Welcome to August! What's my theme this month - well, it's an  'August Pot Luck' I've brainstormed and written down lots of ideas and themes on a big piece of paper, cut them all out, and each day i'll be picking one from the box and drawing it!

Sometimes it can be hard to think what to draw. You have so many ideas, that it 'stalls' you, when facing the page, canvas, or ipad, from actually getting on and just creating!

I'd be interested to know of any other techniques and ideas from you of what works when you have 'artist block'!

Today's theme is animals that i've seen or photographed recently. This wee sketch is of a lovely doggie that I saw in Glasgow at the independence rally. He was even wearing a little SNP bandana!

Have a creative day and i'll see ye tomorra!

​Davy

In today's "Colour Me July!" sketch, i have the rough work for a little Scaredy Mouse character.

No wonder he's scared, with Dracula's castle in the background and bats flying above his head!

Hope you have a creative day, and i'll see ye tomorra!

​Davy

A wee rough sketch today of a little spaceman playing American football in space. Sometimes these "Colour Me July!" Sketches flow quite easily, but this wee guy, well, i'm having difficulty with him. I'm going to give him a couple of days 'resting' in my subconscious and then have another bash at him.

Hope you're having a creative day and i'll see ye tomorra!

​Davy

Today's "Colour Me July!" Piece is a wee rough sketch of a hippo (Georgie).

When i'm trying to plot out a scene i roughly draw in where the character should be and his relationship to the scale of everything else around him. This can take the form of stick figures, to rough shapes, to this type of rough sketch before you. The aim is to keep it rough as that way you'll allow yourself the freedom to move characters around, change and add new details etc.

Hope you're having a creative day, and see ye tomorra.

​Davy

In today's "Colour Me July!" Sketch, these two cute wee monsters have been told to stand still long enough to have their photograph taken!

When i was a wee boy there was no such things as selfies. If you wanted a photo for posterity you had to line up and try not to blink as yer Maw fixed a flash cube onto the camera. Click, flash, wind on the camera film spool...."this time don't BLINK!"

Have a creative day and i'll see ye tomorra!

​Davy

Today's "Colour Me July!" piece is another 'memory sketch'.

If You want to try one yourself, just sit with a blank piece of paper in front of you, then close your eyes and think of a moment from your childhood. Ask yourself questions like - what can you see? Can you hear any noises around you..birds..livestock...traffic? Any particular smells coming to mind. Any predominant colours? What season is it?

This should set the scene for you. Once it's formed in your mind get it down on paper. Don't worry about how rough it looks...the point is to give more the feeling of a point in time rather than a photorealistic representation.

In my sketch i'm back at my granny's farm, in the kitchen. From the point of view I must have been getting carried by someone. Looking down on the mangle and seeing a hen keeking in the open window. It must have been during the summer as that red bucket was kept near the sink, used when the reservoir was low and any water poured into it had to let the sediment sink to the bottom before you could scoop in a cup and drink from it. We never had such a thing as bottled water in the 1970's!

I used to have my baths in that sink as a wean!

As for that mangle, when we were kids, the dare was always to put your fingers near the rollers whilst a brother or sister or cousin would turn the handle to see if your fingers would be caught. Wee monkeys so we were!

I hope you have fun doing your own 'memory sketch'!

See ye tomorra,

​Davy

Today's "Colour Me July!" piece is a wee memory of walking to school in January 1980.

That's me, so it is. My usual singing away to myself on the way to school on a winter's morning in 1980. It would have been a two pair of socks morning, and probably there would have been insoles cut out from an old carpet in these boots too for extra insulation.

The parka coat, or 'snorkel' as we used to call them was one of the warmest pieces of clothing ever. We were always warned before we left the house though to be careful and look where we were going - which was made a bit harder since the fur hood  ended about a foot away from your face. It was like looking through a periscope - no wonder so many folk from that time joined the navy and became submariners.

The colour of your parka gave you a feeling of belonging to a particular gang - like a caste system. I think the coolest were the Navy blues, followed by the black, then the green. Nae luck if you had been handed doon one of those yucky brown ones though. 

Most clothes back then were handed down, so i suppose it was the luck of the draw which ones your big cousins had thought was the coolest colour five years earlier, before it would pass down the chain to eventually arrive at me, since I was the youngest. "Ach, he'll grow into it!" was a war cry heard in many households of the seventies and eighties.

I remember losing my parka, though, when it was getting towards the summer, and it being reported on the 'news bulletin' on the blackboard which we would then copy into our jotters - 'David's parka has been lost!'. However, it made a reappearance later that night when my cousins arrived at the house with it saying that they had wrestled it off the 'rag and bone' man. The next days headline read - 'David's parka has been found!'

These coats were made to last forever - I don't think they decompose. There'll probably be some wee bird in a tree now with bits of it made into a nest!

Anyway, have a creative day and i'll see ye tomorra!

​Davy

I've started a new workout plan today - fit body, fit mind...fit into my pair of jeans again after it!

I'd been down in my hometown of Campbeltown dogsitting for a few weeks, and had been going a bit daft on the 'Magnum' ice creams!! So tasty they should be illegal!

Anyway, now that i'm back in my own wee space it's time to lose those inches - so as motivation here is today's "Colour Me July!" sketch of a cat exercising his brain and body as part of a balanced workout (it makes sense in my mind...almost).

Have a creative, healthy, happy day, and i'll see ye tomorra!

​Davy

I'm developing some more wee Highland Cow characters, so here are a couple on show for today's "Colour Me July!" sketch.

I hope you'll come back and track their development.

Remember, you can buy more of my highland cow art, and other pieces by clicking on my 'little shop' page!

See ye tomorra, and have a creative day!

​Davy

Today's "Colour Me July!" sketch is a punny little joke! A 'Uni-Corn On The Cob'! Hope he gives you a wee smile!

Have a creative day, and see ye tomorra!

​Davy