Saturday, December 29, 2007

Bride of Frankenstein


Okay, not really. But her hair does kind of remind me of the Bride of Frankenstein. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I continue to struggle with drawing feet and hands. As you can see, they aren't very detailed. I can draw feet and hands up close, but doing something a bit farther away is much more difficult for me. Maybe I should really work on that next week.

Materials: Prismacolor colored pencils, Strathmore Medium Drawing paper (9x12)

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Get Your Bird On


With the madness of the holiday season (along with some travel), I haven't been able to post any new art lately. My sincerest apologies. The colored pencils have been calling to me and I finally got a chance to sit down today and do a little drawing.

I got a really neat book for Christmas called Bird by David Burnie. It's fantastically inspiring, and I plan on doing lots of bird drawings and collages in the future. I may even attempt an acrylic painting! In any case, the above drawing is of a pair of Orange-Breasted Waxbills who live in Africa. The bird on the left is female and the bird on the right is male. It's so interesting to me that in nature, many male animals are the prettiest and most adorned; they also do a lot of the work in attracting the mate. It's just the opposite of humans! In any case, I hope you enjoy the drawing.

Materials: Prismacolor colored pencils, Strathmore Drawing paper (9x12)

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Ho Ho Ho! Christmas Cards Are Here!




This year I decided to be ambitious and make my own Christmas cards. It cost a ton more to make my own cards than it has to buy them ready-made in the past, but I think it was worth it. I had a lot of fun gluing, cutting, punching, and deciding on the right design. I went through a few failed prototypes before coming up with the design you see above. Inside each card is a modern holiday sticker that I believe compliments the slightly mod exterior of the card. In the end, I made THIRTY cards. Maybe you will be getting one in the mail soon!

Materials: Red card stock, yellow card stock, paper, paper tree cutouts, snowflakes cut out using a paper punch, stickers, Elmer's Glue Stick.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving!




This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for the time I had last night to sit down and draw this lovely lady with her gorgeous blue hat. I think she's quite chic!

Update: This drawing is now available in the shop!

Materials: Prismacolor colored pencils, Strathmore Medium Drawing paper (9x12).

Thursday, November 15, 2007

More Shoes!



I figured that since I have not been very artistically active in the past week (my sincere apologies for the lack of fresh posts), I would put up an image I've been thinking about a lot lately. Yes, it's more shoes. I created the above image in Adobe Illustrator a few years ago, based on a photograph I took of one of my all-time favorite shoes, a lovely pair of ballet flats by Nine West. (Which I am still wearing; that's how awesome they are.) I'm thinking that I want to get back into this shoe series (it's a great opportunity to work in Illustrator again) and maybe put some prints up in the store to see how they go. If anyone has comments, let me know!

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Completed Collage



I completed my collage tonight. I'm rather happy with it. I struggled with whether or not to get really detailed, and in the end, decided that simple is usually best for me. The background was painted with several shades of acrylic yellow paint on top of a square of 9x9 craft wood. I used paper Mod Podge for all of the paper cutouts and then sealed the entire thing with a final layer of Mod Podge. The sun was created using two shades of vellum paper. I traced over the vellum with some glittery puffy T-shirt paint to get a 3-D effect.

(Materials: wood, acrylic paint, paper Mod Podge, cardstock, handmade papers, vellum, T-shirt paint)

Sunday, November 4, 2007

First Steps



Tonight I began working on a new collage. My first step (as you can see above) is to paint the background with acrylic paints. I never really painted with acrylics until about a year ago (I had always painted in oils), but I've found that I love them much more than oil paints. They are bright, don't smell, and dry very quickly; the perfect medium for an impatient girl like me! I'm not exactly sure what this collage will turn out to be, but I am thinking of continuing my series of bird collages. I'll show you the results when I'm done!

(Materials [so far]): wood, acrylic paint

Thursday, November 1, 2007

My New Shoes


I love shoes, but I hate drawing them. Since I wasn't feeling up to going full-throttle with a drawing last night, I decided that a good sketch would suit me just as well. I find drawing shoes to be a huge chore (I always mess up on the perspective), so I figured they would be a good subject for me to work on. These shoes are my newest pair, and they are simply DIVINE; black patent leather, shiny, and oh-so-trendy for the season. I hope you enjoy the drawing.

(Materials: graphite pencil (B, F, and 2B) on Strathmore Medium Drawing paper)

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Day One - And I'm Happy!



Well, there you have it: my work from last night and the first drawing on the new blog. The fact that I'm still pleased with it nearly 24 hours later says a lot, I think. I used a black and white ad from a fashion magazine as my inspiration and it took me a little over an hour to complete. My friend Eric would probably say that it looks a lot like everything else I do, but I think there is something a smidge different...maybe the eyes? The image is a bit blurry at full-size, but I think it looks decent on the webpage itself.

Now, on to more drawing!

(Materials: Prismacolor colored pencils on Bristol board)