July 4th Holiday Drawings

Yes, I am British, but I still have to celebrate the 4th July- after all, the rest of the family is American :D Even though it was a holiday weekend, I still kept my drawing up, and although I did not get food in every day, I did sneak it in a few times ;)

The evening of the 3rd July, we had a concert and fireworks display we attended. I managed to do some plein air sketching, despite the woman next to me staring at what I was doing :) I forgave her when she told her kids to make sure they didn't ruin my 'pretty pictures' :D

Here you can see some of the concert goers, and the stage- complete with cameras (it was televised live in our area). Below I added the conductor (he was all I could see of the orchestra around the equipment there) and an ice-cream vendor.

At the very bottom here, you can see my view of the crowd in front of me, and one of the buildings that surrounded us :)

On July 4th, I did some 'grids' and just drew little things from around and about. Like a dead tree that caught my eye.

Or the barbecue, my festive pedicure, my daughter's burger (trick #3 in catching food... draw the kids ;)), or the darkening sky. I coloured them later with my new art toys... Koh-i-noor's Gioconda soft pastel pencils, and a gold marker pen.

On the 5th, after a trip to the library and Farmer's Market, we went out of town down to Yorktown, Va. There is a lovely spot where you can see out over the York river, and beyond into the Chesapeake Bay. The tall ship The Alliance was out (it takes paying customers) and proved to be a worthy subject... not just once but twice.

I experimented with drawing with my new toys again... without the ink outline this time. I really like these pastel pencils!

On the 6th, I drew my new toys :) Partly because I wanted to, and partly because I love them!


I did manage to sneak in some food again.. this time a picture of some of my Farmer's Market Haul- which is also what I named the picture! I drew this in white charcoal, then colourised it with my new pastel pencils. Despite only having 12 colours, I think it came out very well... it certainly made me love the pastel pencils more :)


I hope you had an enjoyable long weekend too (only if you were in the US of course, otherwise I hope you had a nice weekend ;))!