Playing with Color

I have this favorite author that is also an artist (ever notice how these things can go together? the drive to create spilling over into other areas?), and I love her work. It’s very different and I can’t say I understand how she does it. Yesterday I printed out one of her drawings, as inspiration, and set to work.

– Click on her name for a link to Maggie Stiefvater’s website to see the picture in question. –

It was fun. I enjoyed playing with the colors. It was hard – on my body at least, because I sat hunched over this drawing for the better part of three hours (what else is a girl to do when the kids are sick and lying around doing nothing?). It wasn’t nearly as frustrating as I imagined it would be because once I set to working on it, it flowed.

You guys know I’m the first to admit I have no idea what I’m doing. My color pencils? I bought a fancy set (Prismacolor Premier) years ago, and have rarely touched them. I’ve never felt like it was intuitive to use them, to figure out blending them. I just didn’t get it. It was really fun to play with them and get more comfortable with them. I still don’t think it comes naturally to me, but more so than before.

I’m a bit “meh” about the final product. My oldest son loves it and says it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. He came in the room and said, “I didn’t know you were so talented!” Pure shock. haha Good to have at least one fan of this crazy eyed rainbow girl.

In an effort not to be a complete theif, I did color my own drawing, rather than replicate Maggie’s. And if you clicked on that link up there, you’ll see mine is really nothing like hers at all. In fact I might try again soon with water colors rather than pencils to get the lighter washed effect.

Looking Up

I did this one right on the heels of the last one (the girl with the angry slash smug expression). I wanted the opposite of angry, the opposite of closed off, the opposite of the downward tipped head and glaring eyes. So this girl is looking up a bit and more open.  Or at least that’s what I was going for.  I took the time to do a little shadowing on this one too, which makes the whole thing so much better.  There are days when my chunk of time to draw isn’t large, and days when it takes me the entire time just to get the idea of the sketch on the page.  The shading and shadows come at the end and sometimes get left off.  Once I’ve finished a drawing, once I’ve moved on to other things in my day, I can’t come back.  I’m not in the same space in my mind and I can’t pick back up.  Oh, I have occasionally done so, and it’s not always a bad thing, it’s just very hard for me to get back into the frame of mind for a specific idea/image.

Emotion

I think one of the most challenging things in art is to portray emotion – and specifically to portray the emotion you want the piece to portray. (I have never used that word so often much less in one sentence. Portray. I digress).

Some drawings in my sketch book are just an attempt to capture an emotion. Just to see if I can do it.

I think I was going for angry here, and she turned out rather evil looking. Maybe mostly smug. I think she looks smug. In my head she’s smug about some evil slash angry thing she’s done.

Book Love/Book Art

There is a book festival in a neighboring town today. I’m very excited. Just the fact it exists makes me happy. Add to that it’s close enough for me to attend and I’m stoked. Throw in an opportunity to hear Maggie Stiefvater speak and I might faint. I’ll be the swooning Beatle’s fan at the book fest today.

In honor of Bookmarks, I wanted to pull together all my book related art into one post.

 

This first one was loosely inspired by Shiver (written by none other than Maggie Stiefvater).

This next one is my redrawing of an illustration in The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, by William Joyce. (I have a variation of this tattooed on my thigh now. That’s how much I love the original illustration).

I did this watercolor ages ago. It was one of my very first watercolors. And I think my favorite. I did a drawing first based off a vintage photograph. Then I did it again as a watercolor.

This Divergent (Veronica Roth) piece was a quick gift for a friend. We read the books at the same time, and both fell in love.

This last one is so close to my heart. One of my all time favorite books is What Happens Next by Colleen Clayton. It’s been difficult for me to share my art – it’s all so personal. To open yourself up to criticism is a scary thing. I did this drawing in my sketch book based on the main character, Sid. I was feeling particularly brave the day I shared the drawing with the author. It made my day (week? year?) when she responded so sweetly and shared the picture with all her fans.

