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!

Busy week!

I have been very busy all week. This weekend will be very busy, too. Oh my! When will life slow down?

I bought some Pitt artist pens last Friday, and started using them right away. They are definitely different than the other pens I have been using lately, and so have been taking some getting used to. Here are two drawings done with them, one from this morning on the train platform, which I plan to color in, and the other from last Saturday. You can see that they are different from my normal work. Well, every medium brings new challenges and helps hone your style (I think!).
I've also been posting to the Every Day in May group, which is a fun group to belong to. Interesting to see what other people are up to, too.

I also have been thinking about this week's artwords topic, "eyes" all week. I took some reference photos of my eyes last weekend, but really they're more of a partial facial view. But that's what came to me when I read the topic, so I'm going to go with it. Here are the photos I took, so you can see what you think about the finished drawing which I will post later.

It was very hard to get these pictures as I didn't want a camera in the mirror, so I had to hold the camera off to the side and shoot into the mirror at an angle, thus it was difficult to get the composition I wanted and to have it in focus. Anyway, fortunately these are just reference shots. I hope the finished art will be interesting enough!

Every Day in May group

I just found out from my friend Mariana about the Every Day in May group http://www.frenchtoastgirl.com/weblog/blogger.shtml
What fun to have a whole bunch of arty types doing something everyday and then posting it for all to see (at the Flickr Every Day in May group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/everydayinmay/

What fun!

BTW, I still haven't figured out how to insert a link into my posts, sorry about that! You'll have to copy and paste the links instead. :-(

Artwords #51: Botanical

I did this early in the week, but wanted to work on it more since I'm not satisfied, but I'm afraid I have spent my time doing other things (!) :-)

So here it is anyway. Maybe I'll do more work on it still, but it's shaping up to be another busy weekend, so maybe not now :-( I drew the initial sketch from this photo I took maybe two weeks ago, on my walk to the train.

These watercolors (from Marabu) are quite thick, and can go on really heavy if you don't use a lot of water, but with this thin sketchbook paper a lot of water is not good. I got paid this week, so went out and bought a watercolor block, some Pitt artist pens (finally) and some Verithin colored pencils. Armed and ready! (and dangerous?)