Facing Forward…..in a Picture Frame

This isn’t the best picture of me….but then again, it isn’t the worst either. I thought I’d do a self-portrait sketch from this picture.

Looking at this image again after some time away, I can see that the head shape or angle to the viewer is not replicated well…..it’s too straight-on. It needed more head-turn angle.

I found as the drawing progressed, it wasn’t looking like me at all. Then it dawned on me, I really didn’t have to make it look like me unless I wanted it to. I was free to draw any imaginary person I wanted. Hahaha. So what if it started off as a self-portrait, this is my book and I can do it my way. Plus, I do want to get this Sketchbook Project Moleskine done this year in a timely manner.

Took the sketching portion as far as I could before I started missing my markers. Used those wonderful stencils to add a floral decor to the picture frame. Then just started to doodle all over the place. That’s the fun part. The letting go of the analytical side and letting the right brain take over.

I doodled in the background with my Faber-Castell Black XS pen then gave the left edge of the frame a maroon bevel.

Now, I’m unsure where to take this next…….looks way to blank without putting something around the outside of the frame. I just read a letterform post from Lori over at Elvie Studio about lettering. She has a bunch of links to different styles of writing. I’m a willing student here, really…..but I’m in need of much instruction.

What do you guys think would look good in the background of this drawing? Ideas, suggestions, comments, complaints?

7 Links Challenge

I’ve decided to play along with Tammy from her 7 Links Challenge post that’s been making the rounds in the blogosphere lately. I finally have some substance to this blog with over 210 posts……Wow! Did I just say that outloud? Who’d have thought this little artsy, quirky, bloggy habit could’ve been sustained this long? But I guess this is where we are headed, with our technology, and our super-fast mode of communicating. I’ve had such a fun time getting to know all you “bloggy” friends and visiting your little niche’s on the web. I really enjoy seeing what you’re up to. You are teaching me so much about art, photography, the internet, different sites, and it’s fun to see your fun and colorful personalities shine through! I hope that some of you play along with this little link challenge.

Just post a link in the comments to your response so we can hop over and have a look.

• 1- Your first post……..That would be Avatar Mosaic. It was a bit scary to post for the first time, but this was harmless enough. Click on the picture to see it larger, these avatars are too small to decipher unless you do.
• 2- The Post you enjoyed writing the most…….That would be My Manifesto or What do you want to be when you grow up? Obviously, not much art in those. They’re more about what I think. Art you enjoyed creating……that would have to be the Part 6 of the Friends Sketch. It was something I’ve never done before, even though it took a week to complete and I need a lot more practice sketching, I surprised myself.
• 3- The post which generated the most discussion……that would have to be Notes and a Doodle.
• 4- A post on someone else’s blog that you wish you’d written…….Can I pick more than one??? Good, here’s three.
• i. Artsyville’s- A Handwritten Perspective
• ii. Brooke Castillo’s- Live You
• iii. Christine Kane’s- How to stay motivated when you're not feeling it.
• 5- A post with a Title that makes you proud……..Oh, that’s easy it has to be Craving Color or A Bird in his Right Mind
• 6- A post you wish more people had read…….I like Art Inspires, even though it’s not a long post I think I was able to communicate what art means to me pretty openly.
• 7- Your most visited post ever…….Hands down it would have to be my Doodle Directory series of posts. Doodle Directory, Doodle Directory stimulus, Doodle Directory continued, and Doodles upon Doodles. Most fitting I’d say, with that being part of my blog name et al.

I wanted to thank everyone for all their nice comments on my last post about the recent passing of my Father. It really meant a lot to me.

Sketchbook Project Moleskine….format

Here are a few pictures of what I’m doing with the sketchbook . From this post you saw that I’m using thicker watercolor paper and cutting it down to size. Then I’m gluing the finished piece into the sketchbook. I will be alternating the pages. In other words, every other page will have the watercolor paper drawing. The extra piece of paper is glue stick’d (is this a word?) to the back of the page with the watercolor drawing. So, even though the book has 40 pages, I will only have 20 pages of drawing. With the other 20 glued to the back side of the previous page. I’m rambling here…..it’s just hard to explain, but super simple to show you.

