Zentangle Fun

A couple of weeks ago I received my Zentangle kit. The technique used is somewhat similar to the first few exercises in the book Drawing with Imagination (mentioned in an earlier post). The Zentangle designs are simple to do and I find them quite relaxing. You can get more information at http://www.zentangle.com/. I have not done nearly as many drawings as I should have by now but I am going to blame that on the holidays. So far I have done a couple of designs on the paper supplied in the kit and around 4 ATCs. The technique is wonderful for ATC designs. For those of you who have the kit... did anyone else notice it smells like a hospital?

I also made one for the letter "A" for the A2Z challenge at The Crone's Corner. It is nothing fancy but it does meet the requirement for A. This one is also done for an ATC and got traded moments after I posted it.

Angel Caricature

I seen this photo of a darling little girl dressed like an angel at The Crone's Corner blog and had to draw her. Originally, I had planned to do a more realistic drawing of her but since I have been in a caricature kind of mood, she turned into a caricature instead. How you like her anyway!

EDM Challenge #144

The Every Day Matters challenge #144, draw something square. I decided to draw my ottomen because it sits between me and the TV and the boys wanted to watch the new Pirates movie last night. I know, the top is really screwed up, which was more obvious after I did all the shading. I layed a piece of tracing paper over the top and sketched it in just to see where I messed up but I didn't bother to fix the sketch. Live, learn, and move on. Done in my cheapie sketch book from Target.

Morgan Freeman Caricature

From the movie The Shawshank Redemption (one of my fav's). Done in my recycled paper sketch book with graphite and white conte pencil. I did this one last night while my son was at cheerleading practice. Tonight is hockey practice, so I will have another opportunity to do some drawing. Tonights subject will be a little angel I got from The Crone's Corner.

Enrique Caricature

I did this one last night while watching the Biggest Loser finally. I'm not overly happy with how it turned out tough. The nose is a bit funky and there is not much of a likeness. I do love this technique though which I have not done too much of. I picked up a couple of recycled paper sketch books at Barnes and Noble. This was my first sketch in one of those books. Graphite and Conte Pencils. Comments always welcomed.

*** I uploaded a new image. I fixed the nose as much as I could and added some background on the left. I think it is a little better now.

Alaskan Bog

This one was inspired by an image I saw in National Geographics. I didn't get the browns quite as dark as I would have liked to, but I like how it turned out.
Bic pen and colored pencil in my cheapie sketch book.

Drawing with Imagination

A fellow art blogger named Greg recomended a book to me, which I ordered right away (Thanks Greg!). The book is by Bert Dodson and is called Keys to Drawing with Imagination: Strategies and Exercises for Gaining Confidence and Enhancing Your Creativity. I love how the book is laid out and so far I am really enjoying the exercises in it. I am only on the 3rd exercise in the book but I already have several ideas for new works. The bad part, I am in such a hurry to get to the next exercise and see what it is that I rush through the actual drawing exercises. It's ok, I'll go back and revisit them after I finish the book.


Here is an example from the first exercise. It is called "Taking a Line for a Walk". I really enjoyed this exercise.


This next one is from the second exercise.

Nothing fancy. Just fun and relaxing. These get me in the mood to do some more serious works. Not to mention, I found a good use for that gridded moleskine sketch book I bought.

2 New ATCs

I haven't had time to make many of these lately. Here are two I just finished getting ready to trade today. As of now they are both available for trade.

Imagination Drawing 2

This is my second attempt at drawing from my imagination (inspired by nina). I might color this later but I like how it looks with just the ink so I wanted to save it in this state before adding color.

~ sketched in pencil and lined with a brush pen

Facial Expressions

I have this wonderful book called Facial Expressions by Mark Simon. It has hundreds of photos in it of different models making crazy faces. I love drawing from this book and I usually get a pretty good likeness, but most of the time I fail to capture the expression of the person. I am not sure how to correct this. Normally I would say more practice, but I think I am missing something. Maybe I need to slow down when I am drawing and pay more attention to the location and angles of the facial features. If anyone has any advice on this, I would love to hear it.

