Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I must apologize once more for ignoring my blog! Too much going on, but I did want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
December Artistamp.

November Artistamp--Happy Thanksgiving!!

My how time flies! So much to do, so little time. Anyway, I've bneen working on my November Artistamp swap project this week, and wanted to show you the finished ATC with stamp applied. It was fun, but I've got to figure out a better way than hand coloring each one! Hope you like it!

Presidential Election Winner!

I read an article on Yahoo news last night about Cristina Fernandez winning the presidency in Argentina on Sunday. I thought she looked so attractive waving to the crowds that I wanted to draw her picture to celebrate her victory. And I did so, then posted the Pitt pen drawing to my Flickr photostream today. This evening I thought I would go back and put in a link to the photo for folks to see, but I could no longer find that photo anywhere on the internet. Fortunately I had saved a copy (since I wanted to be able to blow it up to make sure I got some details right), and here it is, too!
I don't know anything about her politics, but I think it advances the cause of civilization in general when women take positions of power and authority as I think they can affect some positive change in this mainly male-dominated world. That doesn't necessarily mean I plan to vote for Hillary Clinton next November, but I will certainly be considering it! :~)

October Artistamp

I still have to finish up coloring in my ATC's but at least one sheet is done! I first did an ink drawing of a maple leaf I picked up on the way to the train. Then I scanned that and used it to make the ATC's and also the much smaller stamps. To differntiate the two I am coloring them differently. This weekend I'll finish the coloring and assemble them and get them in the mail to Ria.

Artfully Walking

I love walking the dog, because you get to see so many lovely places that you wouldn't go see otherwise. I often take my camera along as it is fun to photograph the landscape and the dog, often together. Nothing spectacular, no glorious mountain ranges, or sparkling seas, but all the same, it is God's good earth and has it's own simple beauty. It is artfully made by God, with a true artist's touch, and I'm happy to participate in the art by walking through it (and capturing some of it by camera, and maybe some day with paint and brush!).

Commuting continues

Oh dear, I see it's been more than a week now since I last posted. Please do excuse me for not posting more often, I know some of you are daily posters, and I feel so far behind. However, I do try to post images daily to my Flickr account, so I hope you will visit me there as well.
I continue my commuting and so have kept up my subway sketches series, although this week I have had to drive twice. The drawing here I did on the train Tuesday. There are always fresh subjects, fresh angles to draw, and I really enjoy it. Here my trusty sepia Pitt pen I've been using for four and a half months is running dry. I have a finer gray one which I have also used a lot, but isn't running out, so I will continue on with that until I need to go get some new ones at the art supply store.

September Artistamp Entry

Here is my sheet of Artistamp ATC's for the September swap before I cut them apart and mounted them. I did a single drawing in pencil, then scanned it and duplicated it, then color penciled them all in at one time. The stamps are made individually, each sketched and then watercolored; then I cut them out with my perforation scissors (yay! thank you Ria for getting them for me!!), and glued them on the ATCs.

Thank you, Karen!

My friend Karen Cox, who is SO nice! gave me this award today! That was so sweet of her! Thank you, Karen!

Subway Series Continues

Life has been very busy lately, and I see it has been over a week since my last post. Even so, I still have to commute to work, so I continue to do my subway and train drawings. Above is my latest drawing, done on the train this morning. I so enjoy doing these drawings, now returning to some of the same people I have drawn in the past. This lady, in fact, I have drawn twice this week, both times knitting the same pink sweater! Check out my Flickr photostream for more pictures.

Artistamp ATC

Earlier in the summer I joined the non_cents group, which is dedicated to all kinds of paper arts. One of the things the group does is Artistamp ATC's. These are regular ATC's (artist trading cards), with a custom made stamp. You can see ones that were done for the July swap (including mine) here: http://flickr.com/photos/renmeleon/1031591142/
I couldn't do the August swap as there is too much going on in my life this month, but one of my new friends from the group had some extra cards from hers, so I am trading with her. Here is my ATC, without the stamp added yet. Heather has said she likes it, for which I am so glad. I hope you do, too!

