Judith can be contacted by e-mail at judith@judithmcrae.com

Phil Davies's Lockdown Challenges

At the beginning of the first lockdown in the early part of 2020, Phil Davies of ArtTutor, which is based in England, issued a series of challenges to all arists of every skill level, to provide them with some distraction during the crisis. In May, which is when I was furloughed from my job at St. Peter's, I started watching his videos. I don't recall the exact dates that I started working on them, but I know that they did occupy most of my late spring and early summer.

Contact Judith at judith@judithmcrae.com to inquire.

Challenges 1-3: Media and Surfaces

These first three were quite straightforward - media and subject were assigned.

The goal of the first one was to make the pulp of the fruit seem "wet". The goal of the second was to accurately portray the textures on the body of the tortoise. The goal of the third was to include colour, reflections, and accurate perspective.

Challenge 4: Trees

The goal of the fourth challenge was to accurately portray a variety of different kinds of trees using only graphite, and using only wavy lines, circles, and shading.

Challenges 5-6: Accuracy through Geometry

The goal for these last two was to make an accurate drawing using the "envelope method".

Challenge 7: Sketching Architecture in Ink and Watercolour

The idea behind this challenge was to forget about preplanning in pencil, and just go straight to ink and watercolour wash. I did cheat with some of them, and in one case, I actually couldn't avoid a certain amount of pencil planning, because everything was noticeably out of proportion when I tried to do it without. The last one, I did no preplanning at all, and there are lots of mistakes, but I did achieve the goal of the challenge, which was to very quickly render a complex subject, strictly by eye and first impressions. The reference photos were provided by the instructor, Phil Davies, of "Art Tutor."