Hermosa (Drawingboard.org)

It has been quite some time since I have posted any new work. The reason is because I have not done any new work, until now that is. This was drawn from a photo posted at drawingboar.org in the caricatures' caricatures thread. I believe the person's user name there is Hermosa.

Artist Trading Card Lesson

WOW!! It has been quite some time since I last posted here. I've been super busy with my student teaching the past 6 weeks. I have two weeks remaining at the primary level and then I go to the middle school. I can't wait to get to the middle school! Anyway, I have been doing ATCs with the 5th graders and they seem to really enjoy the lesson. Here are a few samples the students made.

You can read more about his lesson and other at http://artedunite.proboards85.com/index.cgi .

Every Day In May #18 - #22

So much for the every day in May! I did make it 22 days, even though I am just now posting many of them. It really was a good exercise (I just wish I had not gotten so far behind and given up). Oh well, here they are anyway. Some you may recognize, the others are people from caricature boards.

Every Day in May #16 & 17 (Faces)

I'm having a hard time keeping up with these. I think I might be spending too much time on some of them. It has helped to develop some skills though, so I think I'd rather be behind than to hurry through them. This first one is a really bad caricature of Robin Williams, done with a skewer stick and drawing ink (fun technique).
This next one is Tommy Lee Jones done first with pencil and then with a Bic pen. I like going in with the pencil first. I have been trying to work on my exaggerations and that is hard to do straight with the pen. As you can see, I didn't finish the shading on this. It takes too much time.

Every Day in May #14 & 15 (Faces)

I've been keeping up with the drawing, not so much with the posting. Here are the ones from the past couple of days. The first one was done with a Bic pen, penciled in first. The subject is Nicolas Sarkozy. This next one is supposed to be Jim Croce done with Prismacolors on cardboard. Not one of my better drawings.

Every Day in May (Faces) #8 - #13

I have been down the past few days with a nasty case of the stomach flu. I am feeling much better today and managed to get all caught up with the challenge. The first one was done using only a Bic pen. It is a caricature of the guy who plays Dr. House on the TV show. I am pretty happy with how this one turned out.

This next one was also done with a Bic pen and is supposed to be a caricature of Bruce Willis. I'm not so happy with this one. That is the bad part about drawing with pen... no room for messing up!

This next one is another caricature of Subway surfer. He posted some really good expressions on his blog. Expressions is something I need to work on. I think this one turned out much better than the last one of him. Another Bic pen drawing.

Caricature of Kid Rock. First drawn with pencil and then with a brush pen.

Same technique as above. This one is of a member from The Drawing Board.

Again with the brush pen and another member of The Drawing Board.

Every Day in May #7 (Faces)

I am not at all happy with this one and almost didn't post it. I have always had trouble with exaggeration and showing expressions. I tried both with this one and failed. The gentleman in the drawing is Subwaysurfer who is a wonderful caricature artist. His work amazes me. The other day he posted a couple of pictures of himself so I thought I'd have a go at him. I think I might try this one again another day. First, I think I should spend some time studying the face!

Every Day In May #6 (Faces)

I did some experimenting on this one. First I took a chunk of cardboard and glued torn peices of sheet music to it. Then I put a white wash over it and drew the caricature of my son Collin on using my Pitt Brush Pen. Then I used chalks and colored pencils for color. I haven't decided if I like it or not. It didn't take the color very well.

Every Day in May 3, 4, &, 5 (Faces)

I have been drawing every day, or at least no more than 2 drawings in one day. I am a bit behind on my posting though so I have three drawings to post today. The first one is a drawing of a doll, along with the body (something I never do). The second 2 are of people from various drawing boards who post their photos to have caricatures done of them. Neither of them are famous, just fellow artists.

Every Day in May (Faces) #1 & #2

Today I finally got a chance to visit Everyday Matters on Yahoo. While there I came across the Every Day in May challenge and decided to have a go at it. I have been wanting to try drawing every day for quite some time now. I am starting a day late and this weekend we will be gone, so I am going to cheat and post a drawing I did a few months ago but never posted. My theme is going to be faces. I am leaving it open so I can have some room to move and not get bored. The second drawing is one I did today from a draw me thread over at the Drawingboard.

