Practice Makes Perfect

 I have blogged on several occasions about how drawing consistently will make you a better painter and for sure a better pencil artist.  This morning I was looking at some of my early sketches and it is so obvious how my frequent drawing has come to improve my skills.

Here are a couple of examples of early sketches that I did of my son, his wife and my grandson in 2009 and 2010.  I'm pretty embarrassed at those SCARY teeth.  Thankfully my daughter-in-law is still talking to me.

These were done at the very beginning of my artistic journey and as you can see,  I needed a lot of improvement.  That is the thing about being an artist, your journey is never over and you never stop improving your skills.  As long as you have your eyesight and the ability and strength to hold a paintbrush or pencil steady, you are always honing your skills and techniques.  You are always thinking of the next painting or looking for inspiration at every turn in the road.  In my case, this past year I have been sketching a great deal.  Mostly portraits but there are wildlife and some still life thrown in there too.  My sketchpad and my pencil box are with me usually wherever I go.  I have recently started an artistic journal and am very excited about that.  I have plans of filling it with lots of small sketches as I enjoy my summer travels.  

Now if you will just humor me and allow me to show you some recent sketches so you can see that my ability with a pencil and pen have improved over the past few years and this is all a result of my dedication to drawing regularly.  I do need to interject here that I by no means think I am accomplished as a graphite or pen and ink artist.  I have SO MUCH more to learn but I am simply trying to encourage you to grab that sketchpad or doodle just a little bit more because as your mom would always say, " PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT!"

Graphite 8x10 of my favorite actor- Tom Selleck

A granddaughter of a good friend- I'm really having fun with this stippling technique

"Through Sad Eyes"- another ink sketch using stippling and colored with pastel pencil

Here are some pages from my artistic journal that I have recently started.  I have plans to start branching out into watercolors soon but right now I have only been using my colored pencils to enhance the pages.  This is really fun because the pressure of creating something that I feel I have to frame and show isn't there.  I also think this will be something that perhaps my grandchildren will treasure and enjoy looking at as I am sure there will be plenty of drawings in the future that include them.  I'm going to embellish the cover and make it something really fun and colorful rather than leaving it with it's boring sketchbook cover.

I would love for you to leave me a comment, share your experiences or follow my blog posts.  You can also check out all my work at my website at julietownsendstudio.com.