a finished painting, and a turtle how-to

BLOGANUARY 2025 DAY 3

I can’t say I haven’t got anything else to add, but I think my painting is finished for now. I love gouache for its opacity but it can get very muddy if there’s too much fiddling.

The fabulous Peter Ustinov as Poirot, and brilliant Colin Blakely as Sir Horace Blatt.

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Tomorrow is my dad’s birthday, and, happily, it’s also an online session with Wild Life Drawing about sea turtles. As there is a lot of interesting information about the species we draw as well as the opportunity to sketch, I suggested he sit in with us for the livestream. My daughters will also be joining online, but as neither they, nor my dad, are regular drawers, I decided to do a little how-to sketch from one of the reference images to give them a head start.

I’ve enjoyed having the Draw 50 series by Lee J. Ames as it’s great for giving confidence, and I have previously done some demonstration step-by-step drawings for workshops. While I don’t like the implication that you have to be great at drawing to do art (hint: the only way to improve your drawing is by doing er, more drawing…) I understand that feeling overwhelmed by a blank page is not going to encourage anyone to give it a go.

I love sea turtles, and did a painting on grey Khadi paper a while ago: