Tag: #draw

The Perception of Love

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A portrait rendition using graphite on Bristol vellum

How do you perceive love? Is she like the seasonal relative that visits only during Valentine’s, Easter, Christmas and other holidays, then vanishes with the wind when the jolly days are over? Does her auburn aura, ever so bright and stunning, blind your judgement of that which is right and wrong? Do you feel like the utterance of Her Majesty’s name to thy ears seeps through the mouth and not from the heart? Sigh!

Well, whilst you try to answer these questions introspectively, here’s L’Antoinette Stines’ reply when quizzed on her perception of love, as sampled in The Carters’ BLACK EFFECT intro.

“Hmm, well, there’s love of children,

Love of self,

Love of God,

Love of a partner,

and all of them have a different shape;

but all of them are the same in the end.

It’s about sensitivity, it’s about passion,

It’s about unconditional giving of self to another person;

And there’s love of humanity,

that’s the love that is right now needed most,

Love of humanity;

but in everything, in all of that love, there is a soul;

It’s like when you take some eggs and break them,

and you take the shells and mix them up,

trying to find the ones that match;

when you find the perfect match

that compatibility results in passion.

results in unconditional giving of self”

Now, that truly packs a lot, I must say; and even though Love has the patience, kindness and endurance to overcome those nagging questions, L’Antoinette makes us remember that it’s more of the unconditional giving of self, whilst prioritizing humankind, thus, suggesting our questions should be confined within the boundaries of the love we give rather than that which we receive.

Alas, this begs another question, at least from my perspective: In a world where certain varying conditions are essential for existence by default, is it possible to give self to another unconditionally?

Anyway, these spurred me to have this drawing; no more than the inscription of love on the muse’s fingers, lol, and I will say I hugely enjoyed it, particularly as this is my first drawing in a while. I also look forward to creating more, as I have just recently got a new pencil and chalk pastel set that I would love to try out in the coming days; but in the meantime, do feel free to share your views on this piece.

Do stay blessed and have a good week ahead. Ciao!

Cheemnonso

State of Self

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Graphite rendition of Holly Humberstone on Bristol vellum surface

It is amazing how our countenances and emotions can become enigmatic when we try to judge each other’s current state. Sometimes, these could lead to harsh prejudices being doled out to people without actually knowing what they are going through.

For example, when I first beheld this reference picture used for my recent graphite pencil study, two thoughts came to mind.
On one hand, she appears to be an avid listener to the adagios composed with the violins and cellos of societal melodrama; so much so that after listening to the first umpteen tracks, her once adored classic playlist now seems listless; Phew!
On the other, she comes across as someone whose only friend is the lady in the mirror whom she patiently hopes will compliment her imperfections someday after some painstaking eye-to-eye discourses; sigh!
Well, we can only assume so much from the miens of men, but only when we have true conversations with one another, can we know the ordeals each of us pass through.

This reference picture was obtained from Pinterest as always, and after doing some research, I discovered that the muse was indeed Holly Humberstone and the image was the music cover of her song titled “Falling Asleep At The Wheel”, and fair to say the image depicts just that.
I found both the song’s lyrics and image fascinating and decided to portray the image using graphite pencils on vellum surface paper, and even though the likeness deviated slightly, I was happy with the emotion captured.

Do feel free to express your views on the image, the drawing, and also the song’s lyrics if heard. In the meantime, Ciao! and have a lovely week ahead.

Cheemnonso

Ugochi IV

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Drawing of Ugochi portrayed with graphite pencils on Bristol Vellum paper.

Watching my sister come of age is one of the most joyous things that have ever happened to me, especially as her birthday marks a year further in my artistic journey. I vividly remember my first drawing of her four years ago, which was largely without form due to the absence of shading in my drawings.

Drawing of my sister four years ago.

