...searching

Lots of self reflection going on this summer. Unfortunately not much time to do it.  I think I've realized that I want to feel more "joy". I'm trying to consciously stay in the moment and look for joy within me and around me.

Anyway, today it came out as this drawing. It's totally not my comfort style but I find when I'm looking at other blogs, I'm drawn to the colours and whimsy. I can't do that with the portrait style that I usually draw. So maybe it's time for something new. These pencil crayons aren't of the highest quality and I find they don't blend well. I only have a nice set of skin-tone colours so I had to raid my kids left over school art supplies for the colours I wanted. The pink I wanted for the word Joy wasn't what I found but there is a limey-green in here that I am loving.

Happy Sunday Sketches!

Colour

I love looking at all the beautiful colours in many of the art blogs I follow. I want to work with colour but I just can't seem to get the same detail and shadowing as I can with graphite. That being said I've only tried 2 things with colour... Both with coloured pencils. I have however just purchased some watercolours...eek. On my bucket list this summer I'm planning to work with a couple of different mediums. Fingers crossed that I do it. Anyway, this is my start....

Since I do a lot of faces I figured I'd try a face part in colour.

This dandelion pic is one I found on the internet (without the words) and I really wanted to to try it myself. I think the original was watercolour and looked just gorgeous. I couldn't capture it with pencils though :(  Looking around the internet for the original so I can give credit. 

the Green Man... in black and white

Ok, this was a lot of work...lol. As I mentioned before, I ended up erasing it twice before I finally started getting the way I wanted. If I were to do it again I maybe would choose not to worry about symmetrical leaves, cause those babies took a tonne of time (rulers and calculations...gah!) I'm really happy with the overall result though. I'm wondering if I should keep the outer lines of the individual leaves so sharp. I didn't blend them at all because I wanted to make sure the layers were obvious. Should I blend them to soften them some? Thoughts?

Now comes the fun/scary part for me. I've decided to colour this one. Well a copy of it. I just have to decide on coloured pencils, markers or watercolour...or all.

I mentioned in my preview post that there is a local artist, who's work I love, that painted a green man and got me hooked. Her work is beautiful so you should check her out.

Faebyl Art
and on Blogger HERE

Unfortunately my scanner is just a tad smaller than the picture so his antlers got a little chopped.

the Green Man Cometh... soon

I'm so excited because I'm actually working on another drawing. This will be my 3rd this year... I only managed to get 3 pieces done, in total, last year. So this is a good sign. AND this one is not a portrait, so I have a bit more leeway with it. I am finding though, that I have had to use my ruler to help me with keeping the leaves close to symmetrical. Apparently I'm much more free-flowing when I draw stuff to my left side. There are a few leaves that I want to be a little more complicated but now (since I've been working on this for over 3 hours and have erased the whole thing- twice) I've decided some of the background leaves can be really, really simple. My plan when this is finished is to make a copy of it and try working with some colour. I've probably got at least another hour and a half (plus?) of leaves to draw and then shading...so probably 3 more hours before I can even think about colour though.

Anyway, here is a sneak peek...please ignore all the ruler lines that are making me feel like a bit like I'm cheating. Hopefully I'll have the completed drawing up tomorrow.