Look around an interior space that you know well and spend time in – your kitchen, study, shed, greenhouse or garage would be all good subjects. You’re not looking for interesting objects to arrange as you did for the still life exercises, you’re finding an area to draw and paint as it is. Don’t spend more than an hour on this exercise.
Because my apartment is basically only two rooms with not many interesting angles to draw I did this exercise in two parts. The first part was in the work place where I wasn’t looking to make sketches to develop but simply practise sketching with pen and watercolour in my new Folio A5 mixed media sketchbook (which I found a lot nicer than Moleskine)and to develop my interior drawing skils. I made three of these sketches that took about 25-30 minutes each, two at the ECC language centre where I work in the evenings and 1 at school where I chose to draw the teacher as well as she refused to move.
The ECC perspective on the ecc sketches were perfect but the perspective on the school office drawing was well out, the wlls were quite plain in colour but I tried to depict the perspective by the pen line along the wall, unfortunately I got that wrong and it couldn’t be edited.
1 – Pen and Watercolour Sketch at ECC
2 – Pen and watercolour Sketch at School
3 – Pen and Watercolour Sketch of ECC Corridor
The second part of this exercise I did at home in my apartment starting in the bedroom drawing the door to the balcony from the bed. On this first drawing I made my usual mistake of making the drawing too large and therefore only drawing a fraction of what i could see.
4 – 1st Pencil Sketch in my Apartment
5 – 1st Pencil Sketch Notes
6 – 2nd Pencil Sketch in my Apartment – Notes
The second drawing was much better and I quite would have been good sketch to be developed, unfortunately painting in the bedroom would be very messy as there isn’t enough room to swing a cat.
6 – 2nd Pencil Sketch in my Apartment
From there I went on to draw part of my living room, this I drew from a laying a seated position on my sofa which is where I usually view all my apartment from. The perspective was ok to say it was quite a quick drawing but I didn’t really fancy painting as it would have been a bit too technical for me at this stage with all the molded doors.
7 – 3rd Pencil Sketch in my Apartment
8 – 3rd Pencil Sketch in my Apartment – Notes
9 – 4th Pencil Sketch in my Apartment
The next sketch was of just part of the apartment, the bathroom door, the perspective was well out but it at this stage I thought it was the best sketch to develop into a painting for the nest exercise.
10 – 4th Pencil Sketch Notes
11 – 5th Sketch
The last sketch was of the corner of my apartment with the fan this would make a great painting later on but at this stage again too technical.
Smig van Basterd - an artist in progress. 