Within that four-year frame, my drawings have noticeably improved, and I owe that to YouTube realism tutorials from the likes of Silvie Mahdal, Kristen Patridge and so many more graphite and crayon experts who, through their works, inspired me to keep drawing and subsequently improve. I’d also owe the improvement to the spurring support from you, my WordPress family, and also my sister, whose existence and annual voyages around the sun, have fueled the artistic flame further.

I chose this grimacing picture of her for my recent study, as I continue to explore the world of emotive portraiture, and I must say, I’ve picked quite a few souvenirs from my expedition, including this one, and I hope my future collections only get better from this point.

So, without further ado, I’d like to wish my sister a wonderful birthday, with hopes of umpteen more blissful ones to come.

Cheemnonso

The Bow Baby. (Sketch)

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Sunday Strathmore Sketchbook – Page 6

Here’s a sketch of this cute baby I came across while scrolling through Pinterest just the other day.

Immediately I saw her, I began to imagine the quirky world babies immerse themselves in. A world where tantrums aren’t ignored but cared for. A world where one could wear a smile for days and not think much about its laundry. A world where everyone’s so eager to hear the first words of your story. A world where there’s no deriding of one’s incessant mistakes but always a helping hand. Simply put, a world without worries; at least I think.

What most will give to be in this version of the world every moment.

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Cheemnonso™

Inktober – Day 28. (Ride)

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Inktober has turned out to be a fun-filled movement every artist would love to be part of, and because of this, I’ll be responding to a prompt or two before it finally draws the curtain in the coming days, starting with this.

Without further ado, here’s my little sketch depicting two famous best buddies embarking on one of their silly joyrides.

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Cheemnonso

Pennywise. (Sketch)

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Sunday Strathmore Sketchbook – Page 5

Pennywise is back!! The ever eerie clown from the movie IT, adapted from Stephen King’s novel of the same title, just released its Chapter Two (Its third cinema adaptation) some days back and it promises to be one to send shivers down enthused audiences’ spines.

Before its 2017 release (IT: Chapter one), I had seen a lot of horror movies, so much that the horror genre of movies actually became my favorite due to its unwavering thrills and sometimes, gore, but I hadn’t quite seen one which centered on a terrifying clown preying on the fears of little children. I very well enjoyed the movie, so well that I became enamored with clowns (Coulrophobes will find this strange) and made my very first attempt at Pennywise sketching.

The role Pennywise plays in IT can also be related to pencil artistry. Pennywise can be seen as that aura of darkness smeared in graphite, while the little children can be viewed as budding artists. As budding artists, we’re scared of delving darker in any of our drawings with the thought that we may end up ruining our art piece, so, we instead, use light shades on our sketches, just to be on a safer side.

The use of dark shades and shadows with a mixture of good highlighting and mid-tones, tend to give form and depth to drawings, hence, making them pop out of our canvasses. This is one fear I’m still particularly struggling to overcome in pencil realism, but we all know what happens to Pennywise at the end of the story.

So, without further ado, here’s my recent attempt of the ominous clown, Pennywise. You’ll float too🎈.

Cheemnonso™

Ugochi. (Sketch)

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Sunday Strathmore Sketchbook – Page 4

Over the course of last fourteen months , I’ve had three drawings of my baby sister, who, by the way, happens to celebrate her birthday today. Woo hoo!

With her beguiling smile, charm and a little bit of petulance, she was able to lure me into this recent drawing of her, which I very much enjoyed to say the least. She has also been one of my dynamic references who I can actually attribute her real time growth to my artistic growth, so, I can’t thank her enough.

After attempts one and two, I’m quite tempted to say that “the third time’s the charm”, but looking back at it, I can only be amazed at the progress from each of them, hoping for more development in the coming years.

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Cheemnonso™

Strange thoughts. (Sketch)

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Page 1 of my Strathmore Sketch pad.

Here’s my recent attempt on El (Millie Bobby Brown) from the Netflix original series, Stranger Things.

Upon the completion of this drawing, I conceived some thoughts on artistry, particularly pencil drawing:

•I’d like to think drawing as the portal between two worlds: our world and oblivion, where the artist is its gatekeeper and his/her media, the keys.

