Abstract Gel Pen Drawing

I've been taking my sketchbook with me when I am subbing and it has proven very helpful in allowing me time to actual create some art. I finished this one a couple of days ago. I'm not sure how much I like the end results of these, but I find it very therapeutic.

Cells - Ink Pen

This was done with an ink pen, which ran out before I finished it. I guess this will have to be called "done". The ghost image in the white area is the next page in my sketchbook showing through, it's not part of this drawing.

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).

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.

Morgan Freeman Caricature

From the movie The Shawshank Redemption (one of my fav's). Done in my recycled paper sketch book with graphite and white conte pencil. I did this one last night while my son was at cheerleading practice. Tonight is hockey practice, so I will have another opportunity to do some drawing. Tonights subject will be a little angel I got from The Crone's Corner.

Drawing with Imagination

A fellow art blogger named Greg recomended a book to me, which I ordered right away (Thanks Greg!). The book is by Bert Dodson and is called Keys to Drawing with Imagination: Strategies and Exercises for Gaining Confidence and Enhancing Your Creativity. I love how the book is laid out and so far I am really enjoying the exercises in it. I am only on the 3rd exercise in the book but I already have several ideas for new works. The bad part, I am in such a hurry to get to the next exercise and see what it is that I rush through the actual drawing exercises. It's ok, I'll go back and revisit them after I finish the book.


Here is an example from the first exercise. It is called "Taking a Line for a Walk". I really enjoyed this exercise.


This next one is from the second exercise.

Nothing fancy. Just fun and relaxing. These get me in the mood to do some more serious works. Not to mention, I found a good use for that gridded moleskine sketch book I bought.

2 New ATCs

I haven't had time to make many of these lately. Here are two I just finished getting ready to trade today. As of now they are both available for trade.

Imagination Drawing 2

This is my second attempt at drawing from my imagination (inspired by nina). I might color this later but I like how it looks with just the ink so I wanted to save it in this state before adding color.

~ sketched in pencil and lined with a brush pen

Facial Expressions

I have this wonderful book called Facial Expressions by Mark Simon. It has hundreds of photos in it of different models making crazy faces. I love drawing from this book and I usually get a pretty good likeness, but most of the time I fail to capture the expression of the person. I am not sure how to correct this. Normally I would say more practice, but I think I am missing something. Maybe I need to slow down when I am drawing and pay more attention to the location and angles of the facial features. If anyone has any advice on this, I would love to hear it.

Both of the drawings are of Charlotte. The first one looks like her but the second one does not. I always draw people straight on because I have trouble with other views, which is why I chose one that was a 3/4 view. Maybe it is time to draw more of these.

EDM Challenge #36 - Draw in Public

Thursday night my boys had floor hockey at the local YMCA. I had my sketch book there and the lady sitting across from me was crocheting so she was sitting pretty still. I thought this would be a great opportunity to do some live drawing. I have always wanted to do some live drawing but I know I am not very good at it so I have never really tried it before. I know, this is dumb. I can not get any better at something if I do not ever do it. It did not turn out very well, but I consider it another notch on my list of things I have never done but want to be better at. I look at this one as a benchmark to track my progress.

Imagination Drawing

Inspired by Nina Johansson's challenge to draw from the imagination every day in December. I doubt I will manage to do this every day, but I did do it today. My goal is to be more creative and I think part of this is to draw as often as possible and in part by trying new things. I almost never try to draw from my imagination so this is a great exercise for me. I also have not made time for sketching since starting school almost 4 years ago. I am trying to find opportunities to sketch whenever I can. I did this drawing while we had critiques in digital photography. It was much better than sitting there for 2.5 hours while the teacher rambled on.

I know it is not the most creative drawing but it represents a lot of new things for me. First of all, I drew it without looking at anything. Second, I used watercolors in my sketchbook. Third, I drew an entire scene, which I have never done before.

EDM Challenge #37 - Keys

I have been reading a lot about Moleskine sketch books and I wanted to try one. I could not find one locally so I had to order it online. I ended up getting two of them. One had plain pages and the other had a grid on it. Lately I have been thinking about doing some grid drawings and when I read the description, I thought of the pages having about 4 larger grids on them. I should have read it better I guess. I did not let this discourage me so I just used the gridded paper to draw my own grids. For the Every Day Matters #37 - Draw some keys. I did this last night while sitting in my car, waiting to pick my boys up. I sort of like the broken grid look to it but I think I might go in and add some color to the background. Done with a bic pen. For anyone who does not know about Everyday Matters, there is a link to the site in the inspiration section of my blog. Visit it today.

Angry

Day 2, post 2. I am off to a good start! I drew this yesterday but I am not sure how I feel about it. This is the first time I have ever done the scribble thing. I usually spend hours finishing a drawing and I would like to be more lose in my drawings some times. It sort of feels like the scribbles are too messy and that they create a loss of detail. Feel free to comment on this.