Fifty shades of grey... !

My latest art effort,  this was teaching me about values,  grey in this case.   I really enjoyed doing this,   I followed the tutorial in so far that I used the grey scale, but made up the drawing.   Still need to work on the clouds, but I think I am making progress in that area.   The water to was a bit tricky,  I used some cross hatching, then smoothed it with a paper stump, then used a soft cloth.  After that I added the lines, then with some blu tack I added the ripples.  Must dig out the putty rubber!  

So I then moved on to the elephant.  I tried this a few weeks ago and made a right hash of it.  This time I got him!  Chuffed.  Still working on this,  there is so much to do,  folds of skin, creases, shading, and improve his trunk.   This convinced me that I have actually progressed,  I used a grid, a friend huffily told me that she 'never' used them!    I find them useful for this type of drawing, at least you know that things are going to be in the right place,  kind of.    He should be finished tomorrow,  just got a bit more to do. 


Good news, the pencils arrived!   A bit overwhelmed to have so many pencils at my disposal.   The Faber Castells are superior, but not by much.   A tad annoyed that the tutorials are aimed at card makers, what about other users?     Now I just need the Zen garden to arrive!     Got new pots for the garden, to replace the broken ones... and a new lavender plant.  I need quite a few new plants,  some things are just looking way past their best,   the rose bushes that got a severe pruning are now thriving.  The climber looks much healthier than it did last year,   but I really need to take the large rose bush out, it is just too big now.   

My weekend didn't go quite to plan, was supposed to meet up with a friend, but her journey was horrendous, it took her over seven hours to get here, so the curry night was cancelled, she was just too tired.   Instead we enjoyed lunch the next day,  it was all a bit rushed as she was helping her friend pick up some parrots to take back to a rescue centre down South.  Fortunately their journey home was less fraught.   The weather also took a very chilly turn,   woke up this morning to find frost on the car!   I'm glad I stuck to my rule of not putting in bedding plants till May.   Still a bit chilly tonight, Harvey is out, so the door is open,  he's slowly getting the hang of his new feeding regime.  I've had several cleared dishes,   and he seems much happier,  even wanting to sit on my lap now and then, at the most inconvenient time of course. 

More art soon,  the finished elephant and... well who knows!