I spent an hour going through my posts from the last year, reading about my activities and thought – how soon we forget!

The new year has dawned and our new project is underway, but as I write this (01/01/2015) I am the sole person who has posted a drawn image on our 365 Drawings for 2015 group site.  As I talked to friends, several people expressed an interest in joining in, so it is not just me!  During the run up to the challenge I have managed to draw every day and it has been really helpful knowing that if I did not post an image, then I might disappoint Maggie who was also doing a practice run up.

I was given a Bromeliad for my birthday and this was the subject of several of my drawings and the colours and shapes are so dramatic I thought it would make a good winter subject – the reds and greens will cheer me up.

I found it difficult to draw and with the stem running through the centre difficult to see.

However the complicated shape made it fun and interesting.  With the final drawing, I thought, just go for it, so I just started on good paper directly with coloured pencil (usually I do a careful drawing then trace and transfer to good paper).  Using Wendy Hollender’s limited palette of 20 pencils and her direct way of image making I have launched myself into a drawing – and ran out of paper; my drawing is just a gnat’s bollock (s’cuse my French) from the top of the sheet – doh! Still, the drafting is OK so I’m ignoring that and finishing the piece.

These images show the start of the drawing and I have only lightly blocked in the colours and shadows.  Looking at the image now though, I can see all the drafting mistakes, I read somewhere that this was a good way of spotting errors, shame I have already done so much as I can see something I would really like to fix (and I think I know how to fix it).

At Christmas my sons told me that they read my blog, that they liked it and that they had shown it to their friends, I was surprised as in some weird way I thought this blog was just me musing away to a few (distant) folks. They have never posted a comment………..so this is a request to any of you out there that read this, drop me a note once in a while to let me know that you are there………….Happy New Year.