Say Buh-Bye to this Sketchbook

After five months of working on my Sketchbook for the 2011 Sketchbook Project I have grown a  bit attached to it.  After all, it was the first sketchbook I’ve ever done with a theme (Facing Forward).  But it has a home of it’s own now, and it won’t be with me….it’s like a child that you’ve watched grow up and you’ve guided them their whole life but then the time comes when they must get on with their own life and spread their wings.  So, I’m sending out Barcode #_23652_ into the world to see if she can fly.   I know I’ll miss some of the pages, but right now I’m a tad bit bored with the whole thing (oops, did I really say that outloud?).  I’ve uploaded, enhanced, blogged, drawn, glued, and enjoyed each one of these drawings, but there is nothing more that I can do to them or for them.   I took what I needed to learn from each drawing and it’s time to move on. Don’t know where….just facing forward myself!!!  LOL!!

1. Dancer
2. Teen Lingo
3. Flip Flop
4. Striped Rug
5. Incognito
6. Bench Monday
7. Thanksgiving 
8. Troll for Luck
9. Doodled Face
10. Umbrella Bird
11. Tutu
12. Mural Drawing
13. Welcome Page
14. Car Pool
15. Trick or Treat
16. Looking down

As you can see my Sketchbook added some girth to her middle since the summer.  She went from a .25 inches to a whopping 1.5 inches…..She contains 23 drawings which I’ve blogged about upon completion.  Thank you all so much for your support and kind comments throughout this whole Sketchbook project.  It really helped to keep me on track.  I can see why so many people get overwhelmed with this sort of thing.  Since I glued some pages together this made the book a little more manageable, not having to fill in every...single...page.



I didn’t spend a whole lot of time on the cover of the book as you can see, but I thought it needed something.  I sanded it down, because I heard that would help the white ink adhere better.  Wrote out the words above and painted them in.   Have you ever written a word a million times, never misspelled it once, never gave the spelling a second thought?  Me too….I got all the way thru and noticed that my doodle was lacking it’s “L”….C’mon really!!   So, I squeezed a little “L” in as best as I could.  Otherwise it would’ve read “Facing Forward in doodes and drawings”…..what exactly is a doode???? anyone?  Anyone?

The Sketchbooks tours 9 cities: Seattle, San Francisco, Austin, Atlanta, Winter Park (FL), Chicago, Washington DC, Brooklyn (NY) and Portland (ME)…..hmmmm….may just have to get to Chicago in July and check this project out for myself.  I'd love to see what everyone else has done.  An astonishing 28835 artists are participating this year, now that's a lot of sketchbooks!

Happy Thanksgiving

I don’t know what it is that I like so much about drawing these birds but they sure are fun!  I was a little unsure how I’d portray this Thanksgiving Bird.  I was given some ideas of the bird talking to the turkey and saying “Bill, is that you?”, but that’s in poor taste….Funny….but in poor taste.  Then I was told that female Indians aren’t allowed to wear Chief Headdresses….but this is a Helen Reddy bird  (you may be too young to remember the song “I am Woman”) and she pretty much wears what’s she wants, when she wants.  After all, it’s her party!



I could draw and color Headdresses all day!! Really!




I brought the kiddo-birds in because I wanted to show some excitement at finally being able to eat the turkey.  After many hours of smelling it’s sweet aroma!



Just another shot of the unfinished Bird and friends.



Helen the Thanksgiving Host…….She takes hosting the Family Thanksgiving meal to a whole new level…..Yes, she really does dress up for the occasion, and yes she even puts her kids in costume.  No one complains and her family & friends have gotten used to her little quirks.   She is the Number One BEST COOK you’d ever want to meet.  She thoroughly enjoys everything about this day.  She gets up early to dress the 3 turkeys she cooks (baked, fried and smoked), the Honey Baked Ham will be prepared a little later….but what really sets eating at Helen’s house apart is the 9 pies she makes the week of Thanksgiving!  Yep, NINE!!

You can still download the Uncolored Drawing of this Bird from HERE……(might be a good way to keep all those Pilgrims and Indians occupied while awaiting the feast).  I'm just saying.

Well guys!!  I hope you all have a Safe and Happy Thanksgiving!!!  My sympathies go out to all of you that plan to venture out on Black Friday too!

