An Unruly Haired Fairy

My sketches have been taking me a bit longer these days. I just find myself getting lost in details, but I'm so happily lost that I can't really get angry with myself.
It's much like losing oneself in the woods, because you are enjoying the wildflowers growing underfoot or the various wildlife that you see scurrying about.
It sort of reminds me of my childhood when I would spend hours playing in the woods while imagining all of the fantastical fairy creatures that I just knew were hiding from me at that very moment. My latest 'adventure in the woods' brought about this sketch of a rather unruly haired fairy.

I think that she and I would have gotten along quite well. (especially when I was a child)

A Contemplative Mermaid

 

Pencil Sketch for June 2nd, 2014

A Portrait with Plumeria Blossoms

I enjoyed drawing my Cherry Blossom portrait so much (Click here to see my blog post showing this piece) that I decided to do another portrait. I was having some trouble deciding upon a flower to use for this one so I asked people on my facebook page to come up with some suggestions. The winning suggestion was plumeria. I had never heard of this flower but fell in love with it's lovely shape and beautiful color immediately.

Something that I had played around with for the first time in my Cherry Blossom portrait was the idea of keeping the portrait in black and white while adding a pop of color with the flowers. I added the color using Adobe Photoshop Elements. I enjoyed the final look so much that I decided to try it on this one as well, though the colors of the plumeria blossoms are MUCH more complex and I have never been very adept at photoshop.

This is the original black and white portrait done in graphite

Here is the portrait with the plumeria blossoms painted.

Which do you prefer?

Shall I continue on with this series? 

If I do continue with it, which flower do you think that I should incorporate in my next piece?

New Sketches for the Week!

This week's 'Sketch A Day' project has been pretty productive. In the past, I've had a hard time finding the time or energy after my day job to sketch anything. This week I was pretty good about doing something everyday. It's sort of funny though. My week started with me just drawing from my head. Then it was drawing from my head, but inspired by events in my life and by the end of the week I was just drawing from events in my life. This is why I'm loving this project though. It allows me the freedom to just draw whatever comes into my head or inspires me at the time without any sort of constraints. I've also stopped doing my sketches solely in pen and ink and have added watercolors into the mix.

 

Fairies have been a common theme amongst my sketches, but this one has more of a Jane Austin feel about her. Probably due to all of the Jane Austin books I've been indulging in. ;)

 

May 5th, 2014

 

Two of my friends had babies within hours of each other so it only seemed natural that my 'sketch of the day' be inspired by them. Their daughter's names are Winnie and Violet and I drew this sketch as a way of celebrating this happy occasion and welcoming them into our world. This was also my first time attempting to draw a baby and I'm surprisingly happy with the way she turned out. :)

 

May 6th, 2014

 

 

I saw some ducklings playing in the water the other day and took a million photos to capture them.

Once I started drawing them, I realized that I would really like to add color, so I changed my definition of 'sketching' to include watercolors. :)

These two siblings were hiding underneath the lily pads and I just thought that they were too cute!

May 8th, 2014

This little guy had a lot of character. It was really a lot of fun drawing these sweet little bundles of fluff and webbed feet! I just might end up drawing a few more of them...

May 9th, 2014

 

 

 

I haven't seen a blue jay in our neighborhood in years, but I saw this one the other day in my backyard and just had to draw him. The colors of his plumage take my breath away. Nature is so incredible!

 

May 11th, 2014

What sorts of things have been inspiring you this week? Has spring brought about a return of some of your favorite flora or fauna?

From the Land of Faeries to Mermaids...

This week I've started working on my Sketch of the Day series again. I took a slight hiatus, but am back on track now. I'm not sure why, but my mind has been particularly filled with images of faeries lately. Just lots of wings flying about in my head! The only exception is the last one in this blog post. After so many faeries I threw in a mermaid just for fun.

As expected, some sketches I like better than others, but I am trying not to dwell on that as much. This series is about creating, not about creating masterpieces! I always find myself focusing too much on being a perfectionist and have thrown away countless pieces because of it!

