Good Evening In The Morning

Last week I stumbled on the Virtual Sketch Date website which offers a sketching, painting, art challenge once a month. People do a piece of art based on an inspirational photo posted there and then link the photos for others to see. I missed the date (obviously because this is May...) but I really liked the image and wanted to do a drawing of it anyways. So here is my attempt...

Good Evening (9x12, pencil with pencil crayon)

This sketch is really much better in real life. The birds are grosbeaks, I think, from the colour and the shape of their beaks and bodies. I added some light coloured pencil over the pencil drawing but it isn't showing up that well in this photo. And the bird on the right isn't washed out in the original drawing. Adjusting the way you look at the monitor will help bring the make bird on the right up and not looking so washed out. At least it helps on my laptop...

It also looks a bit odd - it's in my sketchbook and drawn on the back of the patched together paper from the "Wednesday at 7AM" still life sketch I did late last night - I didn't want to waste paper and initially I never intended to draw anything more than what was on the lower half so I wasn't worried about the patched together bit. And it looks curvy and that is of course because it's in the sketch book... Oh well, I like it.

I called this "Good Evening" but since this is moring I'll just say have a great day.

Tulips and Lunch

Yesterday I got to do alot of work in the afternoon. I started playing with some of the tulip images I had taken last week. And playing with media I haven't played with in a while.

This first drawing is with coloured pencil in my sketch book. I'm happy with the way it turned out because it's been over 20 years since I've used coloured pencil this way.
Independent Tulip #1 (5x9 coloured pencil drawing)

This second image is the same tulip but done in mixed media. I have watercolour crayons that I haven't had a chance to fool around with much and wanted to play with them today. This went through several stages. I painted the tulip first and then worked on the background. I wish I had masked the tulip and done it in reverse but oh well. The tulip originally was quite nice but I used too much water on the background and the tulip ran because there was alot of pigment and I wasn't patient enough to let it dry well enough. I had a much lighter background at first but again with the running pigment I decided to go dark instead. I added in some coloured pencil and some ink as well. Not too bad I guess.

Independent Tulip #2 (5x9 mixed media)

The third image is a line drawing I did of the group of tulipe I want to work with and my intention is to use this a the basis for some other things. Perhaps some block printing and maybe some painting. We'll see. This I am happy with because I think there is some perspective in it.

This last drawing is also from my sketchbook and it got too large (well I started too large) and had to glue in another set of pages behind the initial sketch in order to finishe it. I'm happy with it and took some reference photos of it so that if I want to work in colour later on then I can.

I have to say that I really like that little coffe cup. I like the whole thing but that little cup just makes me smile because it was soooo quick and simple. Well that's all for now. Enough tulips for tonight. Gotta get to bed so I can get up and make lunch tomorrow (well this) morning.

Bandit Sleeping (2.5 x 3 inches) Ballpoint pen on sticky note

I did this picture last night when I was sitting on the couch and watching TV. My cat is pretty cuddly at night time and he snuggled down with me and I thought I should sketch him. But as soon as you move to get something a cat is up and going and won't settle back down for awhile so I decided t be a bit sneaky and just use whatever I had at hand. Which was a blue ballpoint pen and a pad of sticky notes from Meyers. I'm actually pretty happy with this sketch because it captures him at that moment.

These guys below are my second set of Easter goodies I made. They are from an accucut die and I really just assembled them and added some colour and ribbons and candy but they are cute and everyone seems to like them. Marchant Paper Products in Kingston has a die cutting machine that uses accucut dies and if you buy the paper there you can use any of the dies for free. I however was lazy and just bought them pre-cut but I'm not going to beat myself up about that.

Happy Easter!!!!

Talking Turkeys and Tulips Etc

Late last week I was on my way to Ottawa and looked into a field to my right to see a cat stalking through the old corn stalks and wondered what he was trying to catch. About half way down the field I saw these guys....

I'm pretty sure the tomcat was not going to be able to bring one of these wild toms down for breakfast but he was sure concentrating on them. I've seen this group of wild turkeys in that field a few time but this was the first time I'd ever been able to get a picture of them. Never got a picture of the cat though. Too bad!

When I stopped to take the photos this guy walked across the road right in front of me...He's a bit blurry because I was sooooo shocked to see him there and that he stayed close enough for long evough for me to even focus. Normally when you stop the truck these guys are GONE!!! Very shy from being shot at I guess and smart enough to say so long.

Today I made two sets of Mini Milk Cartons for gifts. I got the idea from Inking Idaho (http://www.inkingidaho.blogspot.com/) and if you want the instructions you can purchase them from Becky there. Great value and very clear with diagrams and colour photos.

Yesterday I bought myself some lovely orange tulips and took some photos of them today in the half light from the front window. Nice a cloudy and supposed to be ideal right??? Well I'm particularly happy with this one and hope to do something more with it eventually but for now I'm just gonna toss it out here.
It's nice to have something lovely smelly and pretty and sunshiny to look at after two days of spring snowfall here. These tulips remind me that spring is almost here.

Watercolour Over Gesso Sketches

Both of these sketches are done in my sketchbook in Peerless Watercolour over gesso as an experiment of sorts last week at the urging of my friend Glenda. It was a way to get me painting without having watercolour paper in the house. It was neat to try and I will definitely do it again but it was hard to get as much contrast as I wanted to have, especially in the asparagus painting. I'm not sure if it was the watercolour medium or if it was the gesso. Doesn't really matter though because they were fun to do and got me painting.
Asparagus (6x9) peerless watercolour on gesso (Mar 26, 2009)

Bananas and grapes (6x9) peerless watercolour on gesso (Mar 27, 2009)

Waiting (9x12 watercolour)

This is the first "real" watercolour that I've ever done. I've done watercolouring with watercolour markers before on cards but I have never done a painting with watercolour paints before.

This was done for a challenge on http://www.differentstrokesfordifferentfolks.blogspot.com/ which was to make a painting based on a photo of a beach scene.

This girl was painted based on the gentleman in the baseball cap after my friend Glenda told me that it was cool to change things up and do your own thing. So I also made it a sunset scene rather than a mid-day scene.

I like parts of this painting but I'm not totally happy with the pregnant girl. Of course I don't really ever draw people so... it isn't too bad considering that I guess. I actually quite like the water and the sky, although if I did the sky again I might do it a bit differently but overall I think it's a pretty good first effort.