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?)

Apples, Dandelions and Tulips

I had some time this weekend to experiment with watercolors, and drew and painted an apple and a tulip from my garden. Somehow a dandelion snuck into my tulip picture! It was fun to paint the dandelion, makes me want to do a picture of just dandelions someday.

Artwords Topic #50 -- Woman

The topic "Woman" spoke to me of friendship. So I thought I would take one of my subway drawings and blow it up and color it in. So I borrowed some magic markers, and with some colored pencils I already had, I did this picture of two friends talking. Of course, it was originally on the train, but with the colors I have chosen the setting is now more likely the living room, with the two friends sitting on the couch. I had fun with this as I don't often color my drawings, although I have been doing some watercolors of flowers lately . . .
The original drawing (actually a rather poor scan of it) can be seen on my Flickr photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kayork/407939789/in/set-72157594579200491/

Front Yard Tulips

This week my front yard tulips came out, too, first one on Tuesday, and then a bevvy of others on Wednesday, pictured here. They are so pretty! I have not done any more flower drawing lately, but hopefully will try to do some this weekend. My subway series has been going apace, however . . .


On Monday evening I drew this group of subway riders. The man with his PDA was quite engrossed, thus oblivious to my sketching going on behind him on the other side of the aisle!
For more subway drawings, please see my Flickr Photostream.

Beautiful Sunny Spring Weather!

Yesterday was the first really, really nice spring day I could enjoy at home, so I did some yard work and was just a bit lazy, for a change. So much to do and not enough time, but I just went slowly yesterday! And the very first of my tulips in my own yard has bloomed, yay!



Since I used up my green tea I was going to throw the box out, but then my Flickr friend Jeannette said she collected pretty boxes and things, and I thought, maybe she'd like to see some pictures of the actual box, so I unfolded it and took these pictures: