Pencil Study of Caravaggio's "Taking of Christ"

Here is a sketch I have done of detail from Caravaggio's "the taking of Christ".

I have found the darks values of the original quite difficult to achieve with pencil.

I think I may have to look for anothe medium to compliment the Derwent pencils

to achieve this.

Pencil study of Caravaggio's "Death of the Virgin"

My latest  Caravaggio study is taken from," The Death of The Virgin".

Right now I'm thinking the art of drawing is mostly about making a series of mistakes that are adjusted to eventually form a complete picture. You lay your marks on the page and leave them for a while until you need to adjust them, then you correct them with new marks and continue again until you need to adjust them again, on and on, mark adjust, mark adjust, until eventually the picture begins to emerge... It seems that no matter how bad it is in the beginning its still possible to drive the work towards where you want it to go by being willing to accept each mistake and rectify it..

This is good I think, because even a pencil mangler like me can hope to improve if all my drawings can be the result of corrected mistakes.

Plein air at Achill sound

..another quick plein air, this time, the entrance to Achill Sound.
The channel here is quite narrow and so the racing tide whips
along with considerable fury. It is quite a dramatic spot

Plein air painting on a sunny day at the beach..

A plein air of a sunny day at Dugort, Achill
What a difference a day makes, the day before when I painted here
it was really showery and a little cold, but today its a nice warm
clear day. :)

Graphite study of Caravaggio's " Raising of Lazarus"

This is the second Caravaggio graphite study

this is detail taken from "The Raising of Lazarus" 

The work was completed using Derwent Pencils

on 150 gm cartridge.

Study of a work by Helene Schjerfbeck

This is a study of a work by Helene Schjerfbeck called Portrait of a man. The medium is Sennelier oil pastel on oil canson paper. Schjerfbeck was a Finnish painter who died in 1946 known mostly for portraits and less for landscape. I really liked this painting when I saw it so I had to reproduce it as an exercise. 

Sketch of the water gardens at Doneraile

... a quick charcoal sketch

of the pond at Doneraile Court 

outside Mallow Co.Cork....

The bridge at Puente Nuevo..

This is a drawing I did of the bridge at Puente Nuevo with a disposable pen.

This incredible bridge is just begging to be drawn.

Its surprising the tone and textures you can create with

cheap plastic disposable pens.