Both of the drawings are of Charlotte. The first one looks like her but the second one does not. I always draw people straight on because I have trouble with other views, which is why I chose one that was a 3/4 view. Maybe it is time to draw more of these.

EDM Challenge #36 - Draw in Public

Thursday night my boys had floor hockey at the local YMCA. I had my sketch book there and the lady sitting across from me was crocheting so she was sitting pretty still. I thought this would be a great opportunity to do some live drawing. I have always wanted to do some live drawing but I know I am not very good at it so I have never really tried it before. I know, this is dumb. I can not get any better at something if I do not ever do it. It did not turn out very well, but I consider it another notch on my list of things I have never done but want to be better at. I look at this one as a benchmark to track my progress.

Imagination Drawing

Inspired by Nina Johansson's challenge to draw from the imagination every day in December. I doubt I will manage to do this every day, but I did do it today. My goal is to be more creative and I think part of this is to draw as often as possible and in part by trying new things. I almost never try to draw from my imagination so this is a great exercise for me. I also have not made time for sketching since starting school almost 4 years ago. I am trying to find opportunities to sketch whenever I can. I did this drawing while we had critiques in digital photography. It was much better than sitting there for 2.5 hours while the teacher rambled on.

I know it is not the most creative drawing but it represents a lot of new things for me. First of all, I drew it without looking at anything. Second, I used watercolors in my sketchbook. Third, I drew an entire scene, which I have never done before.

EDM Challenge #37 - Keys

I have been reading a lot about Moleskine sketch books and I wanted to try one. I could not find one locally so I had to order it online. I ended up getting two of them. One had plain pages and the other had a grid on it. Lately I have been thinking about doing some grid drawings and when I read the description, I thought of the pages having about 4 larger grids on them. I should have read it better I guess. I did not let this discourage me so I just used the gridded paper to draw my own grids. For the Every Day Matters #37 - Draw some keys. I did this last night while sitting in my car, waiting to pick my boys up. I sort of like the broken grid look to it but I think I might go in and add some color to the background. Done with a bic pen. For anyone who does not know about Everyday Matters, there is a link to the site in the inspiration section of my blog. Visit it today.

Dick Van Dyke Caricature

It has been quite some time since I have drawn any caricatures. This is something I love to do, so I really need to make the time to draw more often. I started out with a brush pen but then decided it needed more so I went in with a smaller ink pen and added some shading to it. I am not sure the thinner pen works with the thickness of the brush pen. Also, I have not used an ink pen for shading in a very long time. I think this is something I should practice. This was done in my cheapy sketch journal that I bought from Target. I thought about adding some water colors to it but I am not sure how the pages will hold up. Maybe I should try a page in the back to test it.

Angry

Day 2, post 2. I am off to a good start! I drew this yesterday but I am not sure how I feel about it. This is the first time I have ever done the scribble thing. I usually spend hours finishing a drawing and I would like to be more lose in my drawings some times. It sort of feels like the scribbles are too messy and that they create a loss of detail. Feel free to comment on this.

Starting Anew

I have been reading a lot lately about creativity and the creative spirit. What I have learned is that you need to be productive if you wish to be creative. I, however, am not productive. I tend to spend most of my time dreaming and wishing I were more creative and more talented, instead of doing it. I am inspired by those who can draw, paint, create, or post every day. This is not realistic for me so I am going to set my goal for posting at least once a week, even if I have to cheat and post an older drawing :) I feel like I am turning over a new leaf and I really want to improve my productivity so I have started this new blog. At my old blog I had 45 posts in 3.5 years. I would like to have more than that each year. Here's to all of you slackers out there who can relate!



I am going to start off posting a drawing I finished about a week or so ago. I bought a cheap journal from Target and have never really used it. I think I paid $6 for it and it has a billion pages in it. The paper is cheap, but that helps me relax and takes the pressure off when I am drawing in it. This drawing was done with a bic pen.