Facing Forward……. in a Tutu

                                   Inspiration Picture from  HERE

I had a “File Error” on my memory card.  So, I can’t post my usual step-by-step process.  Awww, shucks!  But luckily the memory card wasn’t totally corrupted.  That would definitely piss me off!  But alas…..such was not the case….so I’m happy.



I’ll show you what I can.   The ballet slipper was definitely a new one for me.  But being the novice, I just try to make it look right….not exact. 

Love the way ballerina’s point their feet!!  Talk about flexibility, Wow!!  I took ballet twice, only because my mom signed me up for 2 classes when I was 7.   I showed some promise with the teacher until we had to run and “leap into the air” ….Well, I sprinted each and every time (even after I was told “this isn’t a race girls” )….that’s when the teacher focused her attention on some of the more graceful types!!  Ahh, well!



I really wanted to give this ballerina broader shoulders, but that’s not the way she looks.  So, I had to bring them in quite a bit.



I took this about as far as I could without driving myself crazy.  You see, I didn’t add that little white line on her stockings that trail down the backside of her leg, nor did I spend much time on the fingers!   And truthfully, if I wasn’t doing this for the Sketchbook Project, I would use a more graphite-friendly paper.



I thought it was time to try Colored Pencils.   Yep, just plain ‘ole colored pencils.



As you can see, a pencil is a pencil and the colored pencils also show that darn stippling.   So, I grabbed my watercolor pencils and just went over the area with them too.   Don’t know if that’s allowed, but it worked.



To add more dimension, I outlined the girl with my finest point micron pen.



She’s similar to the original, not precise.  It would be nice if I could use all colored pencils for a drawing like this.  You know, show the real skin tone and all.  Someday…..



I really should try to put some clothes on my people.  So, I picked up this book the other day hoping to learn a thing or two from it.

Now, back to more practice….practice….practice.

One Meal-lion Doodles

You heard right!!! That’s One Million Doodles.  The “meal-lion” is suppose to be a take on an Austin Powers movie where Dr. Evil puts his pinky in his mouth and wants to be paid ONE MEAL-LION dollars to not blow up the world.   That movie has some funny classic lines.

Sue over at Sue Doodles posted about this doodle challenge a few days ago, and I thought I’d give it a try.  I’m a more structured doodler so I wasn’t sure how I’d approach this. 



Here are the guidelines for the World Doodle Challenge.

The task is easy
1. You don’t need to be able to draw well. A doodle is meant to be whatever comes to mind.
2. You can doodle on anything, a blank piece of paper, a napkin, a post-it, a lined page, a note book anything at all.
3. Your doodle can be any size, the ideal size would be 5 x8 inches or what ever you like.
4. You can use one color or many and the doodle can be done while you are in a meeting, on the phone, watching television, on the train…. anywhere you like
5. The doodle can be of anything, what ever pops into your head. just pick up a pen and draw.
6. The important thing is you must date stamp your doodle and list which City and Country you are in.
7. If you are travelling you can submit doodles from multiple cities.
8. Scan your doodle or take a photo and e-mail it to me : warren@tjomiesvintagestationery.com
9. I will begin to post the world doodles as I start receiving them (I anticipate it will take a while to kick off, with the first few trickling in)
10.  Your doodles will eventually wind up in a world book, and will be used to support charities.



Had a bit of time to kill the other day as 10 inspectors walked into our lab to inspect our policies and procedures.  I had to be at their beck and call as they asked questions and reviewed logs.  Having given up my desk to a couple of inspectors, I didn’t know what to do with my hands…….so, I doodled on a scrap piece of paper.   I don’t know if my doodle really counts as a doodle, because there are a lot of free-association words written down.  Ah, well!

It’ll be interesting to see how long it takes Warren at The Doodle Daily to reach his millionth submission.  I did my part, I hope YOU can too.

Facing Forward…..in Amsterdam

I adore the pictures that I see of Amsterdam…..Talk about a city with character and history!  No, I’m not talking about the red light district here, c’mon!

