Sculptural Book Making....

One of the newer members at Drawspace is an art teacher. Garth offered to do some art classes for us, which I jumped at! In this first class (first of many I hope) he showed us how to bind a book. I used black paper, cardboard and red cord.
Garth used Power point and video to teach the course, trying to find out what works best with Drawspace. Both were very well done, the video had the added bonus of Celtic music in the background.

Cat cards.....

Well I am finally back. I have joined a trade at Drawspace to try to get back in the groove. I put my things away at Christmas and they just never came back out. The ATC trade is for 18 cards on Cats, Crazy Cats.
ATCs originally were playing cards that artists painted white and then put their own art on. So I thought I would try to incorporate that idea. It was harder than I thought, trying to get a drawing down to the minimal amount of lines and then inside of a shape. I think I could spend the whole month just trying to get these to look the way I want them, but I still have 13 more to do. The three or four redraws that I have done will have to do.

You might be wondering why Bob is on the back of Cat cards. We have always said that Bob is the biggest cat we have ever met. He is also my Avatar most places right now so he is recognizable as mine. Kind of like a signature.

Joker

Ace of Clubs
This one will have to get redone or stay home.

King of Spades

Queen of Hearts

Jack of Diamonds
Hm-m I wonder if white out will fix the lines across the ears?

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.