 

April 30th, 2014

 

May 1st, 2014

 

May 2nd, 2014

 

May 3rd, 2014

 

 

Are you your own worst critic? We often hear that 'one man's trash is another man's treasure' ,but do we apply this concept to our art? I have often found that when I post a piece that I'm not particularly satisfied with, I receive a comment from someone who is moved by, or in love with the piece. For this reason, I ignore my own inner struggles with my pieces and just post them anyway. I create with the hope that I will give someone a bit of joy, hope or beauty and that's not always going to come from the pieces that I think they should.

 

To see more of my Sketch a Day series, check out my blog post 'Practice Makes Perfect'.

Finding Joy in Simple Pleasures

Let me confess something to you, dear readers. In my 'old age' I am finding myself to be more and more attracted to the simple things in life and less and less attracted to the things that society tells us we should be attracted to. ( wealth, power, etc) I am currently engaging in one of my favorite day off activities. That is to say, I am sipping my favorite tea and writing a blog post to you while planning out my day. An added bonus this time is that I also have some beautiful roses to enjoy as there was a wedding at my day job and I was able to take a few of the leftover roses home with me.

 So let me amend my original statement. I am sipping my favorite tea while gazing in awe upon the beauty of these roses. Upon reflection, I don't believe that it's the roses, or the blog posts or even the tea that is making me so happy though. It's the stillness in the morning while I plan my day and take a moment to ENJOY THE PRESENT. The present is lovely and still and the future is filled with hope and possibilities. Once I get going working on all of the things on my to-do list, that stillness will be broken, but for now I am embracing this peace with every ounce of my being and reveling in it.

With holy week impending I am finding my life to be in a constant state of chaos. My day job is frantically preparing for Easter and my responsibilities as a cantor and choir singer are also quite frantic. From this Sunday, through Easter Sunday I have no less than 5 performances at my church. Finding time to create is getting to be more and more of a challenge right now. I am still doing my sketch-a-day series but am finding myself missing days here and there and frantically trying to catch up with them. This has been leading to even more stress. I don't know about you, but I want my art to come from a place of joy. If I'm stressed out and frantic, then all of the fun has been taken out of the creating. I was reprimanding myself for missing days, but I've stopped that now. I am simply doing my best and not beating myself up when I am too tired to do a sketch.

Here are some of my latest sketches...

 

What are a few of your favorite things? What simple pleasures do you enjoy?

Practice Makes Perfect

I remember back in college, we had a speaker come to talk about being a professional artist. One of my fellow students asked him what advice he could bestow on all of us. He said that if you would like to be good at something, then you need to practice it all the time. If you'd like to be better at drawing hands, then keep a journal just for hands and draw in it every single day. This wasn't necessarily profound advice, but it still managed to have a profound effect on the students who heard it. Many of us went out and purchased new sketchbooks and used them to better ourselves on whatever subject we felt we were lacking in.

Now, years later, I am finally putting this into practice again. I'm not focusing on a particular subject matter, but I am forcing myself to sketch something each and every day. There are no rules as to what the sketch has to be about, but typically I give myself only about 30 min to create it. Some days I'll be inspired to create something from my head, while other days I'll be short on ideas and will therefore devote my sketch time to observing something around me. I expect that some of these sketches will be good and some will be downright terrible, but I'm not going to allow myself to focus on these things. I'm only focusing on the act of creating and allowing whatever comes of it to remain as it is.

My goal with this is to keep the creative juices flowing so-to-speak. I would like to make sure that I continue to grow as an artist each and every day. So ensuring that I am creating something each and every day (no matter how small it may be) seems like a good way to do that.

I'm calling it my Sketch-A-Day Series and have added 5 sketches so far. I'm looking forward to adding each days' piece as they are finished.

Here are some of my sketches so far...

 

March 20,2014- A sketch I did while at work on my birthday.

 

March 21,2014- A concept sketch for my next painting

 

March 22, 2014

 

March 23,2014- some sketches I did while attending a musical concert at my church

 

March 24,2014

What do you do to keep yourself in tip top shape? If you could give advice to someone wishing to pursue your line of work, what would it be?