Daily Drawing 2017: Fourth Quarter

I did it! I finished the book and I drew pretty much every day in 2017. And I’m going to be honest, after so much daily drawing the last few years, I’m going to take a break. But I’m signed up for an online watercolor course, so I’ll be doing art in 2018, just maybe not every day.

October was animals in watercolor or gouache. I ended up using watercolor pencils for all three of these months as the paper in the book didn’t have as much tooth as I like to hold regular watercolor paint. And I’ve grown to love watercolor pencil so it worked.

I’m not great at animals or people so I used photo references for this month, but ended up enjoying it and having fun just trying. And that’s the spirit in which I now draw, just try it and see what happens.

October was animals, and I struggled, but ended up enjoying it in the end.

November was by far one of my favorite months of the year. I love the ocean and learning about what lives there and so I really enjoyed drawing the theme of sea creatures. I used my colored pencils again and often used a photo reference, but had a lot of fun making them my own. And I felt like I really started to get how my pencils and this paper work together.

November was sea creatures and I loved it so much.

December was free form, pick what you want for both theme and for material. I stuck with my trusty watercolor pencils and decided to draw something I could see around the house. This month was hard. I wasn’t feeling as motivated and it was hard to remember to draw every day. But I persevered and did it. A lot of the drawings are of my tea mug or a plant we have, but that’s OK with me. It wasn’t really about the subject matter so much as doing it.

December was a free form month and I struggled without prompts and because I was burning out on it a bit, but I made it through and drew things around the house.

Well, that’s it. A whole year of drawing done. I’m grateful for these types of books, they help me stay focused and push myself into drawing things I would never do otherwise, as well as using mediums I wouldn’t otherwise.

My other posts in this series:

This post has scans, since I have a scanner and decided to try it out. I don't know that it's better than my horrible photos, but it's different.