower is slowly beginning to wither on our kitchen table. It has been standing there shining like a star for a week, and now it is the last survivor from a big bouquet of mixed flowers. I thought I´d try to capture it once more before it goes.

8 x 12 cm, Lamy Safari, Noodler´s Lexington Grey and watercolours on a small Moleskine Watercolour page.

Every day in May no. 18

Some watercolour tubes. Like a pile of candy! :)

8 x 12 cm, Lamy Safari, Noodler´s Lexington Grey and Inktense pencils on a small Moleskine Watercolour page.

Every day in May no. 17 - scanning trouble

I think flowers are pretty hard to capture in watercolors, I have to struggle for a while to get it right and the subject is a bit out of my comfort zone, to say the least. But it turned out today´s real challenge was not the painting at all. The hardest part was to get the colours to look right on the computer screen.

My scanner usually does a good job, but it certainly does not like blue Kremer watercolours. A little comparison here: The left image above was scanned, and there is always a little bit of editing in Photoshop after scanning something so I went ahead and did the usual stuff, i.e. levels and hue/saturation adjustments. That usually takes care of the flaws my scanner has. But this time nothing helped. The blues turned into something brownish purple-black (a completely new and surprising hue, I know!) . The right image is a photo, captured with a digital camera after I gave up on the scanner. The light was not the best, so the paper is slightly shadowed on the right, but the colors are extremely much better.

I wish I knew an expert in calibrating scanner, screen, Photoshop and printer, but I don´t. There is a whole science around this issue, and I wish I didn´t have to deal with it, but I realize I may actually have to sit down and learn more about it. If anyone knows of any good online resources on this subject, I would be very grateful for some tips and hints.

8 x 12 cm, light pencil sketch and Kremer watercolors on a small Moleskine Watercolor page.

Every day in May no. 16

This is partly drawn on our balcony, but the wind was too cold so I went inside to finish it. Which means some of the scenery is a bit made up... Boy is it hard to draw land-/cityscapes on these small pages, but I´ve made up my mind to do all these May drawings in it - if nothing else to finish the little thing so I won´t have to use it anymore! :)

The coloring was done with the Kremer Pigment watercolors, I am still not quite used to how they react when mixing them, but I like them more and more.

12 x 8 cm, Lamy Safari, Noodler´s Lexington Grey and Kremer watercolors on a small Moleskine Watercolor page.

Every day in May no. 15

A very quick sketch today. Drew it while waiting for a bus near a commuter train station on my way home from work. This guy was waiting on the platform, I was quite far away from him and it was only seven minutes until my bus was due, so I couldn´t get too detailed. When I came home I added the red color and that was it.

6,5 x 8 cm, Lamy Safari, Noodler´s Lexington Grey and watercolors on a small Moleskine Watercolor page.

Every day in May no. 14, and tagged!

I was tagged by Casey, so now I have to tell you seven things about myself that you don´t know. And then I am supposed to find seven more people to tag but I doubt I will find seven un-tagged persons, seems like these tag-things travel fast.

Ok, I´ll start with the seven "secrets". Grab your notebooks, folks!

1. My real name isn´t Nina, it´s Katarina. But nobody calls me that, and I prefer it that way. Been called Nina since I was a wee child.
   
   
2. I am extremely tired in the mornings. I snooze at least three times every morning, so I have to set the alarm clock half an hour earlier than necessary. Stupid, huh?
   
   
3. Before I became an art teacher, I used to work as a bus driver in Stockholm city and in my home town Umeå. I kind of liked it, especially in Stockholm and especially early mornings, as strange as that might seem after sharing secret no. 2 with you...
   
   
4. When I was a kid I read the headline to a scientific article about the ice age. It said something like "The ice age is coming back" and there was a very dramatic illustration to it. That freaked me out. For weeks I looked out my window in the mornings to make sure there was no ice wall by the horizon. I was terrified. Not until months later did I dare to read the whole article, where it said it would take thousands of years for this to happen...
   
   
5. I was extremely shy when I was little, and the fear of talking in front of others or sticking my nose out followed me through my teens. In my late teens and early twenties I began to consciously fight this shyness because I discovered that it actually stopped me from doing things I really wanted to do. I did pretty well after a while, but I don´t think I quite got rid of it all until I started working as a teacher five years ago. Shyness stinks.
   
   
6. I love Surströmming, a typical northern Sweden delicacy. "Rotten fish" is what the critics call it. Little do they know of gourmet taste.
   
   
7. I always cheat when playing computer games (which I don´t do very often, but still). I mean, what´s the point in playing the same level over and over again, only to gain some little extra advantage, when you can type in a fast cheat code and get invulnerable and incredibly rich and goodlooking and walk through the rest of the game with a smile on your face? :)

That´s it! Anna, Susan and Andrea, consider yourselves tagged!

