HAPPY NEW YEAR!

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!

Latest Drawing

I just finished the drawing portion of a class that Rob Zeller is offering on Craftsy. He works from a cast of a head that probably came from Roman architecture. I don't have a cast of my own to work with so I had to simply work from the video. In this particular class, Rob does a line drawing, a 5-value study, and then a value study in oils. This is the drawing portion that I have completed.

I really do need to begin to use a cover sheet to protect my drawings when I work on them.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Happy Thanksgiving 2014

Digital Drawing

Elephant Designs

I have been working on an elephant project lately. I wanted to try working some more with drawing in pen and ink, which is where I started with my elephant. I have also been working with the F&W inks and trying to master them. The iridescent ones fascinate me and although I struggle with the drying time for acrylics, I keep working with them - bound and determined that I am going to eventually win - not necessarily by making them do what I want them to do, but by finally figuring out how they are best handled. So next, I tried my elephant with the F&W inks, while still working on the black and white pen and ink designs for this little guy. So here is what I got. It was a fun break from the portraits that I love to work on. Those can be somewhat intense, so this is my way of relaxing and loosening up before I go back to what really intrigues me. This may be a few weeks early since it isn't Thanksgiving yet. Hope you enjoy!

HAVE I TOLD YOU LATELY

Have I told you lately that when it comes to my artwork, I love experiments?

This one was definitely an experiment. Several years ago, I went to the wedding of a friend's daughter. Her wedding was at the Botanical Gardens in San Antonio. While I was there in that lovely garden, during the reception, I snapped some photo's. One that I couldn't resist was of this metal sculpture. When we were leaving the garden that evening, I couldn't help but notice the eerie atmosphere that was created around the sculpture by the darkness and soft moonlight. I wanted to try to capture that. I took my photo into Photoshop and played with some of the tools that you can use. I wanted to try a black background and so I didn't draw this out freehand. I will save that for later. It is probably not as easy to correct mistakes on black background. So I traced the preying mantis and the more important areas of the trees and shrubs. I used Conte pastel colored pencil and Gerneral's Charcoal White. I'm pleased with the outcome, and had a great time doing this.

Preying Mantis in Moonlight
on Somerset Velvet 250gsm, Black
from Legion Paper (purchased sample paper)

Still Plugging Away

#inktober 2014, Day 27

I am still in there posting my ink drawings for #inktober 2014. Here is today's drawing.

#inktober 2014, Day 27

#Inktober 2014

#inktober 2014, Day 14

I got a little bit behind in my #inktober drawings. I still have a few more to do in order to catch up. In the meantime, here is Day 14:

I love both drawing and painting. So, I guess it is a matter of whether I feel myself drawn to more color or more structure for that particular day or moment. To me, switching from one to the other helps to give balance. Now to play catch-up.

Finally Finished

Updated paintings:

I worked some more on these two paintings and wanted to let you see the finished products.

Latest Painting

Here is my latest:

At the Ocean

I made a few tiny adjustments to the dark areas around the waves. Funny how something that small can make a big improvement. I will show the improved version later. Don't have time to take a picture of it now.

More Doodles

(sponsored post)

Added some more doodles to Craftsy. You can find my projects that I have worked on at Margo Schwirian's Projects. This summer was filled with fun moments working on a number of projects inspired by the classes, and I have several more still lined up for the fall. Craftsy offers all kinds of classes and project: drawing, painting, sewing, cooking, woodworking, and more. One of my latest projects was influenced by the Figure Anatomy for the Artist class, by Roberto Osti, and was for a project called #inktober 2014.

Doodles #inktober, Day 3, 2014

Latest Workshop

Scott Waddell Workshop

Each year Danny Grant hosts a workshop in Austin at the Gemini School of Visual Arts with Scott Waddell, and this year I was again able to join. It was great fun with a number of interesting artists. As you can see, even though I didn't get a chance to finish, I did get a lot further this year than last year. There is so much to learn, but I was very excited to be able to get more questions solved. I just keep chipping away. The more I learn, the more I realize how very much there still is to try to assimilate.

Last Year:

2013 workshop

This year:  still didn't finish, but got closer.

2014 workshop - Chelsey

This year, I learned how to go back in and work on this painting some more at home. I may want to just experiment on something new for awhile before braving going back in to this canvas. At least I now know what steps I can take to work back into a dried or somewhat dried painting.

