Last week I drew a mug from photos that I had taken. They were converted to black and white, cropped to square, and put in my crosshair template to help me draw it more accurately. This week I’m making an effort to draw it from life instead, relying on the drawing (and seeing) skills I’m developing.

With today’s painting, I did a good job drawing the mug, but that was largely obscured by poor gouache painting skills.

I’m not good enough at handling the gouache to achieve the realism I was going for here…but if I squint at it, it’s a little better. Where some of the edge details got away from me, the overall proportions look acccurate.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll try a more illustrative style, with less shading details. Something that conveys a mug without being too literal.