After all your great suggestions for teacup themes last week (thank you!) I realised that I needed an easier week – one with no pressure or ‘must-do’s.

This one (my Lockdown 1.0 cup – T2 Monochrome Maze Diamond) is one of the easy patterns in my collection. And it was an easy choice on a day when it was announced that our lockdown would extend until the end of September.

 
The next day I felt like a challenge and chose one of the hardest patterns in my collection. This is T2 Mahabharata Yellow and after doing this sketch I realised that I need to do a more careful study of the pattern.

But I then started my obsession with my new houndstooth cup so I haven’t been able to get back to it.

I’ll continue with the other cups that I sketched during the week and group the houndstooth cups together.

A day when I didn’t get a chance to sketch a cup during the day, so I had to choose a cup to suit some herbal tea in the evening. I chose my new Georgia Lace cup by Cristina Re which is a perfect match for Rabbit Hole Ginger Snap tea.

And then on Monday morning I chose Rose Blush by Royal Albert as it’s one of the easiest cups to sketch. I half-painted this on some grease-proof paper from Goodfields Eatery – a little collage I did as part of Sketchbook Design Lesson 1 exercises. I love the texture this paper creates! (I shared more about this collage in Livestream 3 this morning)

And now for my Houndstooth Obsession…

So, when I first sketched this cup (my Lockdown 2.0 cup – Houndstooth by Cristina Re) I thought the pattern was really tricky. I started with the square shapes in a 90-degree orientation, as after all, that is how it’s normally used.

This is my sketch from a few weeks ago where you can see my thought process. I found it really hard to get the diagonal stripes in the right place.

Later that day when I was looking at my cup sitting on my desk I realised that the pattern would be much easier to sketch if I rotated it by 45 degrees.

And well, last week I finally got a chance to try that out.

In the first version I used my fude pen so I could more accurately draw the pattern and I was surprised that it was so easy looking at the pattern when it’s on a 45 degree angle. I really got into a loose flow doing this.

So the next time I was keen to try with paint. Didn’t get the scale of the pattern correct but once again I was amazed at how easy it was.
 
I’m absolutely in love with this cup – it’s so chic and fun to drink out of….

… and now that I understand its pattern, I’m having a lot of fun sketching it quickly…

and pushing boundaries working wet-in-wet. This one was a little too wet so I drew a few lines over the top.

I seriously could keep sketching this cup for another week as I’m enjoying it so much… but perhaps I should go back to something floral because not all of you might appreciate houndstooth on repeat like this!