2014 workshop - Couldn't keep my hands off of it. Had to work on it some more.

More Digital Doodles

The #draw21days challenge came to an end, and so I used this past week to catch up on other things that I needed to get done. I did still manage to try some more of my Digital Doodles. You can check them out along with lots of fun classes taught by very talented teachers at  Craftsy. To get directly to my projects, you can click on see Margo Schwirian's projects on Craftsy.

Update:  Today's doodle

  (This post contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links.)

Draw 21 days - Day # 21

Day 21 - Self Portrait

The challenge today for the #draw21days challenge is a Self Portrait. No, I am still not finished. I haven't done day 20. Here is day 21 - A self portrait. It mysteriously looks younger than me! Hmmm - I am not sure I feel like rectifying that.

Day 16 - #draw21days

#draw21days

Might as well go ahead and share day 16 of #draw21days:

#draw21days

#draw21days

Might work on this some more later.

Worked on it some more:

DAY 16 - #draw21days

Day 17 - #draw21days

This is day 17 

This is day 17 of #draw21days and this is what I did.

Eyes

Eyes - Simplified

DAY 14

We are now on day 14

For those of you who have not taken the challenge yet, you may want to check out #draw21days on Lynda.com with Von Glitschka. Here is my Day 14: 

Dancing in the Rain

DAY 10

#draw21days

Day 10 has arrived. The challenge? Draw a page full of doodles! A whole entire page full of doodles!

So I drew this:

Day 10 Challenge - Doodles

Then I realized - "That doesn't fit the definition of: an entire page of doodles."

So, then I was concerned. Have I failed doodles? I got back to drawing and furiously worked my fingers to the bone, but all I could come up with was:

GESTURES

Am I doomed to flunk doodles?

Still Working On ...

I am still working on #draw21days and today we posted our day 7 drawings. I may go back and work on it some more later, but for now, here it is.

#draw21days

Sometimes It Is Fun

Sometimes it is nice to just do a fun and silly challenge. This one is on https://www.facebook.com/lynda. It is a 21 day drawing challenge. I just started today, and so this is day 1. I didn't use any photo reference. After working on constructing human skeletons and muscles, I just wanted to do something light and fun.  #draw21days

Day 1 #draw21days

JUST HANGIN' OUT

Newest art from the youngest artists in the family.

Hangin' Out With Family

Playing With My Watercolors

Working On A New Watercolor

Perhaps I should give a little background on this painting. Also, I will try to get a better photo of it. The background was started about 8 years ago when I first began to put paint brush to paper. For about a year before that, I spent every minute I could spare: reading books, researching supplies, searching the internet for artists teaching on the web and/or teaching through DVD's, and purchasing supplies. After about a year of research and watching DVD's, I finally began this piece of 22" x 30" Arches 300 lb cold press paper by dividing it equally into 4 equal pieces (without cutting it). I was doing an exercise on laying in color to get something that resembled sky and water. The point was to try 4 different methods of putting down the original wash to see what differences it might make. A few days ago, I finally took out my Bruynzeel Design aquarelle pencils and added the silhouettes of two children to 1 of the 4 blocks. I then worked on the water some more. It has been a nice experiment because there was no pressure to "get it right," but rather only to explore the possibilities. This photo is cropped to adjust for the strange angle that I captured, and the fact that I used a simple preset crop. The children are actually slightly off to one side.

By the way, to view my latest design on Cafe Press you can click Abstract Flow.

Class Projects on Craftsy

Lately, I have been taking classes and working on projects at Craftsy. To follow my latest projects on Craftsy: check out Class Projects on Craftsy.

  (This post contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links.)

So What Have I Been Doing Lately?

So, what have I been doing lately? I have been drawing bones and muscles. Maybe not as fun as painting with wild and vibrant color, but interesting - all the same. Craftsy Meet Margo Schwirian shows my latest projects that I have been working on. It also has tons of fun "learn how to" projects for the summer months. They have: cooking, sewing, fine art, knitting, jewelry, photography, home and garden, and more.

Hope you are enjoying the summer!

MEMORIAL DAY

Watched a Memorial Day special yesterday with beautiful music. You can't help but reflect on how much everyone's life is effected, throughout the ages, by war.

I found myself looking back on some of the photos of my dad and some of the WASPS that he trained. I would like to try to draw or paint something from that.

For more on that story:

In Memory of Matt-Man and his Great-Granddaddy

Mother's Day

Just saw the funniest movie this weekend.

