Drawing Black

One of the things I tend to avoid drawing is anything that is all black like shown in the following photo.  

I sent out a request to my art mentor, Hany, asking what he would advise in how to approach drawing an all black object and my take from what he shared was paying really close attention to the light sources.  That way the drawing won't look like a flat blob of black as I always fear.

Using one of my favorite techniques of laying down color and blending, I chose to work on the earpiece as seen in the photo above.  I made sure I had decent lighting shining down on my work area giving me lights and darks I needed so the piece wouldn't look flat.

I don't think I did too bad with the lighting but wonder if I couldn't have gone a tad lighter in the lit areas...particularly there to the left as you view the drawing.  I didn't want it stark white but think I could have gone a shade lighter with the gray.

Overall, I'm happy with the results and I thank my dear friend and mentor for the guidance helping me gain the results that I did.

Native Hibiscus

This is from one of our native hibiscus trees in the back yard.  I loved this stage the flower was in as it was opening up. 

This one took 31 layers to complete.  I was playing with different brushes to get a watercolor effect.

Brushes/Techniques used:

Drag and drop base colors (flower and leaves)

MWC Water Wash #8 brush for texture

MWC Splatter Wash #8 brush for texture

Darks using Gouache brush tool and blending with layer set on multiply to maintain texture

Lights using Gouache brush and blending

Bee and branch using Gouache brush set at lowest size setting

 

Another Gift - From Madison and Jonathan

The kids made a trip to West Va last week and on their way back, they picked this little gift up for me.  They know I love lilies and hummingbirds and couldn't pass it up.

And of course I had to draw it.  This one presented quite a challenge working with glass, reflections, and shadow.  It took 22 layers to complete this building the colors and values up.

 

Gifts from the Kids

When the kids gift me with trinkets and whatnot, I love to sketch them.  These are from last month I hadn't posted yet.  

Seems I'm getting a bit lazy these days blogging my work.....LOL.  I really need to get back in the habit of blogging as it is a means of a personal art diary for myself and to print for the family.

This first trinket is one that Travis got me years ago from Universal Studios here in Florida.  This first one is a Family statue representing parents and three kids.  I decided to draw it and then use ivy to decorate it.

Mother's Day gift (2024) from Madison.  Again using ivy plus flowers to decorate the trinket that has a significant meaning to Madison.

This next one is a plant and water vase from Madison and Jonathan they picked up on one of their trips to Orlando.

Been on a Bear Kick

It's been a busy month for me working on various card ideas and I decided to bring out Opal and friends to use as drawing models.

Starting out, I used Opal to create a Mother's Day Card.  From one pose, I took it further adding various items he/she could hold. 

After I worked on these, I worked on these "posable" illustrations using another of my miniature bears.  

These are using yet another miniature bear in my collection:

Another card created using a previous Opal drawing from a couple of years ago:

One of the reasons I love illustrating individual subjects versus full compositions is to give me a library of subjects to choose from in order to create cards for people.

I also enjoy creating the step or demo sheets and individual subjects make it easier for me to do so.  Helps me to remember how I went about things and as a means to share with others who might want to use or learn the techniques I enjoy using.

Ivy Plant in Pot and Glass

This is from an ivy plant growing in my bathroom.  The section I drew is what is draping over the pot onto the edge of my bathtub.  I first drew the plant and then on a separate layer, created the pot.  Then I decided to work yet another layer for the glass.