Since the launch of my poetry collection I’ve been struggling to write much in the way of poetry, so I’ve picked up my sketch pad and pencils instead. The image above was actually from a poem idea that I’ve been swirling around for a few days. The hand is my own, and I used a photo of my hand holding an empty wine glass as well as the very usefully close by real thing (my hand that is) to reference where the fingers bent and how the palm creased in this position. I spent about two and half hours playing around before I decided that this was probably as good as it would get for now.
Unlike in the past, I decided not to worry about erasing mistakes as soon as I made them. I misjudged the scale of the glass to start with and had to make it larger a couple of times, and adjust how the fingers were positioned. I left all the original lines in until I was confident that I’d got the scale correct and then went back to neaten things up. I think this helped me avoid getting bogged down in going over and over a line to make sure it was ‘perfect’ and also probably kept me from shredding the paper by using the eraser too much.
As I was feeling pretty chuffed with myself about the image above I decided that I might have a go at this month’s Doodlewash prompts. I’m a bit late to the game but the tenth and the eleventh were both quite nice prompts to ease me into things. Candy (sweeties) for the tenth and snowflakes for the eleventh. I’m happier with the tenth than the eleventh, but they both made me sit down and draw things I wouldn’t normally have drawn so it was a good challenge to undertake. I doubt I’ll be taking part every day but one of my 2020 goals will be to dip in at least once a month and hopefully end up with at least twelve doodles I wouldn’t otherwise have by the end of next year. I might even improve a bit.