List It Tuesday….Teen-Lingo

I can’t believe I will actually be participating in List It Tuesday…. on Tuesday.  Yes, the delights of this Blog Boss!!!

Here is a quick list of the Top 10 words spoken by my Daughter to me this past weekend.  We spent 36 hours side by side as I drove her on a college visit to another state.   I think it’s funny how not only is she one to not talk a lot (at least to me), but 50% of the words she likes to communicate with are made up of 4 letters or less!  Hmmmmm……I would be floored if she becomes a public speaker at any time in her life! Floored!!

Teen-Lingo Definitions:

1. Touché-  When I’ve figured out the right answer to why she does something.
2. Whatever- When she really doesn’t want to do what I ask her to do.  Or is stalling.
3. What- If I look at her at any time.
4. Stop- If I don’t avert my eyes after she’s said “What”.
5. Fine- If I tell her not to do something she is wanting to do.
6. Random- If I communicate with her about my day, or make a statement about life in general.
7. Sure- If I ask her a Yes or No question
8. Obviously- If I agree with what she is doing
9. Congratulations- If I figure out something that I didn’t know before….usually pertaining to her school life, her social life or her sports life.
10. MOM !!- If #3 and #4 hasn’t diverted my attention and now she really means it!

So in Honor of our weekend together I thought I’d share this little drawing with you.



If I was really good at drawing I’d make it look like her feet are up on the dashboard.  Not that we drive that way or anything.



I use the big Copic-like markers for my skin tone drawings these days.  I am not happy with the flesh tones in the Faber Castell series.  The ink tends to appear too streaky.



Hard to get to know somebody who doesn’t want to be known…..probably because they have NO CLUE who they are yet…..They know what they can do, they just don’t know what to think about it.

Facing Forward…in Incognito…..FINAL

Finally got to my favorite part!  Yep, drawing in this background.  I totally love doing this part, because I could unplug the ‘noggin.  LOL!!  I think those colorful pebble squares work here, too.  But not everyone around me agrees.  My dear teen daughter told me that this picture was “way too busy”, but what does she know?  HaHa,  I usually listen to her though, because she’s got a good eye.  That’s ok,  I’ll survive,  we are all entitled to our own opinions.  Plus, I’m  all about color and she’s not.



I am loving how my friend in blue turned out.  She’s a lady with class and I hope she likes my representation.  However, in the original picture she tilted her head to the left, and I’ve drawn it tilted to the right, which makes me wonder just what I’m seeing!!!  Ah, well!



Just an early stage of the background part.  I am planning on fixing the yellow-biker-chics eyes because she’s so much prettier than I made her out to be.



Learned a lot with this drawing. 

1. Sometimes less is more (less pencil marks for the eyes and things)
2. When you are stuck on a dimension of a person…..walk away from it for awhile, preferably overnight.  If you don’t have that much time, ask someone to look at it with you.  Their fresh eyes will give you the needed adjustment.   (I do this A LOT!)
3. Take the things you like or can do from a picture and EMBELLISH it anyway you want….It’s allowed, really! 
4. Not everyone will like my version of the picture, and that’s OK. 

Thanks for all your EnCoUrAgEmEnT and kind Comments you’ve left along the way here.  They really keep me on task, and I appreciate each and every comment you leave!

Facing Forward….in Incognito….Part 2

After sketching this out for a day, I decided it was “good enough”  (sometimes ya just gotta go for it).  So, I brought out my Faber Castel XS black pen for the outlining..  I like to define my edges, be clear on what my boundaries are.  I’ve also found that after outlining the image, the ink can stand up to my eraser as I erase the bulkier graphite lines.



Once all was outlined, it was time to play!!  Having already decided this wasn’t going to be a “realistic” drawing this really freed me up to try out some new doodle patterns.  I like the idea of using just black and white designs, but I was drawn to using just a “dash of color” on each person.   I think it gives them personality, LOL!!




I tried to make it even with the amount of color I used on each person.  I really, really wanted to use more color than you see here….but I refrained!



I’m a bit embarrassed to show this….the eyes on the yelllow-girl are totally not right!!  Have no idea if I can remedy them. 

As always, this drawing is telling me what to do next…..I just hope I can pull it off……stay tuned :D

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.

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!!