Christmas puppies.....

This is Magic. We have just adopted her, she is a retired breeder from Quiche Kennels. She is eight years old and doing very well adapting to our home. As you can see, she even puts up with Christmas hats.


Here is Gracie, she is not so happy with the hat. This took a lot of coaxing and numerous pictures!

Prehistoric trading cards....

Well their not great... I should have said no to this trade, but I was on such a good run. I had several sketches done and ready to do, but every time I took them out I just stared at them. I think I had ATC burn out. Jim suggested I should do cave painting, they'll be easy, ha! I talked him into doing them with me since I had no ambition to do this. We found out that those simple looking stick figures actually have beautiful sweeping lines and graceful curves. Not easy to do on a 2.5x3.5 card. I can't imagine how they did it on rock walls!
I am responsible for the funny looking rock walls that are in the background. I did them with oil pastels, something new to try and a quick way to put down a lot of colour. Jim did the three hunting scenes and I did the two on black.
Jim did the cards with dinosaur bones, one in oil pastel and one with a white conte pencil. while he did that I tried a cave painting of my own design on sand paper. I used a picture of a deer from our backyard, maybe not true cave painting style as you can see the face, but it was fun to play.

Well I think Gracie is done.....

Well I think she is done. Not an exact copy, but I feel I have kept Gracie's look. I'll give it a couple of days before I spray it.

This is the photo I worked off of.


Now I have to start again! After $60 and 2 1/2 hours she no longer looks like the same dog. I'm thinking of calling my drawing "time for a grooming" or "woolly bully". LOL

November virtual sketch date....

My sketch this month is just that, a sketch. I saw this guy lurking on the right hand side and sketched him out with a bit of embellishment.
You can see the photo on the VSD site. Jeanette of Illustrated Life supplied the photo. The list of participants will be on the VSD site on Sunday.



Quick sketches have been the rule this week. This guy was done for the weekly challenge over at Drawspace, the host was Elena.

Jeanette also started a sketching from life thread at DS.

Sketching is likely THE most valuable exercise you can do to improve your drawing skills. Also drawing from life is another. If you sketch daily, you'll soon see your ability to render form and light grow by leaps and bounds.

Now I have to find time to get back to drawing Gracie and getting my newest set of trading cards started.

Gracie has ears.....

Added fur to the lighter side. Here are some of the colours, white, cream, cloud blue, true blue, apple green, blush pink, parma violet, light umber, black cherry and indigo blue.

Worked on the ears and the darker side. Here are the colours, white, cloud blue, parma violet, true blue, light umber, violet, black cherry and indigo blue.


This photo gives a better idea on what the colours actually look like.
The sheet I am working on is about 8.5x13, I am hoping to frame it in an 8X10 frame. As you see I didn't plan that as well as I could have. Ha, I just remembered that I was actually thinking 5x7, so there should have been plenty of room to crop and frame. I basically drew in the nose and started working around it, so my minor planing went out the door. I have to learn not to do that.

A little fur.....

An update on Gracie.

Gracie is taking shape....

Here I have sketched in some more fur and worked on the nose. I am doing the fur at this point with cloud blue. Her nose has dark brown, peach, true blue, peacock green, violet, black cherry, indigo blue and white.

You can start to see some volume with the mouth filled in. I used a different picture for the mouth. I wanted a bit more tongue and less teeth to show. Her tongue has cloud blue, blush pink, pink, lilac, violet and white. Her teeth are white, cream, peach and light umber. Her gums and lip were done with indigo blue, black cherry, violet, true blue and white. The colours in the fur are bits and pieces of the colours named so far.

Getting started on the full Gracie....

I decided that I liked the Gracie nose on black paper enough to go ahead and do the full picture. This is the outline so far.

Here is the picture I will be working from. This was taken on a walk in the woods. I couldn't believe that she sat still long enough for me to get several pictures.


This is the Gracie nose with some white highlights added and trimmed into an ATC size. I also took the picture with better lighting, it shows more of the colours that I used.

A black nose....

I couldn't resist trying Gracie on black paper. Just a 3x3" of her nose. It was suggested that I might want to try her on gray paper. I'll have to see what I have in my scrapbook supplies and give it a try. I have been saying for ages that I wanted to try a mid-tone paper. If I like it I can go and buy some for a full picture.

Gracie's nose.....

I tried harder at the negative drawing with this one. This is something I will have to learn to do if I am going to draw Gracie. I will also have to learn more patience, I started getting to rough with the pencils near the end and started to lose my way. Well that is what practice is for, right?

