fresh from the easle

This is my latest venture. Although not permanently, but I'm one of the few people who currently have two guitars in their room. And in a futile mental debate about which one of them to play, I kept them in a corner and sketched them instead. This is done in graphite, though I was thinking about doing it in oil pastel or ink. Maybe I'll incorporate all these media into one mixed medium sketch the next time. It is always a wonderful experience to do the same sketch in different media. Gives you completely different but equally interesting perspectives of things. For example, a watercolour painting teaches you about the usage of various shades and tints of colours, while a charcoal sketch of the same subject gives you more information about the depth and gradient of the drawing. Something like this-

These two sketches are my entries at an online monthly challenge called the Virtual Sketch Date, where they give you a reference image and weeks time to interpret and sketch them. For more info go to http://virtualsketchdate.blogspot.com/. Both are based on the same photograph, but the first is done with watercolour while the other with charcoal. Observe that more emphasis is given on the vibrant colours than the shade light effect in the first drawing. While, in the second, which is monochromatic, you can do a better study of lighting and depth. This is one of the reasons why I didn't paint the bird feeder in the first painting. It is duller and takes off the focus from the birds. But, in the charcoal sketch, the same feeder looks brilliant because you don't have to worry about its colours and the charcoal brings out its depth really well.
So, experiment with various media, and tell me how the sketches are!