Why do I have to overdo stuff?

So I did this boat pastel sketch earlier in the day..that should have been enough for the day right? But no, I always have to overdo stuff and screw up!! Obviously you can't do something with the same attention and focus when you have exhausted your energy on other things (in my case it was - sketching, laundry, vacuuming, cooking!)

look at this screwed up sketch..I feel sorry :-(
I was trying to sketch my cutie niece - Vridhi....I had done half of it before..it was only in pencil..I should have contained myself, but I got carried away with the pastels!! I don't think it was a good idea to include pastels here! The sketch in pencil looked a lot better..but I somehow wanted some color and the results are-----sob sob :-(

Anyway lessons to learn!! Patience...have patience..patience is the key!!

Experimenting more with color...

..with my own set of pastels this time...so yes, i recently made a trip to the art store and got some new cool stuff to play with...got some raw charcoal sticks instead of the pencil, some compressed charcoal and a set of some basic soft pastels...

since I am new to pastels, I am trying some basic things to learn the technique..the thing I luv about pastels is how well they blend!! I had to blend so much for this particular sketch. There wasn't a single color to shade this sky..I had to mix 3-4 colors to get the affect. But there is so much more to learn including how to handle the messiness that comes free with pastels - my hands, my white mac and my white bed-sheet - all looked pretty colorful after I was done!!

anyhow this is just something I need to get used to I guess and it isn't all that bad afterall.

and thus another weekend just went by..gosh time flies..this is one thing I am always short of! I wish there were 36 hours in a day and human body could replenish with 5 hours of sleep instead of 8-10. sorry I drift away I know..

i am off now..keep watching the space for more :-)

Outside the comfort zone..

This one with regular sketching pencils...more detail oriented and outside my comfort zone :-)

You must think I am obsessed with Harry Potter or something; but I just find the theme very sketch friendly :P

I have realized that detail is not my thing! Couldn't get the facial features right..although these look like feasible faces, they don't resemble the actual characters :(
But I am not totally disappointed with final outcome either.

Now I have a choice to make - stick to not-so detailed sketching or keep trying detail until I get it right!!
First is an easy choice, but I am not yet convinced to give up on the second as yet :-)

So keeping my options open for now ...watch out the space for more!

The school of MAGIC...

Here is Hogwarts for you with a nearly worn out charcoal pencil..inspired by a sketch sent by Nikhil. I know it probably doesn't even look close enough to that one, but I tried. Plus the scan quality in esp this one is really poor :(
I liked the original a lot better...but you get the idea...