Shades

This is another one from sketch book 2, and from January. I did this one right after “freckles” … for some reason I wanted to do a face with neat sunglasses. I had this idea for a cleft in the chin too, and heavy bangs. In the end I felt like I channeled Klara Soderberg of First Aid Kit. Not surprising considering I listen to First Aid Kit religiously.

Freckles

I’ve shared so many of my sketch book drawings as I did them, that I had to look back to find something to share. This is from sketch book 2, and was drawn in January. I remember drawing it, and it felt like no time ago. Hard to fathom that it’s been so long, yet here we are in September.

I may have mentioned it before, but in case you don’t know, I am first and foremost a mother. With back to school and balancing the schedule of after school activities, any free time I thought I had has disappeared. When do I carve out a few minutes to draw? How do I make time to set up to paint? Honestly, I don’t even know. Drawing is a little easier to fit in, and I often do it in the evenings before putting the kids to bed – when they are watching a movie and don’t need me to pay full attention to them. 😉 I try to knock out watercolors when I find myself with a little chunk of time, and to save the big painting projects for weekends and holidays.

Here’s the thing: if you want to do it, you will make time for it. So right now while the kids are chomping at the bit ready to start our schoolwork, I’m insisting they give me a few minutes to drink my coffee and “play on the computer” … otherwise known as update the blog. No matter what else is happening in my life and no matter how busy I am, it’s important to me that I make time for art. Some times that means drawing or painting, some times that means blogging and sharing what I’ve done with the world, and some times it means writing. When you don’t hear from me it’s because I’ve found time to do something creative – I’ll share it with you when I get back to the online world.

Steal Like an Artist

I’ve been reading Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? It’s very simple. The book is small and easy to take with you. Pretty good bathroom book actually. I’m enjoying it and have found it good validation. The information isn’t entirely groundbreaking or anything. Tips and hints and advice and quotes that are all wonderful reminders. It’s helped me want to keep trying, keep going, keeping making. I already bought the next book: Show Your Work. It’s all about getting yourself out there, so hopefully it will help me share my art and find my online presence.

The last sketch I did was stealing art. I looked a few pictures I liked and copied them. Not exactly, of course, but the general idea. And I’m being up front about that here – the ideas weren’t my own – I just wanted to feel the shape of the lips with my pencil, to see the face appear with feathers on half, to practice. In the past I’ve steered away from that sort of thing, not wanting to steal. But I’m not selling these. I’m not saying, hey look at my brand new idea. I’m practicing. From what I understand, most of what we all do is borrow ideas, recycle ideas, steal ideas and as we work make them our own. It’s fun to take something you see, and think how you would do it, and then do it.

Simple doodles in my sketch book to try new things.

Girl, Set in Ink

I had a little time last night and this morning to work on a sketch. I’ve been wanting to do one for a long time now with words scrolling across the page as well as the girl.

The girl is drawn and shadowed in pencil. The words are in ink.

Source: Brandi Carlile, Let it Bend Before it Breaks, and Passenger, Coins in a Fountain. Also a few of my own words thrown in for good measure.

Playing around, a tbt

I haven’t been working on much new stuff (in case you don’t already know this, I am a very busy person with most of my time devoted to two very busy small people). I’ll keep hitting you up with the Throwback Thursday’s in the mean time. *I am over half way through a new painting, for what it’s worth, and hope to finish it soon. So I will have something new to share. 😉

This drawing today isn’t too far of a throwback, just from about a month ago. I got this neat paper from my tattoo artist – he’s thoughtful like that, thinking I’d like to draw on it, because it’s great for shading. (Back story: he’d drawn a couple pictures for my kids as gifts, and they were on this type of paper, then he gave me the paper). Anyway … I forgot I had it, the special paper, and finally got around to trying it out. I love it!

So now my problem is that I can’t remember what kind of paper it is! LOL I’ll have to ask him and order some for myself. 🙂

Bloom Where You’re Planted

This is the latest drawing I’ve done. It started as just the girl, with her head down. From there I added the flowers and vines on and from her, as well as the bee. This time of year I’m pulled outside and love to garden. I’m also still very much inside my own head.

Here’s another shot of it, where you can see the cherries at the top, and a couple more bees. This is also before I inked her in with pen.