•I’d like to think artists as those who not only possess the deftness of visualization, but also the ability to percept ultrasonic screeches from entities stuck and forgotten within the walls of blank canvases, waiting to be let out. Strange.

•I’d also like to think a pencil artist as a “compassionate sorcerer” who with the subtle strokes of his/her wand and the seething darkness spewing from its tip, conjures up his/her deepest epiphanies from a clean slate. Dark magic, huh.

•I’d finally like to think that just like alpha numerics, drawing should be learned and not necessarily inherent, thus, all humans are artists, making us gods of some sort from the aforementioned thoughts. Hence, before that bob start clanking repeatedly on our aluminium coated mindscapes, yelling, “I’m not talented, so I can’t draw; or I’ll never reach the levels of elite artists”, remember that not all Greek gods reside at the summit of Mount Olympus, not even the nine Muses; but we budding artists can only strive to get there.

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Cheemnonso™

Villanelle. (Sketch)

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Page 5 of my sketchbook.

Over the years,some stone cold female assassins have graced our TV screens including Mystique, Nikita, Talia Al’ Ghul, Elektra, Jane Smith and even Arya Stark, but none caught my eyes the way Oksana Astankova does. Her mecuriality, charisma, femininity and scathing sense of humor makes psychopathy seem charming and fun. She is truly one enigmatic and exuberant serial killer portrayed by Jodie Comer brilliantly.

So, here’s my sketch of Villanelle from the amazing TV series, Killing Eve.

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Cheemnonso™

Jenny. (Sketch)

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Page 4 of my sketchbook

After my camaraderie with HB pencils, I decided to get a graphite pencil set ranging from hard to soft grades (2H – 8B) in order for me to plumb the depths of sketching and shading. To be honest, having a wide range of pencil grades to choose from, seem to ease the attainment of value and depth in portrait drawings.

So without further ado, here’s my recent stop, Jenny, on my progressive artistic journey.

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Cheemnonso™

Dany. (Sketch)

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Page 3 of my sketchbook.

At long last, the totally absorbing series, Game of Thrones, drew its curtains after eight fantastic seasons albeit a somewhat drab series finale.

Nonetheless, here’s my sketchy tribute to Queen Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, the First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, The rightful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, Queen of Dragonstone, Queen of Meereen, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, the Unburnt, Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons,regent of the realm.

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Cheemnonso™

Ralph and Vanellope. (Sketch)

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Page 2 of my sketchbook

Last year, the world witnessed some wonderful animated movies including Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse, Isle of Dogs, The Incredibles 2, Smallfoot, The Grinch, Mirai and the likes, but, one that particularly stood out for me was Ralph Breaks the Internet. The way its plot relayed the real world social media to an in-game fantasy sphere was second to none.

So, here’s my portrayal of its protagonists (Ralph and Vanellope von Schweetz) in HB.

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Cheemnonso™

Baby Steps to Realism

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Page 1 of my sketchbook:

It’s been a while since I sketched something, so, I got hold of this sketchbook and a couple pencils, then decided to portray Arya from the Game of Thrones series.

Still off by a long shot, but Rome wasn’t built in a day. Let’s see where these baby steps to realism lead and how many souls I’ll draw out from the walls of these blank pages.
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Cheemnonso™

Happy Birthday

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That moment when the hands of time stood still,

beknownst to me, a salient star is born,

brimming with joy from her head to her heel,

in a world prepossesed in angst and scorn;

I saw her for who she was to become,

not even a single sane soul could compare,

with her beauty rendering Aphrodite numb,

and her mien as cold as Medussa’s stare;

Fifteen seeds festooned in her garden by God,

fifteen years it took the first to germinate,

umpteen fruits harvested from thy first pod,

umpteen souls her Midas touch will make sate;

Really pleased blood strangled us with its ties,

leaving us with good times and not goodbyes.

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Cheemnonso ✍️✍️