Mom's Night Out

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers!

Real Small

Hello everyone! As you already know from my previous posts, I love to experiment with my art. I guess that maybe I am still trying to find my Artistic Voice, or maybe this is just what being an artist is -- that eternal search. At any rate, I got a reminder email from Mark Stryker at Colors of Nature asking me if I had, by any chance, tried the samples of watercolor paint that he had sent. I was very grateful for the reminder. So much has happened since he sent them that I had carefully put them aside with some of my other water media products that I want to experiment with. Needless to say, I would have come across them and tried them, but later rather than sooner.

I pulled out one of my Artist Trading cards made by Strathmore and experimented.

Glad that I tried it. Love the colors. I'm thinking about loading up on artist trading cards for quick color studies and am interested in this brand of paint for the grandkids and myself as well.

Real Fun

Back again. My husband and I took some time off to see a little of the west coast - as you can see from the last post (Checking Out the Coast). Among other things, we wanted to see the whales. So, we went to Dana Wharf Sportfishing & Whale Watching to see the them. As you can see here, before we even got off the pier we saw a whale.

Then we decided that we wanted to have some real fun.

Reel Fun

We really saw this boat in the harbor on our way out to see the whales.

We saw sea gulls, and finally ...

One Of the Whales

We saw the whales!

We had a great time, got lots of sun and fresh air, and even got a chance to browse through the outdoor art fair.

Checking Out the Coast

Checking Out the Coast

More Left Over Paint And a Re-Primed Canvas

Hope you are not tired of looking at the San Antonio Japanese Garden waterfall. I had a portrait that I had painted and I really didn't like it, so I primed over it. Then I used up the left over paint from my last experiment (see: A Little More Information). Since it was a used canvas and left over paint, I wasn't overly concerned about the outcome. I wanted something simple for a composition, and so I used my Japanese Garden photo. As you can see, this composition has a tendency to morph a little each time I paint it. I tried to keep the painting fairly abstract, and enjoyed the freedom of just kind of throwing the paint on the canvas. It will probably morph some more before I am finished. I love experiments. You can't really ruin them.

Left Over Paint in the Key of Red Orange

A few minor changes that you may want to see Japanese Garden Waterfall San Antonio - key of red orange.

A Little More Information

The other day, I promised you that I would let you know more about the artwork that I have been working on. One of the projects that I worked on was the Clear Print Cross Country project with a drawing in one of their Clear Print Vellum books that they sent across the country. You may have to look through the photos in different books that were sent out (in order to find mine). They have been sending 10 books across the country and it was fun getting to join the effort.

Another project I have been working on is my color study with Barnstone Studios. I got both the drawing and the color downloadable DVD's for my own Christmas present. Yep, I gave myself a Christmas present! I am having great fun with it. It is a lot of work, and so well worth it as far as I am concerned. The following are photos of my work so far. Don't be too hard on these because I have only just begun. I won't be showing this to Mr. Barnstone at this point because I still have a long way to go on my work with exercises.

Key of Orange

 I made more than a few mistakes, and I had to substitute for the fact that I don't own any Burnt Umber in oil paint. Also, I normally do watercolor and didn't think about using masking tape around the edges on the first try - since this was oil paint. I also need to do a good deal of work on value studies, but I am having so much fun that even though these didn't turn out as "perfect" as I would like, I am really enjoying the exercises. I also did this exercise in the key of orange when he wanted it in the key of red-orange. I substituted Asphaltum for Burnt Umber.


This time (below) I tried the exercise in the red-orange key like it was supposed to be and I think maybe I got the values a little better than the 1st exercise. It obviously needs more work, but I was please with the progress. I didn't even try the little round color wheel this time. I will work on that again, later. I substituted Torrit Grey (not sure what year - it is different every year) for Burnt Umber.

One of the other things that I have worked on is part of the drawing exercise portion of the DVD's. I am working on that because I have such a hard time getting depth into my figure drawing. Spatial relationships of 3-D objects leave my brain jumbled. I probably never would have been able to design a bridge, or a building. At any rate, here is an example of what I have done. (See photos below)

 

Hopefully these drawings will help when I am trying to visualize the other side of a hipbone when trying to draw people.

Thanks for dropping by.

Still Working on My Art

I am still working on my art and will share more about that later. In the meantime, I am so excited! What about? My First Sale on Fine Art America