One of my favourite books is Henry Moore’s Sheep Sketchbook. It was out of print for a very long time, but eventually I found a copy in a bookshop, and I have gazed on it in wonder almost daily since that time. I have found it truly inspirational. It is now back in print – and the link above will take you to Amazon, although you may be lucky and find a copy in your local library. The best bit, I think, about this book is that is doesn’t really show any ‘drawing’! The book is full of scribbles and marks – but the end result is wonderful!
Putting pencil to paper is always daunting. Allowing people to see our efforts is even worse if we are trying to graphically reproduce an item. However, in these days of digital cameras etc we don’t need always need a graphic reproduction – often we just need to create marks that mean something to US – not to everyone else! Thanks to Constance Howard, whom I had the pleasure to meet many years ago, I never set out to draw anything – but I do ‘make marks’ every day! This is our goal this week……..
Here is the first prompt.
Find yourself a subject with which you are familiar – something you use or see everyday perhaps. It could be:
a slipper
a shoe
a mug
your mobile phone
an apple
This will be your inspiration for the week, so if it is your last apple remember that you may have eaten it by tomorrow! Find paper and pencil (your journal would be excellent) and set too and make marks as detailed below.
Keep your eyes constantly on the object, DO NOT look at the paper during this easy exercise.
Make a continuous line allowing your hand to follow the shape on the paper, and accepting that you might have a very strange shape at the end. When you have done – do at least three more on the same sheet – continue for at least 15 minutes. I wrote a little about this exercise in my second post yesterday – there is a picture there if you don’t fully understand this prompt. This is a very useful exercise – you will learn a lot about your subject, even though you don’t know you are learning anything.
Tomorrow we will continue with this theme.
(Don’t forget – if you prefer to write in your journal, there is currently a series of single word prompts being published here.
Creating something every day 
Reblogged this on And Here is My 365.
I too have the Henry Moore’s Sheep Sketchbook and have used this many times to sketch and sew sheep. I live in North Wales and surrounded by sheep 🙂 I shall have to find something else though for this Prompt 🙂 Thank you for taking me out of my comfort zone, Myfanwy .
Delighted you are joining in, Hazel. Don’t think a sheep will take kindly to sitting still on a table 😜
Ha ha! I DO have sheep ornaments, table mats, aprons handbags and other things used and seen everyday though 🙂
I will allow you to use an ornament 😉
Do love that book and all things Henry Moore, have 3 books on him. I did these exercises as part of an art course but it was part of the life drawing class. They are fun but since I am not at home with paper I can use, I’ll bow out this time
You could always use the tablet or phone to do the exercises. Even those are worthwhile saving – you never know when they might come in handy! 😉
Hi Myfanwy, I’m just reading through the prompts again as I didn’t complete them all in February, and the March prompts are based on some of these. I just searched the Internet to find information on Constance Howard and a strange thought hit me. I bought a second hand book about embroidery from Wakefield Cathedral yesterday. I’ve just checked and it’s called Inspiration for Embroidery by Constance Howard. What a strange coincidence. It looks like I’m going to be distracted again!