EDM Challenge #3

One night during class, the girl sitting next to me had her purse sitting on the table. It was all white with lots of folds and shadows. The teacher was giving a lecture, I had a migraine, and I just didn't want to be there, so I started sketching the purse. I was just playing around at first, but then it starting coming together an looking really nice. I ended up spending most of the class drawing. I was really pleased with myself until the teacher called me out and announced to the class that I had been drawing for the entire class period. It was done with a pen on a sheet of printed computer paper (important notes for the class I think).

Art Educators Unite

I have started a new message board located at: http://artedunite.proboards85.com/index.cgi . The board is for anyone interested in teaching art and sharing ideas about teaching art. The board is only a couple of days old, but with time I hope it will be a fabulous resource for art educators. You do not have to be an art teacher to join, but that will be our only topic covered. Hope to see you there!

Jack Black Caricature Sketch

I did this one a couple of weeks ago too. Just another quick sketch done with a Bic pen in my sketchbook. I hope to post lots of new drawings/artwork from now on.

Tim Curry Caricature

I found a little time to do some drawing a couple of weeks ago. I just now found time to upload them. School is just about over! I hope to do lots of drawing and painting this summer. This one was done with a Bic pen in my sketchbook. I'm not entirely happy with it, but I can see some progress in my work.

Journal Pages

Last week I had a chance to draw in my book a little bit. I didn't have a lot of time so I decided to do some more Zentangle drawings. I find these so relaxing to do. They really are fun. Nothing spectacular here, just playing around with some different shapes.

Painter Assignment

I am currently taking a class called Applied Computer Graphics for Art Educators. Basically, we use Corel Painter to create art and translate that into lesson plans. For this assignment we had to go into the museum and draw from three different sculptures, scan those drawings into Painter, combine the three images, and use the brushes in Painter to color the image. This is what I came up with. I thought about continuing with it, but I like the painterly feel to it so I am calling it finished. We didn't have to write a lesson for this one, just do the image.

Charcoal Drawing

So much for posting each day! Better late than never I guess. This one was done as an example for a junior high lesson plan on non-representational art. I really enjoyed doing this one, even though it made a big mess. It was meant to be 1 of 4, that could later be placed together as a whole, but I am thinking I might not do the other 3. When I drew the original lines it marked the paper and they still show after erasing. I might just try doing another one on a different paper and using a softer pencil for my lines.

Adrien Brody Caricature

I haven't been keeping up with my posts, but I have several things to show and will put one up each day until I run out of new drawings to post. This one is part of the A to Zed Caricature Challenge. Just a quickie, but I wanted to get going on the challenge. The last one took so long to color, it sort of stalled me out on the challenge. Done in my sketchbook with my Pitt brush pen.

Been Busy!

My main 2008 art goal was to post to my blog each week with a new work of art (of some sort). I am failing miserably!! I have been so busy with school that this just is not happening. I have not drawn much of anything in weeks. This next week I am teaching my first lesson. It will be a non-representational charcoal activity. My plan is to do this activity myself before teaching it to the class. Hopefully I will be able to fit this in. Mid terms are next week, so I will already be a bit more busy than usual. I have also started working on a floralfoam sculpture I am trying out for a different lesson. Maybe I'll have two new works to show soon.

Journal Page

I have been down with a cold, the flu, etc. so I have not posted in a couple of weeks. And I was doing so good with posting each week! This is a page from my book I am journaling in. I drew it out a couple of weeks ago, but just now got around to adding color to it and calling it finished. I am really enjoying this book, I hope you are enjoying it too.

Murder She Wrote

In keeping with my A2Z challenge with a caricature theme, I did Angela Lansbury for my female letter A. Done with Pitt brush pen and colored pencil. I spent a little more time on this one than I wanted too. I need to do them quicker for now on. Anyway, I exaggerated the eyes more than I normally would have. This is something I have been trying to do for some time now. I still need to push it more though.

