Al Fresco Art Challenge -- Just Draw, Dammit!

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I was feeling lackluster at today’s meeting of the Al Fresco Art Club. I couldn’t think of anything to draw, sketch, or paint. On a whim, I pulled my first art instruction books out of the bookcase: Jack Hamm’s How to Draw Animals and Drawing Scenery: landscapes and seascapes. These books restore my peace of mind — all of the examples that Jack Hamm gives are gratifyingly instructive and doable. I found some exercises for drawing mountains that looked like fun and started drawing. Just like that, Art was fun again. Thanks Jack, wherever you are!

Resources

Jack Hamm: How to Draw Animals and Drawing Scenery: landscapes and seascapes

Al Fresco Art Club, Jan 31, 2021 -- Work On A Weakness

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Today’s Art Club Challenge was to acknowledge a weakness, look it fearlessly in the eye, and start working on improving. My weakness, this week, is drawing rocks. I rummaged through my instructional art books and found my dog-eared copy of Jack Hamm’s Drawing Scenery: landscapes and seascapes. The book covers basics drawing skills and gives hundreds of step by step examples. Jack Hamm’s books deliver the goods.

Working on the Story

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I’m in the first stage of creating my second children’s picture book: I’m writing the story. As I’m writing, I’m doing some sketches as notes to future myself so that I’ll be able to remember the image I had in mind when I wrote the words.

Along with many animal drawings, I’ll be drawing some tropical landscapes and Mayan temples. I’ll be introducing a reptile, a jaguar, and a Caracara Eagle, keeping everyone as cute as a button.

Today I sketched examples from Jack Hamm’s Drawing Scenery: Landscapes and Seascapes. I dozed off halfway through the session and lay my head on the kitchen table for a snore.