"Spatien" German Literary Magazine Illustration Contest

My Flickr contact Kerstin Klein, a wonderful artist herself, ran an online illustration contest for the German web publication „spatien,“ a non-commercial magazine for prose and poetry for German readers, in existence since 2005. It is published online every six months.

The contest was described thus:

„What are literary weblogs“ – this is the working title [of a new book]. Why do we want to publish this book? We want to present the phenomenon of literary weblogs – still a niche within the blogosphere – to a wider non-blogging and not blog-reading audience that is up to now mostly interested in traditional ways of literature publication. Additionally we want to (re-)initiate a discussion about online literature, a phenomenon that is not as widely known in Europe as e. g. in the US and offers – especially in the form of the weblog – new and interesting ways of creative writing in a great variety of fashions.

Different authors of literary weblogs will contribute their essays and sample posts for this book for free. In a way this is a community project comparable to open source software developments. The participants participate because it pleases them and because they think what they do might be of value and importance for somebody.

We are men (and women) of the word and cannot illustrate a book like this ourselves. That’s why we are looking for an artist who would be pleased to be part of this community project and has the ideas and skills for interesting illustrations. The general topic could be freely interpreted. It may be a play with associations about web-like structures. It may be variants of untraditional text representations. It could be abstract or ornamental as well.
A series of about 7 to 9 images could also illustrate motives about literature, text, weblogs, writing processes, etc.

Well, check out Kerstin's blog about the contest: http://illustrationcontest.blogspot.com/
In doing so you will find there were only 8 entries, and the editors of the magazine picked my entry!! Wow! I'm not sure yet whether I will be doing additional drawings, or use other subway skecthes I've done, or just what. But I'll keep you posted on what happens next!

Here are the sketches I submitted:



Thank you, Kerstin, for the opportunity!

Flax

Hi there! I apologize for neglecting my blog here this past week, there's so much going on! Anyway, I posted this painting awhile back on Flickr and got the tentative identification that it is flax, so if anyone else can confirm that I would appreciate it. Talk to you all later!

Shoes for Bastille Day!

Quite a few of my Flickr contacts have been drawing shoes lately, and I have been thinking of drawing this pair for quite awhile as they are my current fave pair of shoes (that doesn't mean I wear them alot, it means I like their looks alot!). So I finally broke down and painted them last night, in watercolor. This is what I call a pair of open toe, slingback pumps, slingbacks for short.

After my friend Andrea posted what she calls a pump on Flickr and her blog: http://www.flickr.com/photos/80676961@N00/737158218" and http://www.flickr.com/photos/80676961@N00/801116733/ and her blog: http://andreajoseph24.blogspot.com/ we had quite a discussion about what a pump is. There are different definitions in Britain and America, we discovered. So we wrote some comments back and forth about it. It was fun talking about! Hope you enjoy this painting, too!

(Sorry, I've tried making the links hot again, but can't seem to do it, no techno-geek me!:~(

Oh, I just thought I would mention Bastille Day since that's what it is today, and I have some French blood in me!

I've been very busy lately, so haven't made time to blog. However my good friend Mariana tagged me, so I will make time now to list 8 random facts about me. These were the rules:

1-post these rules
2-each person tagged must post 8 random(... hopefully interesting) facts about themselves
3-tags should write a blogpost of these facts
4- at the end of the post 8 more bloggers are tagged and named
5-go to their blog and leave a comment telling them they're tagged.

I'm following through with #s 1-3, but I'll leave 4 & 5 to your imagination . . .

Random facts:
1. My favourite color is green, I am partial to dark greens (like forest green) and light grayish-greens (like sage).
2. I have four lovely children.
3. I like to travel (but don't get to anymore, just up and down the road to my mom's and to the kids' schools. When they're all on their own maybe I'll get to travel again . . .)
4. I love antiques and old houses.
5. My hair color is light brown, now seriously flecked with gray (and coloring my hair is just not me).
6. I like khaki clothes.
7. My house is a mess (I just don't spend any time on it!).
8. I love my Flickr friends!

My favourite Recent Transit Sketch

Of my recent train and subway drawings this is my favourite. I like the soft colors, and the great opportunity here to draw three very different heads of hair. I hope you like it too!