Journal Pages & EDM Challenges

Saturday hubby and I took the boys to see a movie. We got to the mall a bit early so we stopped in the book store to look around. I had been thinking about using a printed book to journal in so I head straight for the clearance shelves. I knew exactly what I was looking for; hard cover, thick paper, and a comfortable size. I started by looking for the size I wanted and then opening it up to see what kind of paper the pages were made of. I found the perfect book and purchased it. At that time I couldn't have told you anything about the book itself. I didn't know the title, author, or story line of it and didn't much care. When we got home I took the dust jacket off and pitched it. I was very happy to see the cover was a nice burgundy with some texture to it. Things were going as planned until I opened the book up to start drawing in it. The first thing I see is that the author also wrote The Perfect Storm, which was a great movie. This leads me to the title - A Death in Belmont, which interests me because I love a good murder mystery. Now I have a problem. How can I deface a book I might enjoy reading? I don't have time to read a novel right now with so much school work to do. So I made a deal with myself. I would read the book 2 pages at a time and then include these in my thoughts and drawings. Here are my pages from the first 3 days of drawing in it. There are a couple of EDM challenges in there as well.

This was much harder than I thought it would be. I still find myself worrying about how it all flows together and if the page is interesting to look at. It also takes a bit of time to fill the pages, even though the book is not very big. I decided I like the 2 page spread better than the one page so I think I will continue that way. Also, I am using marker for color and it bleeds through the paper so I will have to skip pages.

New A2Z Challenge

A few weeks ago I started doing the A2Z challenge started by The Crusty Crone. It's your basic a to z where you start by drawing something that begins with the letter a. The next week you move to b and work your way through the alphabet doing a drawing each week. This is fine but with school I don't have a whole lot of time to draw. I did this for 3 weeks but it was feeling a bit like wasted time. I have a message board called Virtual Art, which I started when I first started drawing caricatures. One of the members there started a challenge for himself where he draws someone each week alternating male, female. Doing it this way gives you 2 drawings for each letter and should take the entire year. This seemed more in line with my goals for 2008. Therefore, I am started over at A and doing the A2Z challenge with caricatures. I am also going to try one with artists where I study a different artist for each letter. There is no way I can do both each week so I think the artist one will only be once or twice a month.

Here is my first drawing for the letter A, Jerry Stiller - plays Arthur on The King of Queens. I used a Pitt brush pen for the lines and soft pastels for the color.

I am not entirely happy with this one, but that is what this challenge is for. Next, I move to a female for the letter A.

2 New ATCs - Fit 2008 Art Goals

I have made some goals for 2008. This includes, but not limited to: journaling more, using pen to draw more, posting to my blog each week, studying the works of great artists, and just drawing more in general, among some other things not listed here. Last night I made a couple of new artist trading cards while trying out some new techniques for me as well. This first one is a drawing of my rollball mouse I have on my laptop. I used a pitt pen for the drawing (which I did on a page from a book) and used marker to color it... several new things for me. I would love to get a printed book to journal in, but I have not yet found one suited for this project.

This next one goes along with another goal of mine, to study various artists who's work I am inspired by. I call this card "Dance; ala Keith Haring". I do my student teaching next fall and I need to start thinking about lesson plans. I figure learning about some artists is the best place to start. This one was done in marker on paper cut from security envelopes.

A2Z Challenge - "C"

C is for celtic knots. On wetcanvas there is a tutorial on drawing celtic knots. I spent a couple of days playing around with them and it was fun. This one was done on grid paper and then inked and colored with an opaque marker. I think it would look better on a black background but I am just too busy right now to worry about that.

I would also like to take this opportunity to let everyone know that this is the last A2Z I am going to post. Well, sort of... I feel like these are some what a waste of my time, which I have so little of. I am going to start over and adjust the challenge for myself to be more inline with my goals. I will post this along with my 2008 art goals in a couple of days.

A2Z Challenge "B"

B is for Barbra. Loralou over at the Artist Trading Card Forum (http://www.atcards.com/) asked me to do an ATC for her with a caricature of Barbra Streisand on it. Since I am due for the letter B, and I just happened to be working on this card at the same time, I am using it for B. I really feel like I am cheating here, but what can you do? It looks nothing like her, so I guess B could be for bad drawing as well.