From the drawings inspired by Flickr, I re-sized the jpeg down, printed it on photo paper and pasted it to the opposite page of the drawing. Here I will credit the photographer and add an “artsy” touch of writing or doodling. I’m going to slow-journal or play with different writing styles to add some interest. This should be fun, and force me to stretch my alpha-hand.

Just another view of the pages so far.

If any of you are still wondering….”should I sign up for this project?” or…..”where will I find the time?” or…. “I want to but..”, I urge you to read this post at Abundance Blog by Marelisa that I came across today, titled “How One Hour a Day Can Change Your Life”. She says it much better than I can, and she’ll get you thinking about how you manage your time, it’s worth the 4 minutes to read it. You have until October 31st to sign up. Just click on the Sketchbook Project image on the right side bar to go to their site.

I physically started this project after my vacation, on August 8th. I’m now on my 7th page. I was pretty hesitant at first, but it’s moving along as it should. At a pace I’m comfortable with. Some days I have more time to work on it than others, but it has not been OVERWHELMING at all. Baby steps……b.a.b.y…s.t.e.p.s…..

And here’s just a little peek at the 7th page. I won’t tell you anymore, because I want you to come back and find out later. This one won’t be done until I return. Unfortunately I will be traveling out of town to attend a loved ones Funeral. Ironically, this picture fits because it looks like she’s ready to cry.

A Troll for Luck

*Drawing inspired by this picture on Flickr.

Yikes!!….A troll facing forward. These guys are so ugly, they’re cute. Well, kinda…only if you dress them up and color them in, I think.

In the early to mid 90’s I bought about ten of these guys over a 2 yr period for my sister. They had the Lottery Troll, the Halloween Troll, the Birthday Troll, you get the picture. Promoted a little like beanie babies actually, just not stuffed, LOL!

Spent the entire weekend coloring this guy in. I really need a life. But then again, this is what I’m comfortable doing. I’m a bit of the book-worm type. Back in college I hung out in the library. Yes, I’m a Nerd! At least I can admit it now.

All that hair is a perfect place to add those RAINBOW colors to this guy. Don’t want to miss an opportunity to support the use of rainbow colored markers.

Had to doodle them up a bit to add interest.

Not quite done…..just need to do something to the background now.

Did you know that in the 1960’s these Troll Dolls were the second most popular doll right behind the Barbies, who’d have thought?

Part of the dolls charm was that it was so ugly - it had huge ears and a pot belly, no forehead and long strands of sheep's wool for hair. Danes believed the dolls were so ugly that you had to laugh at them and if you were laughing, nothing bad could happen to you. Soon the dolls became a source of good luck to people around the world. Initially they were favored by high school and college girls but soon grown men were carrying them around on their travels. This information found Here.

I bet if I looked around my house I’d find a troll doll stashed away somewhere. How about you?

A Dancer……Facing Forward

Well, I got permission from the photographer (Tilak Haria on flickr) to post this picture on here, but he disabled downloading. So the only thing I could think of was to take a picture of my monitor. Which doesn’t do the picture justice, please click over to the original to see it much better. It’s no wonder he disabled downloading with over 2000 views and over 75 people calling it a Favorite on flickr, I would too.

What drew me to this Dancer was the colors of her dress. Ahhhh, such beauty. But I kept it simple and just colored in the dress my way…..Remember the sketchbook has to be completed by January, so had to speed things up a bit……plus didn’t think I could draw in all that detail anyway.

Still in my contour drawing mode because you gotta start somewhere and it allows me to use the drawing like I would a coloring book.

I don’t know if the watercolor pencils were the right choice for these parts of the dress. I thought they’d show more contour and shading, did not pull that off.

Markers are so much more predictable. In other words, I’m so much more comfortable with the markers versus the pencils.

The face of the actual dancer is so much prettier than this simple one. I only noticed after I outlined her lips that they are not centered….. Shoot!

The cool thing about her dress is the way it was partitioned off. Which allowed me freedom to doodle or zentangle in those striped areas anyway I pleased.

