Illustration Friday - Renewal

I used a yoga pose to illustrate renewal, since I always feel renewed after yoga. Here is the full pose in a circular format:




And here is the full pose in a slightly different color scheme:

I used Crayola Chalk and Micron pen on Strathmore drawing paper, and I used a photo in Yoga Journal as the basis for my figure. The last version is the original version; I altered the color in the first two in Photoshop. The cropped version is my favorite.

Illustration Friday - Undone

She's coming undone.

.05 Micron pen on Bienfang Graphics 360 100% Rag Translucent Marker Paper, with a touch of pink Prismacolor pencil. I love the paper--there is absolutely no bleeding.

Illustration Friday - Hatch

A new crop of babies arrives in the cabbage patch. Here is a close up of the baby:

Illustration Friday - Entangled

When I saw the prompt entangled, I immediately thought of a thicket of bushes in my backyard. The tangles have long fascinated me, and I have been wanting to draw them for some time now. This prompt was a good excuse. I drew from life for about an hour and then switched to imagination. I developed the drawing in pencil and at the end added some colored pencil, colored pen, and pastel pencil. I left part of the drawing undone, because I think it looks more interesting that way.

Illustration Friday - Music

The children eagerly follow the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

I am working on my silhouettes. I think the key to a good silhouette is (1) gesture and (2) details such as hair, ribbons, profile, and clothing. Arthur Rackham was a master at silhouette.

I drew the figures from imagination. I have been practicing figures and am finding practice pays off for imaginative work. The figures are drawn in Chartpack AD Marker on printer paper. The marker bled a little; next time I need to remember to use paper specifically made for markers.

Illustration Friday - Unbalanced

On Wednesday evening of last week, Mrs. Thea Gilberston from the town of Franklin was ajudged insane by Judge J.D. Perry and was taken to Mendota State Asylum on the Thursday afternoon train by Sherriff Buckley (Badger State Banner, April 13, 1893).

The above quote is from the wonderfully strange Wisconsin Death Trip by Michael Lesy, which chronicles crime and insanity in the 1890's in Wisconsin. I drew this portrait from imagination in pastel and charcoal on a watercolor-toned board and then adjusted in Photoshop Elements.

Illustration Friday: Caution

Caution: Don't run with scissors!

Here is double trouble:

Micron red and black pen and Prismacolor pencils on Canson Mi-Tientes Pastel paper.

Illustration Friday - Wrapped

Just got back from my summer vacation in the Adirondack Mountains. I did this drawing in my sketch book, using a mechanical pencil. I was inspired by my teenage son asleep in our hotel room in Ticonderoga, New York. Thanks to moonlight coming through the window, I could see the general shape of his sleeping figure in the middle of the night, wrapped in a blanket. I quickly sketched the scene, as best I could in the moonlight, and then abstracted the drawing in an attempt to make the drawing more ambiguous and mysterious.

Illustration Friday - Impatience

The problem with winning the rat race is you're still a rat. - Lily Tomlin

Although being in a hurry and impatience are not exactly the same thing, I think they are closely related. After all, if you are not in a hurry, what is there to be impatient about? Last Friday, as I was driving home from work, I saw a runner dash past me. Later, my husband told me he thought an illustration about impatience should include a clock. Voila! I had a concept for my illustration.

I used Edward Muybridge's photograph sequence of a running man as the models for my runners. Here is the sequence I used:

Illustration Friday - Modify

After the wizard's apprentice turned his little sister into a cat, she howled with delight.

I have been itching to make a drawing that combines human features with animal ones. The prompt modify was a perfect opportunity. I combined two photo references into one graphite drawing and then tinted the drawing with color in Photoshop Elements.

Illustration Friday - Shaky

The grim reaper meets his match. Is he shaking with fear?

I see now that the grim reaper should be more distinct. I need more reaper and less flames.

Doodling on a Jet Plane

I flew to the Washington DC area this week; this is what I did on the flight home to Dallas. The plane was nearly empty, so I had a whole row of seats to myself. Very relaxing. Good for me, bad for American Airlines. I got the idea for this type of drawing from the book Keys to Drawing with Imagination by Bert Dodson. Dodson calls this escher tiling:

The object of this technique is to make a drawing that has no background spaces; every shape is an object that fits into every other shape.

I made up a game where I had to copy images from the Sky Mall catalog in the seat pocket in front of me. You know, the catalog with things no one really needs? Like the King Tut Life-Sized Sarcophagus Cabinet for $850?

I flipped through the catalog until I came to an image that appealed to me, then I fitted it into the drawing. Very relaxing and childlike. Doing art for no reason at all.

Learning From the Masters with Cynthia Padilla

I am taking a two day Mastering Portrait Drawing Workshop with Cynthia Padilla. It was last Sunday and again this Sunday. I signed up for it quite a long time ago; I decided to go to it even though my mother is in the hospital. In the workshop, we copy high quality copies of master works using Conte crayon, pastel, and other mediums. This drawing is my first attempt at Conte crayon.

This is head #50. I believe this is a copy of Head of a Girl by Francois Boucher. Sadly, I failed to write down the name of the artist. Bad me.

Good news about my mother: Yesterday she moved from the hospital to a rehabilitation center. She went into the hospital because of a slow heartbeat. The doctors corrected that, only to discover she had internal bleeding due to blood thinner medication. The doctors corrected that, and then she broke her hip in the hospital, which resulted in hip surgery. I think she is finally on the mend.

Illustration Friday - Pale

I started with this drawing from life, which I manipulated in Photoshop Elements.

Illustration Friday - Clandestine

Dew-touched meadows and trees are actually clandestine fairy meetings. Happy New Year!

100 Heads: Head #43

Angels we have heard on high.

I had fun experimenting with my Christmas cards this year. This angel is based on a photograph of a statue of an angel, but the final artwork doesn't look anything like the photograph. I started by applying blue pastel to a cream card and then spraying with matte fixative. I drew the angel using mechanical, 5B, 9B, and Ebony pencils. The surface was rough and hard to draw on, but the finished product has a unique look.

Illustration Friday - Rambunctious

Rambunctious is a word that sounds like what it means, so I used the word to illustrate the meaning. Those crazy letters! Every time I came back to the drawing, they were doing something different.

100 Heads: Head #36

I drew this head from imagination, using Sarah Simblet's approach to drawing heads.

Illustration Friday - Balloon

I created this sequence in April 2008. I am reposting it because it is a good fit for the prompt balloon.

Illustration Friday - Opinion

Although Mildred appreciated her daughter-in-law's efforts at hosting Thanksgiving dinner, she was unable to hide her opinion of the tofu turkey.

In the US, today is National Day of Listening. If you listen to National Public Radio (NPR), you hear a StoryCorps interview every Friday, where an ordinary American citizen interviews someone close to them. The results are amazing. Everyone has a story to tell. Some of the StoryCorps interviews are collected into the book Listening is an Act of Love. The results are in the tradition of the late great Studs Terkel. National Day of Listening extends the StoryCorps program to every household. So grab a loved one and interview them. Maybe Mildred needs to listen more and judge less!

This is head #31 in my goal of drawing 100 heads. This was practice drawing a character. What does an opinionated person look like? I went for an upturned head, pursed lips, slits for eyes, and raised brows. My husband says she looks worried, not opinionated.