Drawing: 8 x 12 cm, Lamy Safari, Noodler´s Lexington Grey and watercolors on a small Moleskine Watercolor page.

Every day in May no. 13

I dabbled a bit with my Kremer pigment watercolors this evening, they are a bit different to paint with than the ones I usually use (mostly Winsor & Newton). I like them, I like the way they granulate and behave differently than the others - I am often surprised by the results of color mixing with these colors, they have a mind of their own. What I don´t like is the fact that I can´t get a decent pink or violet out of them... I am going to have to add a magenta of some sorts to this box, otherwise I can´t get the colors I want. Frustrating.

8 x 12, watercolors without drawing on a small Moleskine Watercolor spread.

Every day in May no. 12

I went into town (Stockholm) today, and made a few sketches. It got me thinking of how strange it is that I, who enjoy drawing so much, always have a few minutes of extreme drawing anguish before I actually start sketching. I don´t mind the people around me when sketching outdoors, noone ever says anything and I doubt that anyone actually sees what I am doing. And if they do, that´s ok too. No, for me the problem is a strange hesitation and dreading before getting into the "drawing zone". I can walk around on location for ten to twenty minutes just trying to find "the right spot" or waiting for "the right feeling" to appear, when actually the subject is right in front of me and I don´t need a certain "feeling" to draw, I just need to DO IT! Once I get started I am ok, I can keep on drawing for hours.

The funny thing is that I really look forward to drawing outdoors before I leave home. I feel lucky to be able to spend a few hours on drawing when I´m in the mood for it. And I am full of bliss while I´m at it. It is the few minutes before I actually start drawing that are difficult. Isn´t that stupid? Does anyone else have this dilemma? And if so, what do you do about it?

All drawings are 8 x 12 cm, Lamy Safari, Noodler´s Black and Lexington Grey and watercolors on a small Moleskine Watercolor page.

Every day in May no. 11

Believe me when I say I stepped out of my comfort zone here... Dolls... I don´t know. I was a bit short on time doing today´s drawing, and kind of grabbed what I had in front of me. The colors started to go berserk already from the beginning, and I kept trying to save them for a while, but it all turned into mud in the end.

My father found this doll under the woodshed at our summer house when I was a kid and it has been with me ever since. It is really a sweet doll, but I think there must be a dark side to it. In certain angles she looks like a maniac with her psycho stare and pale face. I think she has a serious problem to relax...

8 x 12 cm, light pencil drawing and watercolors on a small Moleskine Watercolor page.

Every day in May no. 10

I have been playing around with some patterns today. This is something that the small Moleskine Watercolor is actually quite useful for. Making patterns like this on a bigger surface would drive me nuts, but in this size it is still manageable.

I´m planning to do a series of small paintings in acrylics or oils, and I need some patterns for the backgrounds. I am not quite sure what I want, so I just doodle on and try out colors and shapes and whatever for this purpose.

The patterns are 8 x 12 cm, drawn/painted on a small Moleskine Watercolor spread, using two Lamy Safaris, Noodler´s Black and Lexington Grey and some watercolors.

Every day in May no. 9

Had a little more time today, so I drew part of the view from our kitchen window. This cityscape is quite interesting - the colors in it change from day to day. On an overcast day all the houses look a dull dirty light brown or light red, in spring sunsets the colors explode with the warmth from the sun, showing everything from white to shiny yellow to deep red to forest green... Shadows change all day, sculpting the shapes of the houses and trees. It would be interesting to draw the same view over and over during a sunny day to capture the play of light. Or wait, has that been done already at some point in art history? :)

8 x 12 cm, Lamy Safari, Noodler´s Lexington Grey and watercolors on a small Moleskine Watercolor page.

Every day in May no. 8

Just a fast one today: a simple negative space drawing with an old chair at home. I guess this is the way to get some drawing done on days like this, when you have too much to do and too little time to do it - just take ten minutes and draw SOMETHING. Anything. Get the hand moving and the eyes seeing for a little while...

8 x 12 cm, Lamy Safari, Noodler´s Lexington Grey and watercolors on a small Moleskine Watercolor page.

Every day in May no. 7

A tiny drawing again, this time of my little Minetta camera. My dear M gave me this a few years ago, he found it in a flea market. I thought this was just a toy camera, very small (about 6 x 3,5 cm, front view) and incredibly cute. Today, for no reason at all, I thought I´d Google it, and see if I could find any info about it. Turns out this is an actual camera, manufactured in Japan in many variants under many names, starting after WW2. This type is from about 1960.

