Student Robert Kidner has produced some stunning pen and ink work whilst working on the Drawing with Pens course with tutor Monika Cilmi. If students are interested in joining our course, take a look at our course page on our website – Drawing with Pens and if you have any questions please do email us at any time!

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Tutor Monica Cilmi has been involved in a wonderful project and we are thrilled to be able to share it here for our students to read. The project is called Elmer’s Big Suffolk Parade organised by Wild in Art in collaboration with St Elizabeth hospice.

Monika Said..
This project is inspired but the children book “Elmer, the patchwork elephant” by Mckee and it reflects on friendship and diversity. My design was selected by them and then chosen by the sponsor Axa. It was Axa who helped by giving me the space to work and complete the painting. I was also interviewed by BBC Radio Suffolk and you can see a photograph of myself and Dylan below, taken by the BBC news. If anyone is interested to see the exhibition, the trail is on in Suffolk until the 7th of September. 

If you would like to receive a roundup of all of our blog posts once a week to keep you inspired in your inbox, why not sign up to our newsletter. You can access our sign up at the top of our page. If you are a London Art College student and you would like your artwork featured here, drop us a line at any time.

We have a lovely gallery of artwork by young student Phoebe Sayer. We love all of her pieces and it is especially lovely to see the progression and stages in her drawing of her dragon and monster. We hope you enjoy viewing them and don’t forget you can click each image to see them larger!

If you would like to receive a roundup of all of our blog posts once a week to keep you inspired in your inbox, why not sign up to our newsletter. You can access our sign up at the top of our page. If you are a London Art College student and you would like your artwork featured here, drop us a line at any time.

We would love for you to draw or paint the corner of your room. It can be any room in your home that you find interesting. What about portraying your art room or art area where you create all of your wonderful artwork for your course? Show us the objects in the room -ie paints, brushes, sketchpads, easel, chair, desk, etc

Make sure there is lots of light coming through a window – the window doesn’t need to be included, just as long as you have light coming in to cast a good amount of shadows on the objects. You can have a subject / pet sitting in the room if you feel comfortable with this, but it isn’t compulsory. Try to convey the feeling of the room and make note of the perspective if you can. Use any medium – paint or draw in colour or black and white, pen and ink etc.

The illustrations below have been draw by previous students which you might find inspiring!

Post your work on our Facebook Group or email it to us for inclusion on our blog later this week. Have fun!

Starting the blog post for this weekend art challenge is Pauline Burke. This is the first weekend challenge that we have received a multimedia piece and it is superb! Pauline has also created a traditional drawing below too, scroll down to see it.

Katja Felbel illustrated a stunning piece for our challenge. Loving the activity and life going on in between the Fly Agarics. Take a moment to study it as there is so much to see.
Katja said…
“The name of the picture is “fly agaric-village”. I worked with copic markers. It is providing an insight into a mushroom village and their residents!”

Stunning watercolour by student Maria Ei Zar. Lovely to have you back creating watercolours for our challenge Maria!

We absolutely love Sheila’s watercolour of her mushroom, the light on the top of the mushroom is beautiful and it really brings out the dark, brown and dull texture of the underside of the mushroom – you can almost feel the texture! Superb Sheila!

Below is Pauline’s second illustration. We hope you have enjoyed all of the challenge pieces here and if you would like to take part, stay tuned tomorrow for our next art challenge…!

If you would like to receive a roundup of all of our blog posts once a week to keep you inspired in your inbox, why not sign up to our newsletter. You can access our sign up at the top of our page. If you are a London Art College student and you would like your artwork featured here, drop us a line at any time.

Heather Marshall has created the amazing illustrations below for an assignment on her Illustration course. As you can see she has designed the characters for a book, created a storyboard and full double page spreads of each character. We hope you enjoy following the story and it gives all of our illustration students some inspiration!

If you would like to receive a roundup of all of our blog posts once a week to keep you inspired in your inbox, why not sign up to our newsletter. You can access our sign up at the top of our page. If you are a London Art College student and you would like your artwork featured here, drop us a line at any time.

Pet Portrait Student Natalie Hodges has very interestingly created two portraits of the same spaniel in two different mediums. This can be a helpful experiment if you are unsure what your final painting might look like in different mediums.

Natalie has completely finished both paintings however you could do experimental studies of your subject in various mediums to see which you prefer for that particuarl painting.