Wonderful Wild Flowers

I love getting out in the countryside, especially when you can see so many wonderful wildflowers! My friend Molly Jean Henson identified the red ones for me, they are Indian Blanket, or Gaillardia pulchella. The yellow ones, of course, are black-eyed Susans. The blue ones are cornflowers, but the white I am not sure of, I call it miniature wild daisies . . . but they're all pretty!

Personality Testing

I have not wanted to get into personality issues, nor personal situations on my blog, which I see as a haven from day to day life. However, I have been doing some of those personality tests on the internet that I found quite insightful, so I thought i'd mention a few here. I just took the Color test (makes sense for an artist, right?). Here are the results (they were pretty right on, actually): Woops, I lost the results of this one . . . I'll keep looking . . .

A little while back I took another one, which Identified me as a "Benevolent Creator": Sorry you'll have to cut and paste this one. The report is pretty interesting, at least to me! Mouse over the chart thing and it will tell you what each color represents. More detail can be found following the link.
http://www.personaldna.com/report.php?k=dmXflpClTeYKxan-HO-CDAAD-6a2c&u=ad899e3a0427

Benevolent Creator

Oh, and I am a "Dreaming Soul":

You Are a Dreaming Soul

Your vivid emotions and imagination takes you away from this world So much so that you tend to live in your head most of the time You have great dreams and ambitions that could be the envy of all... But for you, following through with your dreams is a bit difficult You are charming, endearing, and people tend to love you. Forgiving and tolerant, you see the world through rose colored glasses. Underneath it all, you have a ton of passion that you hide from others. Always hopeful, you tend to expect positive outcomes in your life. Souls you are most compatible with: Newborn Soul, Prophet Soul, and Traveler Soul

What Kind of Soul Are You?

What color flower are you?

You Are a Purple Flower

A purple flower tends to represent success, grace, and elegance. At times, you are faithful like a violet. And other times, you represent luxury, like a wisteria. And more than you wish, you find yourself heartbroken like a lilac.

What Does Your Favourite Colour Say About You?

What Your Favorite Color Green Says About You:

Balanced --- Relaxed --- Flexible Compassionate --- Philosophical --- Humble Loyal --- Inventive --- Unique

What Does Your Favorite Color Say About You?

Pink Hydrangeas

I have been away from home a lot this past week, so haven't posted anything. To keep this blog moving, I thought I would post these pictures I took today of a wonderful hydrangea I pass on my way to the train each morning. I hadn't noticed the tiny blue dots in the center of each bloom before--they are so sweet! A truly beautiful flower!

EDM #124 and Artwords #58: Yellow and Center

The center is not yellow, but the flower is, and they both work wonderfully for the two topics of the week, "Draw something yellow" for the EDM group, and do something on the topic "Center" for the Artwords group.
This is a watercolor based on my Flickr friend Sarah's fine photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/96136248@N00/527631402/

My Blogger Award List

OK, here goes, to those inspirational artist-bloggers who I find set me thinking most wonderfully!
The multi-talented fabric/book/paper artist and wonderful mom, Molly Jean Henson:
http://creativelifeandtimes.blogspot.com/
The amazing Jana Bouc, artist and watercolor teacher from San Francisco:
http://janabouc.wordpress.com/
The irrespressible, high-energy, do-so-much Amy Cowen, founder of the Creative Mom Podcast and an amazing blogger, too:
http://www.creativemompodcast.com/tt/
The very creative writer, photographer and artist, Karen Harvey Cox:
Her blog: http://karenharveycox.blogspot.com/
Her children's writings: http://karenharveycox.wordpress.com/
And last but not least, the very talented artist Valerie Millett who also gets great kudos for being an exemplary single mom!:
http://kidxpress.blogspot.com/
So there are my five inspirational ladies who certainly get you thinking, now let me see what I have to do about getting ahold of them, since they might not even know that I have a blog, or that they have won this great award!
I've only been hanging around Blogland for a couple of months, and certainly don't promote myself, so how would they know??!

Dear ladies, for the rules (very simple!!) see my previous post. Congratulations!!

Thinking Blogger Award

Wow! My good friend Mariana Musa has just awarded me a "Thinking Blogger" award! Incredible!

