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.