Chantry Flats Landscape Drawing - part 2

I went to my second landscape drawing workshop at Chantry Flats. It was a ton of fun, and I met some artists who were new to Karl's workshops. The weather was beautiful, not as hot as it could have been this time of year. The only negative is that I got a minor sprain when I was crossing a boulder-strewn stream. Ooops. My coordination, or lack-thereof, strikes again.

I had only two pens, and a whole bunch of markers with me, so I was really focused on composition of a scene and tonal values. My favorite drawing was the last one of the day, of the fallen log in the stream. Strong focal point, strong contrast, variation of line directions. The only change I'd make is not putting the log so dead center, but that's a minor change. I felt these were much stronger than my previous Chantry Flats trip.

Illustration Friday: Proverb

"Mighty oaks from little acorns grow"

Woohoo! Two Illustration Fridays in a row, even if they are not posted on Friday. This topic wasn't inspiring me for some reason until I looked at the Wiki list o'proverbs. Once I did that, I had a ton of ideas. The hubby helped veer me into the direction he wanted--"Treants please!"--and I still got to draw what I wanted: a cool and gnarly oak tree! Now I need to learn carving in less then a month so I can transfer my cool treant onto a pumpkin.

I still want to add some highlights and some extra darks, but this is plenty finished to post.

Illustration Friday: Dessert

Illustration Friday....or last-minute, day-before (a new) Illustration Friday. Something like that.

This image is a teaser, however, because it is only part of the entire image. I'm working on the coloring of it so I can contribute to They Draw and Cook, a website I've fallen in love with, because I like to draw and cook as well!

I am also experimenting with combining the toned paper drawings I've been loving as well as my colored pencil/watercolor combo. We shall see how it goes. If I like it, I may do more pieces of this nature.

What is he cooking? You'll have to wait to find out!

Sketchcrawl 28: Hollywood and Highland (belated)

Last weekend I went to my third Sketchcrawl! It was a lot of fun meeting up with a number of familiar faces as well as some new ones. Hollywood and highland had a lot of tourists to sketch, with some crazy outfits. There were also many cool buildings, but the pillars with the elephant statues caught my eye immediately.

Planes of Fame

I never knew I liked planes so much...or drawing them! I had a great time at the Planes of Fame museum, although I did not like that it was an hour-twenty drive to get there. Not to mention driving back. I never did get to see the Japanese Zero, which I was really interested in. Some of my favorite planes I saw that day were the aircraft ones, with hinged wings that fold for storage. I'll have to draw them one day.

I am really slow at drawing the planes, but that's ok, because I'm learning object construction in perspective. Each of these drawings was 1-1.5 hours long. I need a better highlighting pen..the strong white highlights were done by the teacher; I did the wimpy ones. He also said that I need tobreak out my 80% gray marker and hit the darks in key locations to really make the drawing pop. He did the darkest grays in the second drawing. I only need to draw 98 more planes until I start to get really good at drawing planes.

I want to go back at some point, but I think next time, carpooling!

Nethercutt Museum

Haven't posted in a while, but I've been drawing. I've been exhausted. It's rush season. Besides for work and regular weekly classes, I haven't been doing much but catching up on Psych. I love that show. Even more now that I've regularly been to Santa Barbara and really like that town...

But enough digressing. Our drawing for composition class went to the Nethercutt car museum on Saturday. These were the two good drawings of the day. The rest were side and front studies to get an understanding of basic proportions, as well as trying to figure out this whole drawing in perspective thing. I was starting to get comfortable with it by the end of the day, but the class was over way too soon for me. In fact, I added tone to the second sketch on the way to dinner that night with friends. I still need to post some older sketches from this class, as well as some other random drawings I've been doing.

In other art-related news, I finally designed my website! It only took 4 years to come up with something I was happy with that was a balance of illustration and design. Now the hubby and I need to work on building the site. I will keep you updated on the progress, but nothing will probably happen for the next two weeks, since it's crunch time at work and I'm brain dead by the time I get home.

More ripples!

