Drawing Quirky Characters…

I discovered this online class over the weekend at JeanneOliver.com – Quirky Characters with Lucy Cooke…

And I haven’t been able to stop drawing… a very good thing! 🙂

Here are my beginning drawings in my sketchbook on Friday:

I wanted to loosen up and create more quirkiness in my drawings…

So I decided to start my faces with something familiar…a little paper collage:

Experimenting with different drawing materials helped me relax too.  I also like how Lucy gives different ways to start a drawing of a face:

I started the ones above with watercolor hair and then used water soluble Faber Castell graphite pencils to add the details.

It was super fun to give little “stories” to my characters as I did with my collage ones.

I did the sketches below with a .7mm pencil, blending stump and a little color pencil where mentioned:

I think I have come a long way in my pencil sketches in just 3 days!  I think that Lucy Cooke is such a good teacher.

This class is teaching me so much and I’d highly recommend it if you’d always dreamed of drawing faces that are playful and fun!  It is one of the more reasonable online classes I’ve taken in price yet it doesn’t disappoint in content either.

Cheers to quirky drawing! 🙂

I Don’t Know…

Sometimes, I don’t know what to blog about…

Does this ever happen to you?

Or do you find yourself not knowing what to create?

I had another busy weekend with not much time to create art.

The new fridge was delivered on Saturday so we spent a greater part of the day cleaning inside and under the old fridge… before the new one could be installed.  (We moved the old fridge to the garage.)

One has to wonder why they have so many bottles of half used condiments just sitting around on a shelf, taking up space in the refrigerator.  😉

There was also those unexpected surprises, like the moldy cheese in an ugly shade of blue hiding in the corner or the lime that is no longer green.  (Oh, that’s what that was!)

The new fridge did get installed but the water hose leaked to the ice maker.  Luckily, my hubby was able to buy a part and fix it himself.  Fingers crossed that it is fixed! :-0

So back to creating art, I realize I got a bit off track…

I spent my evenings finishing this doodle of squares and circles with pencil shading:

I don’t know what month I will use it for my project… I’m finding planning ahead does have its advantages!  Like cleaning out under the fridge more than every 20 years…

Happy Monday!

Cheers! 🙂

 

A Creature Feature – Part 1

Do you have a book or class that started you on your creative journey?

I discovered this book, “Drawing and Painting Imaginary Animals” by Carla Sonheim in December of 2012:

I discovered that Carla taught online classes from this book and so it started me drawing again!  I drew as a child but then I got discouraged… has this ever happened to you?

I liked the idea of drawing from my imagination.  After all, no one can tell you it isn’t correct if it is an imaginary animal!

Yesterday, I decided to revisit this book and create several watercolor “Blobimals” as Carla calls them:

Yet, I think mine look more like creatures! 😃

I thought it might be fun for YOU to name my five creatures so I numbered them.

Next Monday, I will reveal the other creatures!

I look forward to hearing your names.

Cheers!  🙂

A Doodle Bowl

I’m trying to eat healthier in the new year.  I was inspired by a recent cookbook I purchased on meals in a bowl to create this doodle using Faber-Castell’s water-soluble pencils.

Below are shapes from my imagination but they do look like veggies to me:

After adding water with a paint brush, I think the doodle looks more complex:

Tomorrow I will add color – just for fun!

Enjoy your day!  Cheers! 🙂

Mr. Snowman…

I wanted to try building a snowman (or perhaps a snow bird) in our yard yesterday… but the snow was too fluffy.

Here I am after falling into the snow… luckily, I saved the camera! Haha!

So I came inside and drew a snowman instead!  I started with a blind contour drawing to warm-up…

And added a little watercolor.  They look kind of cute in their childlike way.  🙂

I was now ready to create Mr. Snowman:

I started by stenciling the background with acrylic paint and added a little glitter.  Glued my gelli-printed papers to my paper.  Added pencil shading and detail.  Finished it with pan pastels to soften the ground.  I believe we are never too old to build a snowman!!

Cheers with a nice, hot cup of cocoa!!  🙂

Scrappy Cats

It is fun to create animals with scrap pieces of paper.  These cat shapes I did with scraps of gelli-printed papers and text from old books:

I added some pencil shading and a few finishing touches:

Do you have a favorite?  I hope you share it with me!  🙂

And here is a photo of my happy cat, Jack from this summer – lying in the cool grass:

Hope you are having a lazy cat kind of day!

Cheers Friends!!  🙂

Cat and Mouse

I didn’t realize when I created my cat and mouse using text from “Hoyle’s Up-To-Date Card Games – copyright 1940” that there was an actual card game called:   Cat and Mouse!

Apparently, the game is AKA Spite and Malice, a card game for two players in a competitive solitaire.  Both players try to be the first to get rid of a pile of “pay-off cards” by playing them to center stacks which are started with an ace and continue in upward sequence to a king.

Here is my cat:

And mouse:

I used my gelli-printed deli papers for the other papers.

Happy Whimsical Wednesday Friends!  🙂

Cheers To You!

I created this picture totally with my Gelli prints:

I used one print to cut out the wine bottle, glass and cheese and another print as a background.  I added a little pencil shading around these shapes.

This was totally unplanned!  I wanted to show it to you framed but it didn’t quite fit in the mat:

I’m learning a lot about framing my own artwork and hope that I can share some of this information with you in the future.

I plan to take the weekend off from my blog as it is a 3-day holiday weekend in the states.

So I wanted to wish you some good cheer!  🙂

Happy Creating!

Life Is A … Jigsaw Puzzle!

Do you ever feel like you get all the jigsaw pieces to fit together in a nice, neat little picture and then someone comes along and disturbs it… and all your pieces go flying!!  😉

You are left in a scramble like these scraps of paper:

I started by randomly gluing scraps of my Gelli-prints with a glue stick to a piece of paper like I did here.

There is something rewarding to just laying out your pieces to a jigsaw puzzle.  Maybe it is the anticipation in solving the puzzle?  🙂

I then use a pencil to accent each shape and a blending stick to blend the pencil to give the shape dimension.  As you can see I am about halfway done in this photo:

This is not a fast process – kind of like searching for that end piece in ALL those 5000 puzzle pieces!  But it helps me process information.  It gives me time to think about my options…

My puzzle is complete although it looks totally messy.  Kind of like life I guess…

Sometimes life’s puzzle pieces fit together easily and other times nothing seems to connect!  But you just keep looking for the pieces because you know there is a bigger picture in the end.

Cheers Friends!  🙂

A Rare Sighting

We interrupt this scheduled post to announce a rare bird sighting… or maybe it’s a creature feature?!

A Splodge was spotted in Oaxaca, Mexico with his female partner, Splotch and their 3 offspring:  Blot, Botch and Spot…

One has to have an eagle eye and creative mind in order to spot such a rare find:

It also helps to have the very, talented Hannah at HannahBanana Crafts to mention the word, “Splodge,” in a comment to me on her blog.  This word led me to Splotch which Dictionary.com states is perhaps an origin of spot, blot and botch…

Thank you Hannah for the inspiration for my crazy birds!  😉

Happy Creating!