Dog eyes and a nose.....

I am in a CP animal drawing class at Drawspace. Our first thing to do is try out some eyes, nose and fur. The picture on the top right is after I add more reddish browns, the dog was more red than I realized.



I didn't do as well on the dog's nose, not enough patience. Something you need loads of with CP.


I took my camera on our walk today, hoping to get some decent pictures of Gracie. The sun was really bright and washed her out a bit, she looks really grey here. Today was a real treat, it was warm enough to wear shorts.

Twelve little jellyfish all floating in the sea....

Finally they are ready for the mail box!
I rephotographed all the jellyfish and the pears with some black paper behind them. Also I moved to a slightly darker space to do it in, less glare. This seems to have worked better so I re-posted all the pictures.


A quick drawing for a Let's Make Art challenge. I tried charcoal, then pencil, then just a line drawing that you can see here. It wasn't working for me, so I thought I would try the eye in coloured pencil. It is just on printer paper and doesn't look much like the cat, but I thought the page looked neat with the combo of line drawing and CP bit.

Hm-m-m-m.......

Maybe this is where those baby jellies came from? These guys were photographed by § Mary §.


Here is another one by Jeff Kubina.

Now to have Jim spray all my ATCs, then I will cut them into individual cards. I am going to try to photograph them on black paper all together and see if they look better that way. I know that looking at them here they look better.

October VSD participants....

I gave my pears from the VSD a couple more minutes of touch up. I can see myself doing more pears in the future, what a lovely shape to work with. I forgot to mention that the great photograph that we worked with is from Belinda Lindhart.
Here is the list of this months participants. There are some wonderful drawings and paintings of pairs to see.

Leslie's Blog, An Artist's Journey, S'Mockery Sm'Art Fridays, Illustrated Life, Drawing Breath, Regina Carlton Burchett, Tints and Hues, Jeanne Grant, Fuzzy Dragons, Cathy's Watercolours, Back To The Drawing Board, Socially Sketching with Susan, Bartoe Art, Black on Grey on White, Wax Bloom, My Creative Spot Blog, Flat Sound of Wooden Clogs, Koukla Carolyn, Adventures of Borromini, Annie's Basement, Time For Inspiration, Kbladosdesign, The Happiness Experiment, Sethurner, Painting in Virginia, Fur In The Paint, Kitchen Table Sketches, A Splash of Colour, Premieres Peintures, Stop and Draw the Roses, My Fiddlestix, Laine Lea Paintings, The Wonderful World of Jelly Beans, Quotidian Curiosities, The Colourguru, Belinda Lindhart- Art Journal, Painting Puppies and Quilt Knit.

Here is one more jellyfish ATC for my Under the Sea Trade. I am getting sick of jellyfish and I still have two more to do. On the up side, I most say that they are amazing creatures. This one was photographed by Ed Bierman in Monterey.

Baby jellies....

These are some new born Jellyfish, photographed by Oskay at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Oskay has a write up about them with his picture.


This one was photographed by Jeff Kubina. He has some amazing photos, well worth a look.
This one makes nine done, three more to go.

October Virtual Sketch Date......

This is my last minute try at this months picture for the VSD. I did it ATC size with Prisma colour pencils on black paper. This took about a half hour, a couple of stolen minutes before my son had to go to work and I have to pack for scout camp. I am one of the cooks this week.
No matter how many times I tried I couldn't seem to get my hand to draw the pears small enough, so I finally put one in front of the other. My plate sucks, but I think my pairs are believable for the short amount of time I spent on them.
I can't wait to see all the other entries for this month.

Framed picture....

Do you remember this one, morning fruit? It was from a photo that I took at my sons cub camp.

Well today it got framed to go to a charity art auction. They are raising funds for medicine, for an African charity. Last year I did a picture of Adeline the lady running the auction. She had the most amazing smile.



Here is today's jellyfish it was photographed by Suneko.

Blue jellies and a pumpkin....

This blue jellyfish was done from a photograph by TANAKA Juuyoh (田中十洋) in Mactan Cebu, Philippines .



This quick sketch was done for the Drawspace challenge this week. Our host is Ernest Friedman-hill.

Aunt Tizzy's lingerie????

No picture of my jellyfish wearing Aunt Tizzy's lingerie, because I forgot to check the copyright code until after I drew it. So this ATC will stay here in my collection. Lesson learned!
I thought since I don't have a new jellyfish to show today, that I would show this video on jellyfish. The one that I drew looked like the pink moon jellyfish at the end. The video is about 1 and a 1/4 minutes long, enjoy.

