Looking forward to the New Year

and sketching more.

Here are a couple of the latest drawings in the sketchbook.

Kate asked me to draw Elsa and Anna.

A Lalaloopsyish sketch inspired by this Lalaloopsy Tinies figure. I love her icecream hair. The button eyes are creeeeeepy to me though, so those had to go.

A Little Sketch

...to keep my blog going.

I've been working on some other projects lately and have not been good about working in my sketchbook at all. Christmas prep is keeping me busy as well.

I drew this a couple of weeks ago. Meh... but practice is always a good thing.

Face Painted Portrait

Watercolors and acrylic paint.

My poor little art nook

I was looking forward to 'me time' in the art nook today. It was a nice thought. This was my morning...

See we had this little mouse in our attic. Jeff wanted to get rid of it so up into the attic he went. And here is the hole in our ceiling. It's exactly the same size as Jeff's ass. I know this because that's what made the hole.

Look. He fixed it!
You will note that it is the size of an entire man now and no longer ass sized.

I called a drywall repair guy. Fingers crossed he makes it out today.

Sketch in Prgress

I bought this big pack of crayons a few months ago. So many colors. Haven't touched them since, but love looking at them on my art table. I dusted them off the other night to use on this dragon drawing in progress. Didn't even wait to finish the drawing before adding color. Too impatient.

I even added glitter scales.

Inktober

Not very fall or Octoberish, but I'm HOT.

Inktober 12

Kate has kooky hair.

Inktober 11

There's a bit of glitter to go with the ink, but this works I think.

Sketches from Sketchbook 2

I mentioned having a few sketchbooks in use now. These are sketches from the second book I made. This book is filled with Bristol paper and colored card stock.

This was the first sketch I did in this book. Sometimes I like to cut out magazine bits and pieces and make a collage frame around the page. I just do what ever I'm in the mood for that day and then come up with characters that frame inspires. A drawing prompt.

I've drawn lots of mermaids. Summer makes me NEED to draw them. These two go together. The one on the left is promarker on tan cardstock and on the right is colored pencil on grey paper.

I drew this page while at the beach. Some of the shells/coral bits I found. And nude Tinker Bell. Those dresses never seem to stay on this toy.

My husband. Something else drawn while at the beach.

3/4 view of a woman. And a pixie.

My son.

My 2 year old. Not a great likeness but she doesn't sit still. And I still need lots of practice drawing from real life. When she realizes I'm drawing her she brings me toys to draw too. Not sure why.

More of Kate as I see her the most every day. Looks more like her here.

This was fun. I used pastels to paint clouds. Clouds are relaxing to watch to me. For the top painting, I you tubed videos of clouds and stopped the video when I saw what I wanted to draw. The one below that I painted while watching a how to video. I like the lady at the bottom with her cloud hair. I may do another sketch of her.

I love to see other artist post illustrations of what they wore on a given day. I dress rather boring compared to my kids and decided it might be more fun to draw them. I have many many illustrations blogs I enjoy keeping up with. Character concept art is fun and I also like to see illustrators do portraits of real people in their illustrative style. I'm not sure what my style is, but I would like to be able to draw portraits this way. Simplify the person I'm drawing down but still have it hold their likeness. I'm not good at this. Here is my daughter on 3 different days. It looks nothing like her, but I had so much fun working on it. She has some crazy fashion ideas and I really like some of her t-shirts.

This sketch is just bizarre to me. I love to draw fairies, but this isn't my fav. I think her hair bugs me. Not complete. She's holding a Chinese lantern plant that didn't get colored. You can see how I work around the drawing with sample colors, color notes, etc. I'm good with the mess.

Another What Kate Wore Today. It looks a little more like her but she looks older than 2. She doesn't have baby fat like most 2 year olds and she's taller than average. I think this makes my job drawing her looking her age harder.

What Ben Wore Today. I was really pleased with these.

More sketches. This one of me is. There is likeness but my face is a little long.

Hair. I have many more pages to fill in each book and will post as I go along.

