A belated catch-up

A mixed bag of birds for my August daily drawings… my favourites are the simplest ones done quickly, it’s easy to overwork a drawing at this small scale.

September’s daily drawings with my inktense pencils were of pot plants… really fun to draw.

October daily drawings - some of the delicious food I ate on holiday. I’m not in the habit of photographing my meals so it was hard to remember to collect reference as I went.

November daily drawings - I decided to challenge myself to draw something that I’m not interested in… transport. Turns out there’s a reason you tend to draw things that interest you - it’s a lot more fun.

December’s drawings were of some of the odd bits and pieces who share my studio space. An eclectic bunch, but they all remind me of something and they brighten my (admittedly cluttered) work space.

I’m afraid I’ve neglected this blog for quite some time, but I just wanted to belatedly wrap up my year of daily drawings, getting to know my inherited Inktense pencils. With extended thanks to, and fond memories of my friend Kate Johnson who originally owned the pencils and very kindly passed them onto me. They are a wonderful reminder of her creative inspiration, and she is much missed.

I’m certainly less intimidated by the pencils than I was at the start of 2023, and I now have a much clearer idea of how to combine their wet and dry qualities. Limiting the drawings to weekdays makes the challenge a lot more do-able. And I’m convinced that the discipline of starting a work day with a drawing is a good one - even if I don’t feel like it one day, it’s always enjoyable, and I feel like I’ve achieved something before reaching for the on switch on my computer.

Check out my Instagram feed @corinne_welch_ for a slightly more reliable update on what I’ve been up to recently… 

Daily drawings – June

A month of drawing flowers from my garden. This brought back fond memories of my garden residency in 2021 (already feels a lifetime ago). Halfway through the year, and I feel much more comfortable with the inktense pencils now, and a lot more familiar with the colour range. Still plenty of potential to explore though…

Daily Drawings - May

May was a colourful month for my daily drawing challenge, learning how to use my inktense pencils. The collective noun for a group of butterflies is a kaleidoscope, which seems appropriate.

Daily dog drawings

Who knew? Dogs are much more fun to draw than people. My daily drawings for March. This was a good subject matter for learning how to mix the wet and dry properties of the inktense pencils. A limited colour range though… mostly browns and greys, apart from the odd pink tongue!

2023 daily drawings

I inherited a beautiful set of inktense pencils last year... I wasn’t entirely sure how to use them. So I’ve set myself a new daily drawing challenge for this year - learning to use the pencils with a new theme each month.

Feeding my inner colour geek. Before I started, I made a record of all the colours in my sketchbook - how they look dry, dipped in water and with water added. This looks like a laborious task but I absolutely loved it. It’s proved to be really useful - at first glance many of the pencil colours look the same, so this catalogue makes it really easy to make a quick selection to get started on a drawing.

In January I started with vintage vases... a bit of a mixed bag, but I’ve already learnt a lot about how the pencils work (water soluble then waterproof when dry)...

February was faces. Way out of my comfort zone here… I’m much more at home with plants and animals. They are a bit hit and miss, but I’ve learnt about how  to get more subtle shades of colour, building it up in layers. Nostrils and various skin tones are a work in progress though. I enjoyed seeing characters emerging each day, and I am starting to appreciate the potential of the pencils…

Week 6 – ink

Collage of enlarged photocopy or original drawing

Strange plant matter found in the street

Grape hyacinth seedheads

Pine cone found on the street

My final week of 30 days of daily drawings. These were drawings using Indian ink and some of my plant inks made last year. I really enjoyed completing a drawing every day, and I may not keep it up in terms of theming each week, but I’ll definitely continue filling up this sketchbook.

Week 5 – rubber stamps

The sepals of a rock rose

The sepals of a geum

The daisy-like flowers of Mexican fleabane

Snow-in-summer flowers

A week of carving simple rubber stamps based on plant shapes to create repeat patterns.

Week 4 - water-soluble

Sweet William with water-soluble brush pens.

A bold and a quiet drawing of Salvia with dip pen and brush pen.

Bay leaves with water-soluble pens and pencils.

Hydrangea leaves and flowerhead buds with a dip pen and watersoluble pens.

Five days of experimenting with water-soluble media – Koi Colouring Brush Pens and Derwent Inktense coloured pencils. Feel like I need to use these more to explore their potentail…

Week 3 – collages

A rhododendron flower – look like it could work well as a rubber stamp

A ripped sugar paper collage, and a coloured pencil drawing of the collage

A collage of young sedum leaves (using random papers from my box of paper scraps)…. and a wax crayon rubbing of the collage

Phlox flower – two collages using leftover gouache strips from last October’s daily drawings

A week of daily collages – one of my favourite ways of working as I never know what I’m going to end up with when I sit down with a blank page. Always a nice surprise!