Aunt Tizzy's Jello Dish????

This one was photographed by Mikefats .
Does it look like a jello mold dish brought to baby showers and wedding showers by your favorite crazy Aunt?
Well this is number five of twelve done. My camera is making the black paper grey a bit, I'll have to see what I can do, as it changes the drawing a bit.

I am not a jellyfish, I am a fungus???

This funny jellyfish was photographed by 顔なし at the Osaka Aquarium.

Lemon yellow and polka dots....

Another jellyfish for the Under the Sea trade at Drawspace. This one was photographed by Deep onion maybe taken in Mar Jonio, Italy.

Under the Sea Trading Cards.....

For my trading cards (2.5x3.5") I decided to do Jellyfish on black paper. Starting with white as my base I find I can get my colours to glow like the real jelly fish. These are two of the twelve I need to do for the Drawspace trade.
For this project I am using photos from Flickr these people (the ones I am using) allow derivative work to be done, with credit being given to them for the original photo.
My orange jellyfish was photographed by Strollers in the aquarium in Osaka.


The green jellyfish were photographed by Eschipul in the Houston Aquarium.

I have a cool thing to share. My son was bugging me for an answer to something while I was trying to figure out the opposite colour to orange. I told him if he could give me the answer, he is in high school art, that he can do whatever he was bugging me about. Of course by the time I got this all said I had the answer. But kids being kids he had a better one. Stare at the colour orange and then stare at a white paper and you will have the exact opposite colour. Hm-m so I stared at my coloured pencil, and got nothing. Then I scribbled in a square of orange, stared at it then at the white paper. How cool, a blue square showed up, lighter than the blue I had already picked out.

The downward spiral of a little flower....

Everyday for the last week or so I have been doing a little more to my drawing. I was happy with my flower and I was okay with my vase. I liked the colour I was getting on my background. Then things started to fall apart, so I fixed this, then I fixed that. And each day it continued, maybe this will make it better, or this. Some days as you can tell I didn't have the heart to photograph the poor, poor flower.
Then I thought to myself, maybe I should have some of those thumbnail sketches that I hear everyone talk about. Of course it was to late to help this poor flower.
Now on the upside, my flower makes a really cool negative picture!


All kidding aside, I would have done better with some planning on paper. It would have shown me that I wanted a different placement on my page. I might have remembered that I like a picture that is not filled in to every corner, I like white space.
Well I am off to draw some Under the Sea trading cards for Drawspace.

Update on virtual sketch...

I am back to doing my drawing. These are a couple of WIP pictures as well as a picture of how I am using my easel. Jim gave me a smooth board to put under my paper, although it might be a bit to heavy.
I have mixed feelings about my vase. I had a vision in my head and this wasn't it. I did want it lighter than the source picture. I'll have to see how I feel as I put in the background.
Thank you for all the encouraging comments on the last post. It was so wonderful checking out the Virtual Sketch Date drawings, I believe that 39 people joined in. If you haven't seen them yet, here is a list.

Sherrie Roberts, Kay Susan, Cathy (shicat), Leslie Hawes
top5cats, Maryann Cleary, Nic Bridges, Jennifer Rose, Laura
Rose Welty, Barbara Weeks, Dianne Mize, Kari Gibson, Andy
Jeanette Jobson, Regina, Melissa Muirhead, Sharon, Jo Castillo
Jeanne Grant, Rhonda Bartoe Tucker, Deborah, Ann, Marion Brown
Vivienne, Sheona Hamilton Grant, Joanie Springer, Gail, Kellie Hill
Jan Pope, Cathy Gatland, Stacy Rowan, Susan, Paulette
Diane, Laine Lea, Kathleen, Valerie Jones

If you are interested in joining next month, check out the VSD site.

September Virtual Sketch....

This is a work in progress for my virtual sketch date. It won't be finished on time, but this gives an idea what it will look like. This months reference comes from Sharon of Flat Sound of Wooden Clogs. The participants will be posted on Sunday on the sketch date blog.
I received an easel at Christmas time, the kind with paints and it folds up and you can carry it around. Well since I have never painted, I kind of ignored it. This week I decided to give it a try, thinking I wouldn't like it. Silly me! I love it! I had to improvise a little, I took the wooden pallet and locked it in like a canvas. Then put my paper on top of that. Now my drawing is ready to go all the time. I can work on it for two minutes or two hours then just walk away without worrying about putting it away.