Here is Mariana's explanation:

"I won a Thinking Blogger award from one of my favourite illustrators, Emila Yusof! Thank you Emila! And I now have to pass it on to five other bloggers whom I consider worthy of receiving it ... but there are too many out there whom I consider amazing bloggers, artists and 'thinkers! It was NOT easy, but I've managed to pick five from the many who inspire me ..."

But of course in my case I won the award from the wonderful Mariana!

And the rules:

"The participation rules are simple:
1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think, 2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme, 3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote."

OK, maybe you're wondering who the other four artists are that Mariana chose, so here they are:

"I found Andrea Joseph's sketchblog long before I joined EDM and had it marked as a favourite because of her lovely illustrations ... truly inspiring and gorgeous work there!
Joan Yoshioka is a wonderful and immensely talented artist who occasionally also posts very helpful progress reports on some of her beautiful works.
France Belleville never ceases to amaze me with her skill, especially where linework and crosshatching are concerned. Her drawings of cars are the best I've seen yet, never mind her portraits and also, now, her amazing dog drawings!
Kathleen York is not only a wonderful artist but now, I hope, a friend too! I love the delicacy of her touch, the explorations in her sketches and her latest very successful foray into colour.
Laura Taylor Mark is hugely creative in so many ways I don't know where to begin! Her work is delicate, colourful, all quite lovely."

Now, I have to think about who to give an award to. I'm wondering if I can give it to someone who already has one, since I regularly visit Laura's and Andrea's blogs and I think they make me think! :~) And Joan and France are also Flickr contacts of mine who I love. I'm not a big blog-reader, though, there's only so much time in the day, you know??

Oh, and I should have provided this link to Mariana's blog!! Please see her wonderful work: http://www.mrana.typepad.com/bitbybit/

Dream Vision in Color

I finally watercolored this last night. It gives me a nice feeling.

Here's what I said on Flickr:

"Here is the color version of my dream vision from last Thursday morning. I have had some good input on possible meanings, and I'm thinking the figure does represent me, and I'm not sure of quite which way to go, but it is not the grass (the circumstances) holding me back, but rather some lack of mine. And that's something I have to work on . . . . "

I have to mention that my dear friend Laura looked up some dream interpretations, and found that grass can indicate success. So that's hopeful! Thanks, Laura!

Dream/Vision/Mind Picture ?

I woke up this morning with this picture in my mind. I know I was awake when I saw it, but I had only just woken up. So maybe it was the tail end of a dream? I saw the picture pretty vividly, so I wanted to get it down. I started drawing at the train stop this morning, worked on it some more on the subway ride (since I had a great train sketch to do--see my Flickr photostream for that drawing), then finished the linework up at lunchtime. I plan to watercolor it to match the colors I saw, which were green for the grass and red for the dress and brown for the hair.

What do you think it could mean? I wondered if it was supposed to be me, but I'm not sure . . . she doesn't have glasses and her hair is longer . . .

Shade Dwelling Finished

This morning before leaving for work I put what I think are the finishing touches on this watercolor. I enjoyed doing this, but it took much longer than most of the things I have been doing lately . . .

House/shadow progress

I am making progress here, adding more color, using artistic license to liven the colors up some. I should be finished later this week and will post the final version.

Starting a house portrait

I started this watercolor today. To be more precise, I started the coloring today. I did the pencil drawing months ago! I thought I would post some progress pictures so you could see how it comes along. All the purple is wetbruch on dry paper, the sky is all wet on wet. This is not watercolor paper, however, it is heavy (80 lb.) sketchbook paper.

I was motivated by two weekly challenge assignments, EDM #122- draw something with shade as a prominent element, and Artwords #56 - Dwelling. Any and all comments are more than welcome!

Found my Pitt Pens!

I'm so glad I found my Pitt pens, I really do like them! But I'm glad I misplaced them, too, or I might never have tried to combine watercolor and ballpoint! Well yesterday and today were kind of black and white days, however, so no watercolors; last night I did this Pitt pen drawing on the train on the way home.

New step--Ballpoint Pen & Watercolor!

