Drawing Tuesday - pointy things

 This subject is rather obvious but can also be puzzling in terms of "how will this make a satisfying drawing". 

As well as concentrating on just one pointy thing and its details, or tonality, or ?, there are other strategies. Multiplicity, variation, repetition, layering come to mind - I'm thinking of a pencil, a collection of pencils, different sorts of pencils, using them to make a pattern, scaling up, exaggerating perspective... And now that I've imagined it, it's done with - on to something else, something that grabs me when I actually have a pencil in hand! 

Looking around for pointy things, I see pencils and pens (of course), some pointy leaves on houseplants, the bulbs in the string of fairy lights that never get taken down, the hands of a clock, paintbrushes, chairlegs(!), candles in candlesticks ... and there are kitchen utensils lurking in drawers, and lots of craft implements like scissors and needles. Weapons of many kinds, of course ... some, as we've seen at the Wallace Collection, beautifully decorated. 

A quick google found - from the Museum of Witchcraft, no less - this "drawing of three objects, two sharply pointed" -

For the sewers among us - functional seam rippers and some beautiful stilettos are mused over, here - https://my.modafabrics.com/2015/04/pointy-objects

And then there's this -

From Ann - The pointy things we love to use. In coloured pencils. 

From Hazel - I enjoyed drawing and painting the pointy leaves of my yellow courgette plant. I have yet to finish it!

Painted in gouache. 

From Mags - These metal tulips are in their 3rd garden . Enjoyed sitting in the last of the summer sun using calligraphy pens and  watercolours.

From Judith - Quick sketch of spiky/pointy  plants then a longer drawing trying to see what was actually going on !

From Joyce - Tools used for clay modelling inherited from my mother, I’ve never actually used them.

From Sue S - several of my own implements & some inherited from my mother - rug making & crochet?

From Najlaa - First one is the Beak of the common Kingfisher. 

2nd one is the pen. I used to buy the parker pen.

From Carol - This turned out to be devilishly difficult. It was such a beautifully crafted tool moulded to fit the hand. I doubt if the more recent models are like that now. It was well worth taking a closer look at.

From Gill - I started by drawing the two knives and thought It would end up really dull.

I needed to be more impulsive, experimental and take risks in order to create a drawing that pleased me instead of being precise, neat and detailed. So I drew the implements in different styles with different media and superimposed them to create something more irreverent for me. (Apologies for the quality of the photo.)

From Janet B - Life got a bit in the way this week, particularly on Tuesday. But inspiration struck while I was swimming in Millwall Dock - my pointy things are a couple of cranes. 

From Jo - "Bay Leaves, aka Bug Art". Jo reports that on the bay tree at the front of the house she couldn't find a single leaf that hadn't been "re-imagined", but the much larger tree at the back was untouched.

From me - At the outset I could NOT get the layout of the pins right, nor keep their sizes consistent ... after three attempts and some decent nights' sleep I returned to the job, got on with a different section, and didn't worry about small matters like "being realistic".

After tackling a different section of the paper of pins, I had vague thoughts, and a small attempt, at returnig to the original drawing, but decided to overlay the shambles with the lovely old tracing wheel, which once belonged to a Mrs Douglass. It is a thing of beauty and I treasure it.