Shooting motion pictures in those days was complicated and expensive, and someone got the idea to split the 35 mm film in half and use it as 17,5 mm film in slightly modified film cameras. A little loss in image quality, obviously, but the amount of copies of movies that could be shown in cinemas increased. With the 17,5 mm film suddenly available as a new format, someone thought "why not use it for still photography as well?", and invented these little cameras.

Photography was an expensive hobby too, and the Minetta and other cameras like it made it possible even for low income citizens to own a camera.

I think this is kind of a cool story, and now I´m wondering if the camera still works? The mechanism in it work, but it probably has light leaks all around... I don´t think there is any film available for it, either, but I am thinking of cutting an ordinary 35 mm film in half just to try it out...

The drawing is the same format as the previous few posts, Faber-Castell technical pen and watercolors on a small Moleskine Watercolor page.

Every day in May no. 6

I´m reading Sarah Simblet´s "The Drawing Book" right now (if you have not seen this book - go check it out! Now!) and found this really inspiring little exercise. In a drawing of a dog, she starts out with a dip pen and very diluted ink, and draws a few sketchy lines to capture the shape of the dog. Then she uses more and more concentrated ink to define the drawing as she goes along.

I decided to try this today. I used an old bottle of a reddish brown fountain pen ink (water soluble) and diluted it with a lot of water and started sketching with a dip pen. Once I got the shape of it, I added more and more ink to the ink solution, and kept drawing.

I kind of like the result, and above all, I like the process. You can start out really cautiously, and because your first lines are so light, they won´t disturb the drawing later on. A fun way to build up a drawing.

Dip pens are fantastic. No other pens (not even the Lamy Safari Extra Fine, even though I love drawing with it) give such varied lines. You just put a little more pressure on the pen, and the line width grows immediately, leaving traces of your own temperament in the drawing. Lovely.

The drawing is 8 x 12 cm, dip pen and some brownish ink (don´t know the brand) on a small Moleskine Watercolor page. The drawing is photographed three times during the process, with the camera´s white balance in the completely wrong mode, hence the blue edges...

Every day in May no. 5

Just a tiny drawing today, not even a whole page of the Moleskine watercolor sketchbook (the small one). Hard pencil is not the right tool for the paper in the Molie. I added some stronger darks with a softer one at the end, but of course the grainy watercolor paper isn´t ideal for pencil drawings at all.

I find it harder and harder to work in this small format. I suspected when I bought the small Moleskine quite a while ago, that it would be too small for me. I was right, I had not used more than three pages in it before I started with this May-challenge. I had no plan to do all the May drawings in it but now that I have started using it, I might as well go on.

Every day in May no. 4

We went to a classical concert tonight, and I brought my small Moleskine Watercolor to do today´s May-thing. It was kind of dark where we sat, so I couldn´t see properly what I was drawing. I guess that adds to the sketchiness of it all...

A concert hall is a great place to draw in, unless you have some people sitting right next to you, looking over your shoulder. Tonight was perfect, we had five seats to ourselves. We sat at quite a distance from the scene, though, and I always find it harder to draw people if you are too far away. It is much more difficult to see the details and there is no way to measure them with your pen - you cover ten people with your pen cap alone from that distance...

Anyway, it was a great concert with music by Berwald, Stenhammar and Sibelius. Beautiful.


The drawings are of different sizes, but all drawn on a small Moleskine Watercolor page (8 x 12 cm) with a Lamy Safari and Noodler´s Lexington Grey.

Every day in May no. 3

Another day completed! This one is a painting without any drawing underneath, made with an extremely flabby Niji Waterbrush (I am trying to buy new ones, but they are not easy to find where I am at...) and watercolors.

8 x 12 cm, watercolors on small Moleskine Watercolor page.

Every day in May no. 2

Still holding on to the new habit of drawing something every day in May - phew, two whole days done!

Today I visited a museum here in Stockholm together with some students from school, and this nice fella stood there and showed himself from his sunny side, so I had to draw him. Cute, huh?

Drawing is 8 x 12 cm. Lamy Safari, Noodler´s Lexington Grey, some splashes of watercolor and a sticker on a small Moleskine Watercolor page.

Every day in May no. 1

French Toast Girl has started a quest, Every Day in May, and I (among others) have joined in. It´s simply about drawing or painting something every day in the month of May.

I hate taking on challenges like this. I am usually too lazy or too busy to promise to draw every day, but I thought it sounded ok to try it for a month. That shouldn´t be too hard, right? Well, we´ll see...

The drawing is 12 x 8 cm, Lamy Safari, Noodler´s Lexington Grey and watercolors in a small Moleskine Watercolor.