I got the idea from Rebecca at DaisyDolls Gypsy Caravan to use the music symbols in the background. She had zentangled some faces where she used music notes….I thought it was Brilliant! Since, I don’t know how to read music please forgive me if this is all gibberish!

All-in-All she was a lot of fun to draw.

Whew, that’s page 5 complete!

Facing Forward on a Striped Rug

Photographer: Sarowen on Flickr graciously let me post her picture.

I fell in love with this picture, which I spotted on Flickr a few days ago. Don’t you just love those colors? That cotton rope rug? Those shoes? Well, I could do without the shoes, I’m not really a “ballet slipper-shoe” type, but that’s just me.

This is more my style!!! LOL!!

Back to the drawing……This was really fun to draw, ONCE I figured out all those little vertical lines. If you look closely there is a pattern to the vertical threads, it shows up in every other row. The odd rows are blues/greens- the cooler variety, and the even rows are the red/pinks- the warmer colors. This was driving me crazy until I figured it out!

The nice thing about this drawing was that I was able to use my watercolor pencils! Those are such a blast to use. I like to mark up the page, then go back with a small wet brush and spread out all that pigment. Joy! …really! It doesn’t take much to keep me amused.

Using my C-L (Creative-License) here to make the shoes any way I want them, this by far is the BEST thing about drawing. Photoshop has it’s limits at times, well actually it would just take me a heck of a lot longer to make flowers on the tops of the shoes, but it can be done.

I may draw another pair of shoes, we’ll see….I have some other ideas for facing forward that I hope to be able to make work. I get pretty bored if I don’t change things up a bit every now and then.

Anyone else doing the Sketchbook Project? How’s it coming along?

Facing Forward in Flip-Flops

No….those aren’t my feet. No….that isn’t my picture. But isn’t that a cool picture? I spotted this picture on flickr the other day and knew right then what I was going to do for page 3 of my Sketchbook Project. Did just a contour drawing and I didn’t want to take it any further with shading and highlighting because:

#1- it would take a lot of time

#2- The drawing was screaming to be colored in, really!

I thought about what color flip-flops I’d buy today if I needed a new pair, then proceeded to create the pair I’d want to have. Using my favorite colors in timeless stripes, I knew I’d buy this pair in a heartbeat. I left the toe-nails white because I wanted the focus on the sandals. Originally I thought I’d do some sort of pattern on the sole of the flop, but it probably would’ve looked too busy, and the black seemed to work well.

Added a little black/white checkered block to the letters, cuz it was looking a little boring without it. I wanted the doodled flowers to look like patches sewn onto the pants. Eh….kinda worked.

Out of all the markers in my stash, I only used these ten. That was an accomplishment. LOL!

This was a fun drawing which could’ve been taken in so many directions. I like stuff like that! I may head back to flickr to see if I can spot some other shoes to put on my sketch-feet which I can color in for another page. Oh, No…..Maybe I do have a foot-fetish!!

Facing Forward….with an Umbrella

Ahhh, the beginning of a drawing…..everything is so neat, clean and white…..and the color choices in my head get to speak their minds (not always listening to what’s going on up there, but they get to speak, LOL!)

Then as the drawing progresses, the desk gets sloppier and sloppier! I’m a slob! Especially while immersed in something. My DH keeps asking me when I’m going to pick up my markers…..I just tell him…. “Soon, Honey, soon"

Closer view of my tools on my sloppy desk…..

Still can’t seem to get away from my RAINBOW color scheme. Just can’t…..too fun to use all those lovely colors, I think.

Hand-drawn bird and umbrella….stenciled in the paisley shapes & anchor. I doodled a different pattern on the separate color sections to add some variety. Doodled inside the shapes with a white marker, I was hoping the inner white doodles would stand out a little more…..but it worked. The shapes’ background color had variation according to the lines from the umbrella sections.

There’s so much in life that’s unplanned, out of our control and totally unexpected…Just hold onto your anchor and keep FACING FORWARD.

Had to bring the book theme “Facing Forward” onto the page in some way, so this is what I came up with, kind of fits with my life right now!