 

To prove that I know what I’m talking about, here’s a picture of me with my sister in ‘96 in Amsterdam.  What struck me the most about this city is how old it is.   I was amazed when we went to an old book store and the concrete steps leading into the store were worn down by inches in the middle,  from the amount of foot traffic those steps have had over the years no…..centuries.



I thought this would be a fun picture (from flickr) to try to draw…..TRY being the operative word here.  I just have no interest in drawing straight lines like you see in  ALL….THOSE….WINDOWS!  I don’t have the patience to make it exact and it would bug me if I didn’t get it right.   So, I opted for a more whimsical version.



Having decided I wasn’t going to make it realistic at all, I grabbed those wonderful stencils and just stenciled up all three townhouses. 



The townhouses needed a little texture so I used these three doodle patterns for their background.



If I could do it all over again, I wouldn’t put that stupid white bubble in there.  Ah, well.



Grabbed my favorite watercolor pencils to add some reflection to the water.



Here’s the scanned picture.  This was a nice piece to just sit back and color.  Well, it’s not much, but at least I drew and doodled today! LOL!!

Facing Forward …with a Doodled Face

One of my favorite candid pictures of my son was taken when he was 12 yrs old (he’s now 22).  It wasn’t so much his smile (probably because he isn’t smiling).  It was more his expression and the colors in the towel he had over his shoulders that placed this picture as one of my all-time-favorites!



The only original thing I did here was to use color in this picture.  This type of drawing can be best illustrated by Rebecca Anthony.  Now this lady is good.  You can see what I mean if you go over to her blog here and here.

Had a ton of fun using those watercolor pencils for the vibrant colors of the towel.  Luckily I had already purchased the right colors.  Being rather impatient……I outlined the face in with my XS Faber-Castell Pitt Artist pen because it was time to get on with it a.l.r.e.a.d.y….that’s when I saw the error of my ways.



Check out the RED * area.  This is where I tend to make mistakes a lot.  (As seen when I did my self-portrait sketch).  I can’t seem to pull off the entire left eye unless I give myself more room…..hence the broader cheekbones!!  Ugh!!

But aren’t those colors in the towel a good match with the sketch?  I just love them!



If you decide to doodle on top of your watercolored areas….don’t just wait until the area is dry to the touch (5-10 minutes).  It’s best to wait overnight, because if you don’t you’ll get this bleed effect which you can see in the swirlie’s above.  It would be a drag to do all that work, then ruin it at the end!



Just a close-up of the face.  Had to rely on my doodle directory prints for a lot of these areas.   Repetitive patterns, in different intensities work best.   A pattern that uses more ink is used in the places where there is a lot of shadows, or shading. 



The other thing I found that I liked as I drew this was…….When you’re using a pattern, if you can take that same pattern and change the tempo of it as you doodle thru the area, that helps add dimension to the subject as well.   (See the upside U portion in the middle of the neck to see what I mean)



Ta-Da!!!  I may go back in and doodle up that white background……we’ll see.

Halloween Birds go Trick-or-Treating…..

I bet you didn’t know this but…..Birds get to go trick-or-treating too!  At least on my blog they do!! LOL!



I came home from work the other day, with a bright idea brought upon by seeing all the Halloween decorations.  Actually, it was more like a bit of reminiscing as I drove through my neighborhood remembering how fun it was to take my kids trick-or-treating! 

Once I had a minute, I quickly scribbled out this drawing before I forgot it.   My husband calls these birds “chickens” which I totally take offense too, but as I look at the draft…..hmmmm, he may just be right.



Here’s the birdie witch in the beginning.  Lots of eraser usage as you can see.



Wanted to make the witches shoes black (like a normal witch would have) but had to color in with gray so that you could see the little pumpkin-birdie’s feet.  Can’t you just tell how wound-up he is?….he just can’t stand still!