I have temporarily misplaced my new Pitt pens, so last night on the way home I was relegated to ballpoint pen for my subway sketches. So I thought, well, maybe I can use watercolor with the ballpoint, too! And in fact, it worked fine; I actually kind of like the effect of the blue lines with the watercolor! The ballpoint did not smear at all getting wet, unlike the Pilot Razor Point pen, which smears badly when it does . . .

May Botanical Art Entry -- Fungi

Nothing like waiting until the last day of the month to post a monthly entry! Well, here is my monthly entry for the Botanical Art group's May topic, fungi. I drew it from my friend Christine's Flickr photostream, where she has many amazing photos of various types of fungi. Christine says it is perhaps a hairy curtain crust. See this link for her lovely photograph:
www.flickr.com/photos/65392689@N00/340811003/in/set-72157...

This is pencil outline with color pencil, a mix of Prismacolor mainly and whatever other ones I happened to have that were the right colors.

The French Bustle -- EDM #40 and Artwords #54

I had fun with this one! It started with thinking about the Artwords topic of the week, "bustle." This word could be taken several ways, an individual bustling around, being very busy, or a whole group of people all in a bustle, like on a subway platform at rush hour, or a dress bustle! Well, I chose the simplest one, and went looking for a Victorian costume. But none of the drawings or photographs I found were very appealing to me, then I went back to the Google list and saw some really nice wedding dresses with bustles, and thought "these are PERFECT!" So here is a wonderful French bustle from The Bridal Studio at Leanna.com ( http://www.leanna.com/Bridal/ ).

I did this with a Pitt pen, and then, in order to best show off the white satin material, decided just to use a black wash to color it in. I had a lot of fun and think it turned out pretty well, although the scan does not pick up the lightest parts of the washes. And then, this was just right for one of the EDM challenges I haven't done--"Draw something with folds."

Hair Art

Two drawings I did this week feature hair in color. I am enjoying adding color to Pitt pen drawings, and it just so happens that two of my recent drawings on the train have hair as a main focus. I don't happen to be the administrator of the Flickr group "Hair Drawing Club" ( http://www.flickr.com/groups/hairdrawingclub/ ) for nothing!

The coloring took two different routes here. The first one (which I posted for EDM challenge #118) is colored with markers and color pencil, while the Palm phone drawing was done exclusively with watercolor. As I watch the number of views on my Flickr posts it is obvious that the color drawings attract more views than the black and whites, generally speaking. So I will try to keep doing more coloring. Oh, and if there is writing all over the drawing that seems to attract a lot of views, too! When I do that in the future I will have to make what I write more interesting!

Having fun with my feet!

The weather has been warm here (but not today), and I got out my old hurachis, which are great for warm weather. Now I remember I was thinking I either had to get new soles, or just chuck them. For now I'll keep them around, but I probably won't wear them to the office again . . .
I started drawing (with a Pitt artists pen) on the train platform, then did most of the drawing on the train. I watercolored it last night.
Another busy busy weekend coming up!

Artwords #53 -- Figure

Doing a figure is easy for me since I draw so many people, although I don't get a chance to draw a whole figure everyday. However, yesterday, standing in line at the bank, I was able to sketch the girl in front of me (well, almost in front of me since there was someone else between us, they just weren't as interesting to draw!), from the tip of her head down to her flip-flop clad feet. Fortunately there was a long line at the bank so I was able to complete the sketch of her, although I filled in the people at the counter from my imagination. Then this morning before leaving for work I watercolored the drawing. I tried to match the nice aqua color of her top as best I could, but her pants had been a dull gray, so I gave them a little more interest with a blueish color (Payne's Grey in my watercolor set). I think the whole floor is marble, but I chose to color it as though it were carpet (there is carpet in the customer service section) so that there could be more interest.

Watercoloring Pitt pen drawings

Well here is my first watercolor over Pitt pen drawing. I like how it turned out, although the outfit was a bit drab and I copied it as exactly as I could. Really, I could have used some artistic license to give it some more color!! I think I will try more of these in the future.

Artwords #52 -- EYES

OK, here it is! SO in this drawing it's really "four eyes"!
When I first heard the Artwords topic of the week I immediately thought of looking at my eyes in the rearview mirror for some reason. Maybe because you only see a sliver of face, so it's easier to draw, and less like a whole self-portrait!