#465

#466 (SOLD)

I had so much fun with the ripplesketches that I did two more. I did have a bit of computer trouble, so I got delayed in both scanning and posting them. In fact, I got them on the ripplesketches site before my own blog, so I already have one of them sold, #466, my farewell shrimp. Thanks Ursula!

I am amazed at the turnout in participation over at the ripplesketch blog, both from artists contributing time, creativity, and art, and from the people donating to the foundations. Over 500 pieces of artwork and over $3,000 raised so far! Our online community rocks!

My sketch sold!

Woohoo! My Illustration Friday sketch for ripple sketches was number 202 and it sold! Thanks Laya!

So far the Illustration Friday community has helped raise over $1500, which is a fantastic ripple. Another great big thank you to Kelly Light, who organized this fantastic project and probably didn't anticipate the extent of the response from the community.

Illustration Friday: Ripple

"Let Go!"

This week's Illustration Friday is a special one.

The topic "Ripple" was suggested by Kelly Light:

"This week's Illustration Friday topic is "Ripple" and I ask you to consider creating your work this week as a small 2.5" x 3.5" sketchcard. The subject should pertain somehow to the Gulf - the oil spill - the oceans and the creatures that live in it and around it."

Essentially, artists donate a small doodle/illustration, interested parties donate to one of the two organizations that Kelly has chosen, and the people who donate the money get one of the doodles. Pretty cool, huh?

I had a couple of concepts, but this is the only one I've completed so far. If I get around to another one, i'm going to try to work more scribble-y then this one. I tried working in a new way: I made my white board into a toned surface then used ink, warm gray markers, and colored pencils to create the illustration, combining my traditional style with the pen-and-marker drawings I've been doing the past two months. Oh, and of course the pretty white gel pen for popping the highlights.

"If we all do small acts together- we can cause a ripple- and it can grow. We can DO SOMETHING."

Below is my sketch page trying to figure out the concept of the fish out of water. The hardest part was trying to figure out how to render the oil puddle and strand. Hurray for gray markers!

Illustration Friday: Early

He thought maybe he was early, but then he realized the bus was late.

I saw this guy a couple of weeks ago, as I drove to work and he stuck around in my head. I also drew this guy last week, so theoretically, I was early for Illustration Friday as well.

More bugs

More bug drawing practice! Tomorrow, cactus and succulents.

Faces Galore

One of the blogs I read today listed national magazine award winners, and the winner for the photo portfolio was The New Yorker's Portraits of Power. This is an impressive body of work for the photographer, as well as for history in general, since it is documenting current world leaders. However, my initial reaction was probably far different than most people's reaction. All I could think was, "Look at all the interesting face shapes I could draw!" I was itching to pick up a drawing tool and start drawing then and there.

I know nothing about the personality, motivation, mindsets, or emotions that drive all these leaders, but the shapes of their faces, noses, quirks of almost smiles, and the tilts of their heads all make me start creating some type of story for each of them, whether or not it is at all close to whothey are in reality.

Each photo is beautiful in and of itself, but it is the grouping of all these photos together that drives home the uniqueness of each face.

I don't know if I'll draw all these faces, but I'll most likely draw a few of the ones with the most character so I can practice different and interesting faces, since all the faces I draw from my head look the same.

Bugs!

The first of a couple of pages of bugs from my composition class that just ended. These were based on images found on the web, and we were practicing building the bugs from the inside out. I think the rendered one took me about 30-60 minutes. I really need to work more on sketching faster.

Illustration Friday: Ahead

The snail came out ahead of the pack.

This one came straight from the sketchbook. I'm limiting myself to pen and marker for a while to hone my drawing skills as well as my lighting/rendering skills. I have a number of sketches to post from my Drawing for Composition class and I'm also hoping to get into the summer Drawing for Composition class. We'll be going on location and starting with organic forms, then working up to mechanical forms. I also really need to get better at my quick sketching of entire forms. I start rendering, then I render things to death, losing a bit of the vitality of the original sketch.

Illustration Friday: Linked

His boredom was linked to the old adage:

The leaf is always TASTIER on the other side.