Don’t mark off too many points for the dimensions of the plastic pumpkin carrier!  Kinda whipped that up.  I really should go back in and use “white” in the black areas at the bottom of the dress where the handle is. 



I debated with myself over the color of her skin.  Should I make her “witch-like” with green skin or normal toned??    After all she is trick-or-treating with her child and she doesn’t want to scare the poor kid.  But alas……since she’s not real, nor is her child…..the green witch won.



Heloise the Halloween Mom……She is so excited that her son is old enough to go Trick-or-Treating this year.  Not only did she have his costume completed by October first, she even decided she’d dress up this year as well.   A bunch of people gave them extra candy because her little pumpkin was so darn cute.   At the end of the night when they were combing thru their loot, the little guy asked where all his M&M’s went…..cuz he was sure he got some.

What do you think happened to his M&M’s?

Bookmarks R Fun!

I have no idea what a bookmark and a pumpkin have in common except when I went outside to take this picture I thought they looked kinda cute together.  Working on my alpha-doodling and came up with this little pudgy lettering.  



You can see it a little better in this shot.  Not being one to do ANYTHING without adding a little color, off I went with my rainbow pneumonic of ROY G BIV.  For those of you new to this it’s  Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo (purple), Violet (pink).
Had my doodle directory prints out for ideas, because I was going to need them on this next step.



The great thing about doing a background in just ONE color is…..you don’t have to think too much.  You can just go with wherever the design takes you.  No worries about shading/ highlighting, outfits for the birdies, “does the drawing look like the picture?”….you know…that kind of stuff!  



This type of doodling is just sheer DELIGHT!!!  Really!  Give it a try if you haven’t already.

You’ve got one more day to submit your own CUSTOMIZED bookmark for the Bookmark Contest at D'blogala.  Deadline is Friday 10/15.

Bookmark Contest

The contest is not here….it's over at D'blogala.  You’ve got to hurry and submit your bookmark by Friday, Oct. 15.  I totally forgot about this, but thankfully Dawn posted a reminder recently.  She’s giving away this book that she recently published. 

Here’s my entry:



Since this is a “girl” Doodle diary book, I thought it best if I used some pinks!! If you've been following this blog, you know that pink and I don't see eye-to-eye when it comes to coloring things in.  I will wear it, just can't draw with it.  But since, I can draw with orange, reds and blues, I thought maybe pink would play well with these other colors, so far so good....I am relieved.



Looking a little bland here, had to spice it up a bit.



I thought the white lettering was a bit too boring.  But I was unsure how much detail to put in such a small area.



Ok, you’ve got to admit it, this has some detail!  Plus, it’s a little wild!   Good thing I cut some extra 2 x 6 inch pieces, because I may make another one, entirely different, of course.  This was a quick & fun doodle opportunity.  Now You....Go get your Doodlin’ On, and submit one for yourself.  What have you got to lose?

Six Sayings…..in a Sketchbook

This sentence has been written in my personal journal more than a couple times.  But really…..it could be said by anyone, dontchyathink?   I guess…maybe, it all boils down to getting some clarity.



But….I couldn’t leave it all black and white ya know!!  Had to add some color!



Then I wrote out my excuse for not getting everything done that I’d like to. 

 

This saying isn’t original to me, but it really resonated with me when I read this guest post by Marelisa from Abundance Blog.



This one is pretty self-explanatory!



Whatever you’re drawn to do, be it sing, dance, draw, paint, sculpt, crunch numbers, fix things, make people laugh, encourage people, council people, care for animals, build Tall Buildings, run faster or farther….it’s not going to go away.  It may be a clue as to what you’re suppose to be doing with in your life.



Life’s too short to be too serious.  And really….what better way to lighten someone up than to joke around a bit.   I know it works for me when I’m in a mood, and even when I’m not!



Well, thanks for staying with me this long….through all..these..pictures.  You know, that’s the secret of this blog, not a whole lot of content, but Lots-of-Pictures!