A Shout Out to Earth Day

Well, here's a little something in reference to Earth Day. It's nothing spectacular. What is spectacular is that I found a moment to do not one BUT TWO quick studies today. This one I squeaked out while waiting in the car with my sleeping baby while my other girls were in a fabric store with their girls group. The other is something I'm going to be using in my next Hubpages article.

Anyway, I'm trying to keep drawing - even if it's just a little bit.

Illustration Friday: "Drifting"

Here's my take on this weeks theme. Simple composition, but I like it. However, now I'm thinking I should have put some boxes (or something) in the boxcar behind the figure - just a few off to one side for more visual interest.

I like working with the ink and watercolor - I get the detail I like and the coloring is quick and easy.

And now for something completely different...

Well, the family is away camping this weekend - except for the baby and I, of course. I haven't had this kind of free time - after Lindy goes to bed - in a long time! I can actually consider going beyond the quick(er) pencil drawing for Illustration Friday.

I don't have anything to post on the IF theme yet. But, I'm goin' "color" for a change. That's right, stepping out of the old comfort zone and working with paint. My internal debate has been over whether to do an ink drawing filled in with watercolor (not really a step outside the zone as it still relies on drawing), or work completely in acrylic (my nemesis). Funny thing is, there are different parts of the design that would work well with one rather than other.

But, no. It's time to face my demons and do something different. I'm very detail-oriented in drawing (to state the obvious), and painting is a looser medium. I'm actually quite drawn to painterly works, but have a hard time doing them myself. Just...can't...stop...defining.

But, then again, there is such a thing as a fine bristle brush. It may not be popular in these modern times, but who says I can't do something detailed in paint, by golly. I wasted an earlier art life thinking to hard about what was modern and new stylistically. Think I've learned my lesson - my natural tendencies are how God made me unique. I'll just squeeze out the paint colors and see what happens - I've had better results with that approach.

So, the above post is a resurrected painting in acrylic in anticipation of what's to come (sorry if you remember seeing it before).

Illustration Friday: "Wise"

Forgive me for resurrecting a picture posted a long while back, but I knew I wouldn't have time to explore something new this week. It's not the most original interpretation of the word - I'm guessing there will be a number of owls posted this week. But it is one of my favorite drawings and it's always fun to see how everyone can approach the same subject in different ways.

At one point, I xeroxed the drawing and colorized it with watercolors to see how that would look (yes - I'm that low-tech). The result is below.

Umber is my friend...

Added color to "A Dinner Invitation" using watercolor. Overall, I'm pretty happy with it.

Before I painted it, I played around with some color mixing using my (VERY limited) assortment of watercolors. If there was one thing I remember from my college art instruction, it was the emphasis on getting darks by mixing complementary colors and avoiding black. I never really paid much attention to the siennas and umbers at all (remember - I tended toward the vibrant expressionist color palette back then).

I did have one instructor that required paintings done each week with limited color palettes (as dictated by him). I think it was a great exercise, HOWEVER there just wasn't time enough for me to really get into it and learn from it. I just always felt more focused on getting it done and moving on to the next thing.

Anyway, I have found that I LOVE umber - my new color friend. I love the earthiness it brings to colors - darkens them but keeps them warm (where black darkens but cools). I used both light and dark umber A LOT in the chicken drawing with colored pencil, and I used dark umber in many of the colors in today's painting.

Must...keep...drawing...

I haven't been working on very much this week - kind of feeling the need to breathe a bit. However, I did start a redraw of the chicken and I've "thought" about doing some other stuff (it's the thought that counts, right?).

OK, maybe not.

A little while ago, I took one of my favorite pencil doodles, xeroxed it (that's about as high-tech as I get), and added some watercolor washes over it. This was the result.

I don't think I shared it before - at least not the color version. It was one of my boss's favorites, so I framed it and gave it to her for her birthday (she's been very encouraging of my pursuits in illustration).

Mission Accomplished...NEXT?

Well, I actually finished something that I've been thinking about - but was unable to get to - for months. I redid my sketchbook doodle of "Spectator Ant" and managed to bring it to some level of completion with watercolor washes this afternoon.





I think I'm happy with it overall. I had originally only intended to do it as an ink drawing, so I used regular drawing paper and not a heavier paper. I was a little concerned about putting washes on it, that the paper wouldn't hold up very well. It did buckle a bit, however a low heat iron smoothed it out quite nicely.

So, what's next? I've got the week ahead of me (sort of). Should I do some new doodles? Or revisit old ones? Actually, there is one doodle that I'd like to redo since I destroyed it with an awful background. I'll share soon.