Exercise 5 - Mixed Media (Shelf life)

What worked best so far? I like the busy shelf drawings

and the loose ink drawings

So I tried to combine the two working from my studies but also from imagination which I find tricky

 This is drawn with acrylic ink using the bottle dropper and a stick

This is the stick dragged and rolled on it's side. They're both too stiff and regular. I went back to redraw the shelves in the sitting room to remind myself how irregular they are

 Whilst looking for inspiration for this I came across the work of Andrew H Brown who uses lovely colours to create his mixed media interiors. Then went back upstairs to draw the shelves from life.

For this I used acrylic ink with dip pen and wash, felt tip and Aquarelle sticks. It's not very abstract  but it is mixing media and techniques I wouldn't normally try and I like it even if it is a bit dull. Armed with the information I gained from these drawings I returned to the imaginary shelves and added oil pastel and conte crayon.

 The toy moose is too central and too unusual to make sense to a casual viewer. I tried cropping him to move him to one side but the drawing isn't big enough

For the second drawing I added watercolour wash and strngthened the lines with sepia ink

 I think further working will  just wreck this. It has abstract elements but I bet everyone will read it as shelves of books.

 Better cropped?

 Or with a bit of digital manipulation a longer line of books.