Waxed White Amaryllis Blooming Stages

Eight days from bud just starting to open until four flowers emerging.  There may be one additional to follow behind the four but not sure if it will completely open.

Happy Holidays / Merry Christmas 2023

 

Pot of Daisies

This was inspired from a vase of artificial daisies I have sitting on my desk. 

First worked with BJD #2B pencil - Brown

Color added - Color Blending Mode:

Son's Girlfriend

Still in the mood to draw people and one I hadn't done yet as far as family portraits, I worked on this one yesterday and the night before.

Gouache brush

My favorite part was working the hair.  She has black hair with the ends colored in a light blue.

As I post this, I see areas I could adjust but for now will leave as is.  The family loves the results but of course the critic inside me can always find things I could improve on.  :-)

 

Madison's Friend, Brooke

One of my granddaughter's closest friends just had surgery and the idea hit me to do up a portrait drawing.  I wasn't quite in the mindset for color so I worked her in pencil only.  I may return at a later time and do this again but in color.

BJD Pencil #2B and Gouache

Catching Up with a Few of My Latest Drawings

Been a busy few months and only now trying to catch up with my blog posts of drawings I've managed to accomplish.

My sister in law's granddaughter, Sophia - couldn't pass up drawing this expression.  This little angel is a year old.

 
And I worked this portrait drawing of my husband with one of his expressions I absolutely love.  

This is an invasive weed we have that we thought was under control but has started popping up all around our yard.

Waxed Amaryllis bulbs and tracking growth progress:

 

Graphite sketches of a few shells I have in a basket.  Was in the mood to grab a pencil and my S&B Alpha sketchbook.

Imperial Moth Drawing

A few days ago while walking Lani outside early morning, I saw what I first thought was a leaf on the ground.  Then I realized it was moving.  When I walked up to it, I thought sure it would fly off but it just remained in place.  Not sure if injured or if feeding.  

The size of this moth was about the size of my hand with wings spread out as seen here.  What looked like brown and yellow is actually a brownish purple color and I tried to capture as close to life as I could.

6B BJD pencil, Liner 1 pencil, and Gouache.  Because the moth had a fuzzy look to it, I chose the 6B pencil to capture that look.

September Challenge

To help Madison and I get back into our sketching, we set a challenge for this month using one of our favorite Switch games as incentive.

The challenge was to sketch one of our favorite babies; a mon that to us was unique in shape and detail; and a landscape scene that grabbed our attention while playing.

Madison's Results:

My Results:

 

Vinca Stages From Bud to Open Flower

As I watched a bud open over several hours, I worked these sketches to show the progression from bud to open flower.

Sketched on Ipad using Procreate.

Vinca Has Returned

It's been awhile since I've done anything in the art department.  It's been a busy summer and now that things are starting to settle, I've been trying to get back into my sketching.

Vinca has returned growing wild in our back yard so I cut a stem and chose to work this sketch on my Ipad.  

This first is the original sketch rendering exactly what I saw with colors, etc. (or as close as I could come) and then the second is playing with colors adding blue and yellow on individual layers and using the color blending mode.

Techniques used were dropping color into selected areas (the flowers) and then adding shadows and highlights on separate layers.  Also used brushing in color (Gouache brush tool) for the leaves for a different texture or look.

  

Kilo - American Staffordshire Terrier

After several weeks of not doing any drawing or painting, I was asked if I would draw this puppy.  My youngest son's girlfriend, Paige, shared that her sister was here visiting and saw some of my other dog portraits.  Paige asked me if I would consider drawing her sister's dog.  I thought doing so would be a perfect challenge and a break from other things we've been doing to prepare for my eldest son's family moving in with us next week.

Pencil tool for rough sketch / BJD's Standard Inker for eyes / Gouache for color and blending. 

Background was using light and dark pink, BJD's Texture - Scales 1 brush tool stamped around face, and applying Gaussian Blur to blend.

 

Slow Month - Taking Somewhat of a Break

I've worked several little sketches over the last 24 days but actually just taking a break after last month's challenge.

Most recent is this one I did to send to the girls via text.

March 29 through 31 - Digital Journal

Final pages of the monthly digital journal.  All are printed out now and will be placed in a spiral book.

This has been a lot of fun.....especially developing my character in various situations.  It is not something I would be able to keep up with every day though because of the design aspect of each page.  

The one major plus to working digital versus in a standard sketchbook is the time planning the layout.  With digital you can just work individual illustrations and then move around on the page with no problem.  In a standard sketchbook............it's a lot more time consuming and work before even starting to sketch illustrations.

 

 

March 25 through 28 - Digital Journal

 Almost there........3 more days remaining.

 

 

March 21 through 24 - Digital Journal

So far so good keeping up with the daily.  7 more days and I'll have met my personal goal for the month.

   

March 15 through 20 - Digital Journal

 

        

March 9 through 14 - Digital Journal

So far I have managed to work a page a day.  Some days I find it to be a struggle but if nothing else, I'm hoping to reach my daily goal for the Month of March.

 

  

  

       

March 7 and 8 Digital Pages

Not much to say outside of what is shown on the pages....except that it's a little easier with page layouts because you can move things around instead of having to pencil and erase on a page.  All illustrations and wording are worked on separate layers allowing you to experiment in how you want things laid out.

 

 

Draw Your Day (or Week) Digital Journaling

Back in May 2019, I started a 30 day "Draw Your Day" regimen that I really like.  The only drawback I found was the daily design/layout thought process on top of what to choose to sketch for the day.  Not every day do I feel up to the thought process of design.  This is one of the main reasons I typically draw one illustration to a page with some writing I might add....less taxing on the brain.

Because I've not been too inspired to work in physical sketchbooks/journals with pen and ink plus watercolor, I thought I would play a bit doing the same thing but on the Ipad.  Each "file" being a page I can later print out if I choose.

The size of each page is about half of a letter size piece of paper (horizontal orientation) plus allocated space should I bind the pages together instead of creating signatures and hand sewing. (Still working out the specifics in canvas size to fit to print depending on which way I choose to go....spiral or hand sewn.)

Starting the digital journal, I wanted to play with primaries/secondaries along with color values.  First experiment was taking Procreate's version of true primary colors (red, blue, yellow) and actually blending together to get my secondaries.  Turned out a bit different when compared to the app's version of true secondaries (green, purple, orange).....especially in the green.  

The orange and purple came close but a tad more vivid.  I don't care for the app's version of true green at all.  Way to bright in hue.  But the mixed version is a bit too muted for my liking as well and I tried mixing a few times coming out with basically the same result.  Again, this was just an experiment for fun.

Next I wanted to create some icons as reference I might want to use either by copying and pasting or just reference to re-sketch each time.  I played with colors to denote mood and facial features I might want to use that describe my day in general.  Also worked on weather icons.  Two other illustration icons I consider including on a page may be my progress with diet and my sleep patterns.  Will just depend, taking it day by day.

The next three are actual page examples putting some of the above together along with sketches for that day.  The "Doodles" page is just starting with a shape with nothing in mind and going from there.  I tend to create creatures out of shapes like bugs and other critters and have no idea why.  Just like I have no idea why I chose to have a spider holding a piece of mail.  It was fun even if it's "out there" with content.