Inktober 6

Fall fairy.

Inktober 5

This is new to me, so I'm starting off late.

Belle.

More Sketches

More sketches from sketchbook 1.

I love looking at other artists illustrations about what they wore on a random day. Here is one showing what my son wore this summer at swim meets. This really does not look like him. I wanted a more simplified version of him. Something cute. Meh. I like it anyway. I haven't used markers in years. Fun fun.

A mermaid I drew while at the pool. I used a brush pen to do the line work. I've decided I'm not a big fan of the brush pen.

Some random sketches. One trying to illustrate under lighting.

A color pencil drawing of my daughter pretending to be Batman. She's 2 but looks older here. Bunny is her sidekick.

While pregnant with both children I had a miserable time trying to sleep. I some how came across massage how-to videos. I would feel so relaxed watching them I would fall asleep in my chair. With my second pregnancy I found ASMR videos on youtube which are specifically for relaxing the viewer. I watch them every once in a while now to wind down at the end of a busy, noisy day. These are sketches I made while the videos were going. The women were all getting neck massages so sitting very still with eyes closed. They would move every now and then or the angle would change. It was easy drawing from life practice. I think I did a pretty good job of capturing likenesses. The color picture is marker. Just someone I drew from my imagination. I used a color scheme I found on design seeds. I love to do this activity now and then. A fun little challenge.

On the back of the right page I have a drawing of my daughter. I draw my kids a lot, so expect to see them often. I used a photo reference for this.

Here's another woman's face I drew out of my imagination using a design seeds color scheme. I think she's odd looking.

Malcom Reynolds. I drew this little sketch while watching him on t.v. I think its not bad considering he was walking around.

I really enjoy watching youtube when I have a quiet moment to myself. I watch a lot of artists videos. Here are a whole page of sketches I made of singers I've come across on youtube. I stopped the videos for these drawings. Just pencil on tan drawing paper.

This is the other side where I've sketched from LOTR movies. One of these sketches is not like the others though.

A mer family. I practice colors along the sides of the image.

I draw a lot of mermaids. Summer puts me in the mood. Practice boxes at the bottom.

I had great plans to draw lots of land and seascapes. Too much going on with my small children running around on the beach. This was all I did. I think I spent 2 minutes on this. Meh. I've done better.

Some Sketches

I've made three sketchbooks since this summer. I work in all of them, but this is the first book I made and the one I'll be posting sketches from today.

My fav supplies to use are watercolors, watercolor pencils, microns and Bristol paper. I use the same supplies and paint and draw the same types of things all the time. I wanted to practice watercolors, pastels, markers, acrylic, etc as well. I used to love all of those things but I've gotten in a rut drawing/painting the same types of things with the same materials. I mentioned before filling this book with pastel, canvas, bristol, sketch, and tinted papers. It seemed like a good idea to use all the various papers and it did get me excited to draw again and working with different materials.

I'm not a professional artist. This is just a super fun hobby for me. Some of the drawings from when I started the book just flat out suck. Even some of the later drawings make me want to take another life drawing class (the last one was some 20 years ago). That's okay. I haven't practiced in a long while. I look forward to becoming better as I go.

Some figures using using the site Posemaniacs. A great place for figure references. These were my least favorite sketches.

Headless pixie Vidia and toothless. Also not great but good drawing practice. I liked being able to draw the toys from different angles.

More pixie toys. Poor wingless fairies.

I picked a bundle of lavender from a lavender farm this past May. Arranged a small still life with it to paint. Got bored halfway through and never finished it. I did use the same paint to paint these lavender people on the other side of the paper. That was more fun.

Some sketches of my son. 7 year olds can't sit still so this was a challenge. They're okay. And then some I sketched of my daughter. That was close to impossible to get her to stay in one place long enough. Good practice, I think, on doing a drawing quickly. Again, not great finished product, but had fun anyway.

That's about a third of the sketches in this book so far. The ugly beginnings. I will post more this evening when I have more time.