Since I haven't really posted an illustration friday in a while, I guess it was time to come back with a bang. I've been taking composition classes this semester and while perspective is freaking me out, I understand it just fine...when it is organic. This week's drawing assignment is to draw bugs! Woohoo! Unlike some of the other girls in class, I was excited about this because as long as I'm drawing bugs and they're not crawling anywhere near me, I think they are very cool.

I also found (warning: LARGE picture of eerie bug) this amazing photo of an aphid online that was taken by Bob O'Neill that, while a little on the creepy side, is a fantastic shot. I did a drawing study based on that photo yesterday, but I didn't quite capture the correct proportions of the head to the bulbous body. That being said, I also wanted to draw fun bugs in addition to practicing my perspective and drawing in the round. Thus, I created this little guy who is not very enamored with his meal.

I filled up a page in my sketchbook with the drawing and some other misses, then I cleaned it up in photoshop and tweaked the elements of the composition until I am happier with them. I want to do a final piece of this, but I want to tweak the head to get more dimension, expression, and fix the positioning of the antennae. I also need to counterbalance the left side of the composition with something on the right, but I'm not sure what yet. I think I'm going to ask my teacher in class this week.

Chantry Flats Landscape Drawing

Went to a landscape drawing workshop yesterday at Chantry Flats, in the San Angeles mountains. It was very beautiful, with lots of water flowing, greenery, and flowers. There was a very big waterfall at the end of our hike, and lots of interesting things to look at. We were focusing on composition and while I didn't end up drawing very many things, I felt what I did draw really focused on composition and depth. I was very pleased with the result. These are three of the 4 images I did. The 4th is this cool tree that I would like to work on a bit more before posting.

Illustration Friday: Egg-spire

I'm not quite sure what he is, but because it rhymes, I'm calling him my Rhino-dino. He may be slightly inspired by How To Train Your Dragon, since we went to a show of Dreamworks production art at Art center.

I hope to get to color him this week, since i'm itching to pick up my colored pencils again, but I'm busy with the class assignment for my composition class. The class is really interesting, and I'm learning a lot, but I have a long way to go before I get really good at it. I'll definitely be retaking this class again. Once I finish up the project, I plan on posting the work, but I have more drawing to get back to. That is one of the reasons why I haven't been posting much this month. I've also decided to restart my 15 minute daily drawings, to get back into the habit of sketching regularly. You can look forward to more posts upcoming.

I really like composition class, since that is now one of my weakest elements in my work. I've gotten good at characters, but I've never been happy with not having full cinematic inspired scenes. My teacher is Will Weston and he is really interesting to listen to and an extremely knowledgeable teacher. I've already driven my husband crazy with "and the teacher said this...and the teacher said that..." But it is forcing me out of my comfort zone with my work. My drawings in the class are much stiffer and more exacting than my sketchbook work, but I think they will be like that for a while until I get more comfortable working regularly with perspective.

Update: I forgot to mention my thought process behind this drawing. the only two things I could originally think of for 'expire' were death and spoiled milk. I tried a couple of person with spoiled milk sketches and realized that even the concept was gross to me, so I stopped working on it. Last night I happened to think of egg-spire, and I knew right away what I wanted his head to look like.

Illustration Fri....Thursday: Propagate

Last minute post. Doodled this while watching Olympics

Illustration Friday: Adrift

I drew the initial sketch on Saturday and it was a cat...just an ordinary cat, with a flat head. Then we went to the zoo on Sunday and watched the snow leopards play in the snow. They were so much fun to watch, that when I came home, I redrew the head, and added lots of spots. Finally got it colored.

Illustration Friday: Muddy

I was sick for a good portion of last week, and I'm still trying to get back to my normal operating schedule. Still have a stupid cough. It's been wet and rainy and cold here, but the perk of that is the mountains are starting to look so green and beautiful. I really enjoy my drives to and from work right now.

I think that the guy looks a little weird, but he looks different then the faces I normally draw. I keep trying to expand my range of expressions and features. His face was the result of a drawing session with some friends. We did 2-minute drawings and one set of them were blind/continuous line drawings where we couldn't look at the paper. We really enjoyed the results, which were often funny and Picasso-like. This one was my favorite:

There is a certain quality to the scribble that I lost in the top drawing, but it was still fun working with an image I don't usually draw.