The first portrait below is a pastel on Velour paper and it has produced a lovely soft feel to the fur, fairly neutral colours and a realistic overall feel.

The second painting is a study in Acrylic and whereas this painting is more precise in that you can gain sharper finer lines when using a brush, it perhaps hasn’t give the soft feel that the pastel has. It has it’s own merits however, being fresh, a little more vivid in colour and the ability to create some sharper in focus detail around the nose and muzzle.

Why not experiment with your mediums using the same subject and work out which would be best for your assignment or project and which you prefer and why!

If you would like to receive a roundup of all of our blog posts once a week to keep you inspired in your inbox, why not sign up to our newsletter. You can access our sign up at the top of our page. If you are a London Art College student and you would like your artwork featured here, drop us a line at any time.

Student Sue Evans has created some lovely drawings for her Portraiture assignments. This set of work concentrated on pencil sketching, drawing in a sketchbook and studying hands, feet, faces and poses in a setting.

Sue’s drawings of her hands below are absolutely superb. If our readers can note the advanced technique of weight of line. Sue has varied her line strength in the studies below. So for instance in the smaller study below right, can you see that there is a very light line around the back of the hand and knuckles and some stranger heavier lines underneath and in the curl of the finger. This helps to allow areas of the hand to recede in to the distance where you want them and other areas to be stronger, more in focus and have a definite stopping point.

All of Sue’s drawings are superb and we are sure that she is thrilled with them! We hope that you find them inspiring.

If you would like to receive a roundup of all of our blog posts once a week to keep you inspired in your inbox, why not sign up to our newsletter. You can access our sign up at the top of our page. If you are a London Art College student and you would like your artwork featured here, drop us a line at any time.

This weeks challenge is all about Mushrooms, Toadstools and Fungi. If you have access to various types of mushrooms in your fridge and wish to set up a still life with them, we would love to see your results.

Alternatively, we have added a multitude of photos below, all of which can be clicked to access a very high resolution photo. Please feel free to save and paint or draw from these.

We would love to see you capture the mushrooms, toadstools and fungi in colour if possible. This way you will be able to capture the colour and texture of them. Feel free to add backgrounds and surroundings to your work.

Use any medium you would like from pastels, oils, acrylic, coloured pencil, digital or multimedia. We have yet to see a student using collage!

We are very much looking forward to seeing your results. Don’t forget to post your work on our Facebook page too!

Post your work on our Facebook Group or email it to us for inclusion on our blog later this week. Have fun!

All of the photos we post on our London Art College Weekend Challenges are copyright free. Feel free to use the artwork you produce however you wish. If you would like your artwork posted here on our blog, email it to Melanie at techsupport@londonartcollege.co.uk. If you have any Weekend Challenge requests let us know too! Best of luck and happy drawing and painting!

Sheila Brown ….I am on a small cruise ship in Croatia. This is a view through the porthole! 

Alex Lewis…….I just joined the illustration diploma, so this is my first attempt at a weekend challenge. Here’s the view from my kitchen window, and my dog chilling in the sun. I made the trees accidentally more tropical than they really are, and our neighbour’s house is a bit wobbly, but I’m quite pleased with the basil plant in the window. Everyone’s art is amazing. I’m both terrified and excited to be joining this course.

Leonie Schottler … The picture shows the view from the cloister in Fontevraud abbey (France). The abbey is a burial place of some of the most (in)famous members of Platangenet family: Richard Lionheard, Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II.King John spent part of his childhood in the abbey. Later the abbey became the residence of numerous unmarried daughters and sisters of the French kings. Definitely a place with quite a history! I worked with pen and ink aiming to capture some of the atmosphere of the old building.

Pauline Burke…My window view is from my patio door on a rare moment of no rain!

Luca Antinori….This is my view from a window, more or less, but with no window… Not sure if this is fair… I actually did from my balcony 🙂

Khadiga Kadry … This is my first time to post and this was my first attempt for the weekend challenge but I really can’t compete with all the great artists on this page, I am still at the beginner drawing course.

Khadiga, we think you have done brilliantly and we look forward to seeing more drawings from you! London Art College

Lynette Dobson …. ‘The very wonky view out of my very wonky shed window’

If you would like to receive a roundup of all of our blog posts once a week to keep you inspired in your inbox, why not sign up to our newsletter. You can access our sign up at the top of our page. If you are a London Art College student and you would like your artwork featured here, drop us a line at any time.