Ballerina Babe

I think referring to this piece as a Baby is appropriate.  She sure demanded a lot of me.  She’s over six months old now and just starting to gain some independence and show some of her own personality.  Thank Goodness! 



Roughed in the ballerina with a watercolor wash.  Things look pretty chunky here.



I stuck with watercolor and w/c pencils for the shoes.



I had to tone down the ladies orangey-ness.  (It seems she likes carrots!! Haha)



I didn’t touch this piece throughout February and most of March.  I finally realized I couldn’t avoid the hair any longer if I wanted this finished.  Studied up a bit on hair rendering.  Apparently, I need to pick at least 4 colors, one highlight, one low-light and the rest in between.  I am to make each strand go in the direction that it lays.  With the highlight areas, I just left the white alone.



Don’t judge me too hard, I still have lots to learn.  But at least it’s passable.  Meaning…..you know that it’s hair.



As is my habit, I brought in my fine-point microns to finish the job. When I go over the colored pencil, the tip of the markers take up some of that wax……time is spent squiggling that wax off as seen here.



With my skill level…this is as good as it’s going to get.  So I deemed her done.  Off to the frame shop. 


Couldn’t capture the same light cuz I wasn’t up early enough. (Pic on left from Dec, Pic on right from Today)



Lessons learned:

• Be careful with the amount of water used for the paper type.  I’ve since found some other sturdier w/c illustration board that I want to try next.
• It’s ok to pop your colors….I preferred the ballet slippers brighter, but realistically the first color was more accurate.  Yea, for creative license!!
• Bring in the colored pencils after the watercolor work is done. No one wants to go over colored pencils with watercolor…trust me!
• Don’t expect perfection.
• 
  

And the image that started this….found her on instagram.…check out user @infinitylove231

Wild Hair

Staying consistent with the Sunglass Series…..I had a wild hare to doodle up some hair.



I found the picture of this woman on pinterest and I let my freak flag fly with the hair here.



I started out using watercolors.



But I had to give them up because I couldn’t coordinate the colors as well with w/c as I can with markers.



Just pretend you can’t see the ear….totally botched it.



Besides that though……I like how she turned out.  Colorful and Crazy!! Haha

Portable Project in Paisley

I’ve been enjoying my Sunglass Series where I can color pencil the people and marker doodle on something they are wearing. When I spotted this woman wearing her hat I thought I’d draw her next.  That wonderful hat gave me a lot of space for doodling.



I wasn’t sure how I wanted to approach this.  At first I thought of doing black and white doodles in the hat with the hat-band and the suit in color.



But then I changed my mind.



I didn’t want the band to compete with the hat, so black/white stripes worked well.



Since the underside of the hat doesn’t get as much light, I applied a light brown-gray in watercolor.



This skin took more time than I thought it should, but there are a lot of little variations to the colors thru the neck and the bust that I didn’t realize until I tried to sketch it.

If I would use smooth paper then we wouldn’t see all that grain coming thru the colored pencil portions.  But I like watercolor paper cuz it’s thick and can take all kinds of abuse!

Doodle Collaboration

As I mentioned in my last post….that there are some really good artists, doodler’s and art journaler’s on instagram.



One of my IG friends is Tessa. 



She sent me the above doodles from across the ocean.  I drool over her doodling and ….I like to color in….Tessa, not so much.



It was so interesting to see how Tessa made all these little daisy flowers amidst the hundreds of little bitty circles.



Here’s the finished scanned image.  A fun collaboration!  If you’re on instagram you should go over and see all the cool art and photography that Tess posts. 

Gotta love social media for getting like-minded people together

Sunglass Series Two

Since I have two big drawings pending (dancer & diver) and I seem to be stuck on the hair in both…..



I needed to complete a smaller drawing to boost my confidence.  I thought these sunglass girls might help.



This sunglass series was the first time I combined my marker-doodle-love with my color sketches.



I wasn’t sure how well they’d play together.  But they seemed to get along just fine.



I’m not one to sketch a practice piece, because I know I won’t put the focus into it like I should if it “counted”.  And I need hair help.



What I found out by my limited research on drawing hair….is to keep the line directions in the way that the hair should go.  Even though there are many shadows.  Also to use at least 4 different colors…..Highlight….a bunch of mid-tones…then bring in your darkest color to really help things take shape. 



This is drawn from a picture of my daughter taken a few years ago.  I was not pleased with my previous Warhol-style drawing of her so I’m glad I can now replace it.

Happy Easter Everyone

Sunglass Series One

I got inspired to draw girls in sunglasses last week….probably because I went south and knew I’d need mine.



Drew her in, and did a light watercolor wash.  Then proceeded to color pencil sketch the rest of the face.



Bringing my two favorite things together (markers and colored pencils) I experimented with using the markers only for the sunglasses. 



Just doodled the heck out of them.



Then the fun began with my markers.



Kind of a different look.  A Pretty wild look to pull off and not for the timid. Too bad I can’t do this to my own sunglasses, haha!

Ring Bling

Ring Bling…I’d love to have all this bling on my hands as long as it doesn’t catch, snag or bug me…..so the easier thing to do, is just draw some.



Just drew the contour of my hand, and proceeded to color it in.  No photo reference, but when I was stumped I just held out my hand.



Another hand with cool nails.



All those different colored pencils were used.  The green ones help to neutralize the skin tones.  Watercolor for the rings and markers for the nail art.



Just a fun little sketch.

Yin….Yang….doodle

Being in mandela mode and not wanting to repeat the previous patterns.  When I spotted this mandela doodle I thought I’d try something similar.



Graphed out my patterns.



Then I got to bring the colors in.



So simple and so fun!