This was a very relaxing piece to do, something about zoning out while filling in the color sections, the repetitive nature of the backgrounds and that good ‘ole slow journaling.

Welcome Page……sketchbook project

With my theme being “Facing Forward”, I kinda cheated and did a page similar to my last bird (A Bird at the Beach). I thought I’d have the bird Waving and the little “word bubble” giving my information. However, I’m a bit conflicted because they are planning on supplying their own “about me” page with the information I give them.

* Here’s the official Info page that is given out with each sketchbook. For those of you on the fence…. please peruse…..it’s really not that scarry!

Below is the Info I’m talking about that leaves me scratching my head.

So… now I need to figure out what to write in the Word Bubble of the Welcome Page. Ahhhh, I make this so much harder than it needs to be. I’ll leave it blank for now. Suggestions, Ideas, Concerns, Opinions, Complaints, anyone??? Anyone?

There is a method to my madness with the pebble squares in the background. I used the ROY G BIV theory of Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet. With each line in those colors using different tones throughout the row.

With all those rainbow colors going on in the background, I had to tone down my Bird…..what better way than with Black and White and a good excuse to Zentangle a bit, too!

Was unsure of what to glue the pages with, and settled on the Mod Podge. I had it, never used it, thought it was a good time to try it out.

Ta-Da!!

Sketch Book Project……Facing Forward

I signed up for the 2011 Sketchbook Project at the urging of Rebecca at Daisydolls Gypsy Caravan early last month. When I received the moleskine given out for the project, I was a bit disappointed with the paper. The rules are pretty flexible, as long as we stay within the dimensions of the book we can rebind or replace the paper with whatever we want.

Being a bit of a paper-snob, I knew what I had to do. I went to my local Art Supply store and got some good Fabriano 140 lb. watercolor paper. I’ve become a bit spoiled using those Watercolor Moleskines. My plan is to cut the 20 x 30 paper into 5x8 pieces and glue them into the 40 page moleskine given for the project.

The theme I chose was, FACING FORWARD. I thought I could draw a few of those little birds that appear so often on here and possibly expand a bit with something else. The project is open to our interpretation. Good thing….should be fun! The deadline is January 15, 2011 for completion. You must sign up by October 31st.

Anyone wondering if they should sign up…..I say “Go ahead, DO IT!!” What have you got to lose? You never know what you’ll be inspired to do because you are committing to something bigger than your Daily Art or Daily Blog. I’m no artist and I signed up!

A Bird at the Beach….

Back from vacation. Nope, didn’t do half of what I planned. Never do! I only took about 12 pictures. Sometimes you got it, sometimes you don’t! The picture above is the view of the back yard of the townhouse where we stay (every year). The front yard has the Gulf across the street. We probably spend more time out back than we do beach side. More to do out back.

On the drive down, I drew another Bird. She’s a bit different since she’s facing foward. I added a little word bubble to the page where she gets to talk. Since, you know how birds like to talk!

Proceeded to copy a journal entry from last month onto my moleskine and write it out in that “slow journaling” way.

“People are unbelievably Beautiful- I see it especially when they are helping others, sharing! Man- the media has done a number on our perceptions. The thing is, is people don’t know how cool they are. Not talking about the manipulative here- just ppl going about their business each day. Why don’t I see this more often? I think I see it more when I can stop the judgments of too fat, too skinny, too bald, too hairy, too uneven, too sloppy. Granted the too sloppy I don’t see as beautiful b/c it is in their power to control that. I like it when people do the Best with the Hand God Dealt them.”

On the last Sunday in July, I found myself at Panera Bread killing some time. I wasn’t inspired to draw at the time, but felt more inclined to write. So, out came my composition book and my trusty Bic. After ramblin’ on and on about the mundane, I slowed down, sat back and watched the people around me. The strongest statement for me up there is “ the media has done a number on our perceptions”. They have a way of getting our attention, whether what they say is true or not.

Anyway…..it’s always fun to put a little drawing to a journal entry. Trust me, not all my entries are so poetic!!

How about you? Are you comfortable putting your journal entries onto your Art Journal pages? If I’m stuck, I can always find a good quote or two to use instead.