I love Trader Joe's!

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I love Trader Joe's! I especially love their sign art. One day, I dream of become a Trader Joe's Sign Artist.

I found these really great Crayola Dry Erase Crayons ($3.49 at Walmart) that work really well on dry erase boards and on chalk boards too. So for now, I can keep practicing my lettering over and over again. Who knows, maybe one day maybe I will be good enough to produce signs at TJ's.

I have the cutest drawing book called "How to Draw Fairies and Mermaids" by Fiona Watt that I bought a few years ago. This darling book is for kids but I love it for its simple drawing instructions. I have always loved children's picture books and thought that one day I could maybe be an illustrator. So I was playing around with copying some of the cartoons and coloring them inPhotoshop.

Late Night Drawings

Last night before drifting off to sleep, this is an exercise from the book "The Little Book of Drawing: A Friendly Approach" by Dr. Mary McNaughton. I've had this book for a while and thought I would try some exercises out of it. One of the exercises suggested drawing your signature over and over again while looking away from the paper. That was tiring after a while. It's suppose to create a neat background. Flipping through the pages, I decided to draw some flowers and a pumpkin. Then I fell asleep.

Fly Robin Fly

This morning when I was going to work, I saw this robin flying across the road. So I wanted to share this sketch I did way back in 2002. In the springtime we have tons of robins in the backyard just hanging out. I love to watch them worm hunt.

Purple Angry Guy

I had fun sketching these little guys. Kinda reminds me of the Fry Guys from Micky D commericals in the 80's. The first one is how I feel about Monday mornings :)

Crazy Sleepy Doodles

This is what I do when I can't sleep...it usually happens on Sunday nights.

Learning to Letter

I have always loved different types of handwriting style and fonts! I can spend hours looking for the perfect font to copy.  One day I want to actually be able to letter and paint signs...that look amazing!

I love seeing a faded sign on the side of a building and thinking about how much time and energy went in to create it. People who paint and hand letter signs are few and far between nowadays thanks to computers.
For right now, I am going to keep on practicing and one day, maybe I'll be ready to paint the letters instead of just drawing them and hopefully keep an old fashioned skill alive.  If you know of anyone who letters signs, please share that with me because I would love to get some lessons.

Trail Days 2011

We went to Trail Days in Demascus, VA. This is a wonderful yearly event for the thru hikers of the Appalachian Trail. This small town gets together and provides the hikers with medical care, entertainment, and food. This year was the 25th anniversary.

While camping in the meadow, I hung out and did some sketches of the tents nearby. I could only do one page before the thunderstorms came and then I worked on finding shelter instead.



At a Snail's Pace

Okay, starting a blog is really easy. Maintaining it and coming up with weekly content is another story...anyway, here is snail sketch to show you how slow I can be in putting up.  Hopefully, I can pick it up a notch. I have been surveying some beautiful areas of Charlotte to sketch. More sketches coming soon!

Drawing Mountains

I visited Asheville over the Easter holiday and couldn't asked for better weather. The sun was shinning and the mountains were stunning in the springtime. So, I took my sketchbook. Sitting on the balcony at Mt. Pisgah Inn, I began drawing the mountains before me. I tried pen, then pencil, but I was not pleased at all. I am learning that drawing on demand on location is not as easy as it looks.
I would love visit Asheville again with the pure intention of sketching. I feel like there, I could actually sketch and not have the police called on me.

Blogs that inspire Blogs

This is a really cool blog http://www.urbansketchers.org/ and it inspired me to start this blog. These are the best sketch artists out there. To join urbansketchers, you are selected by the quailty of your work. I could never ever imagine being selected, but it's an awesome goal and dream. Urbansketchers are all over the glode. If you are selected, you get a badge to put on your blog and you are linked up to the main blog.

I was suppose to be a Commerical Artist

I went to CPCC for a grand total of 2 weeks to become a Commercial Artist. I had already encountered the life of a starving artist, I'd spent all my money on text books, art equipment, and classes. When I got back to my car that day I got a parking ticket for parking on the white line. I was so mad that I quit school!! I went to business college instead.

Fortunately, I ended up becoming a Creative Director at where I work now, which give me plenty of opportunities to do graphic design work. Maybe the sketch above could have been in a national sales flyer at one time.

No, I'm not Tagging Your Neighborhood...yet

This is a sketch that I did while pretenting I was going to make a spraypainted  statement on the side of a building.  I always wanted to try this artform, but not go to jail. So to compromise, I have decided to use my sketchbook. It's so much fun coming up with funky letters and cartoon drawings.

I have really mixed emotions about graffti. I love it  as a artform, but I hate it when I see a building that has been newly tagged in my neighborhood. Oddly enough, I don't mind seeing it on a train. I remember enjoying reading the graffti on the bleachers at middle school and I even took a pictures. In high school, the graffti wasn't as cool for some reason. Maybe the rock you could paint out front took away all the fun of defacing the bleachers.

A Book Recommendation

Okay, I read that to keep your blog interesting, you must have variety in your postings. So, today I am going to talk about one of my favorite inspirational books for sketching. It's called "How to Keep a Sketchbook Journal" by Claudia Nice. As demonstrated on the cover, the inside is packed with snippets of her work from her outdoor adventures. I will sometimes flip through this book and to get inspiration on what to draw next. I have been on a few outdoor drawing adventures, but it was so hot last summer, that my last trip was cut short. So now, I cheat a little by taking a picture and drawing from that...it is almost just as good as being there.

Fun with Photoshop

Even though I enjoy sketching, I also love to play with Photoshop and Illustrator. I discovered that I can scan and import a drawing and enhance it with all kinds of features. I've included the original sketch and the after. That's why I never believe anything I see in the National Enquirer or in The Onion!

Moo

My mom was telling me about a cow she saw painted on a door. So I thought, how hard is it to paint a cow? Well, it's a little harder than I thought and this is the second draft. I had fun though! I plan to paint more cows in the future. Cows just make me smile :)

Gosh, I still Miss Them

Above are some live action sketches I made of my angelfish in 2004. They were lovely fish until the ice storm came and left us without power for two weeks. Those poor fishies froze to death. I felt so guilty that I didn't put them into a Ziploc bag and try to keep them warm. That's what I will do the next time something like that happens.

They were great pets because they were so interactive, staring at me while I worked on the computer. I have tried to keep other angelfish, but they did not live as long. So now I have my memories and my sketches of some really cool fish.

If You Give a Moose a Muffin...

I never lost my love for children's literature. A story book is brought to life by the illustrations--the cuter the better. So having the wonderful opportunity to work at an independent book store for a few years, one of my favorite tasks was to shelve the kid's picture books. Sometimes I got more reading done than shelving. :)

This is a drawing of the Moose from If You Give a Moose a Muffin By Laurie Numeroff and illustrated By: Felicia Bond. This is a great series of books that illustrate how much trouble you can get into when you give animals stuff--they always want more and more!

A Painting Inspired by artist Kim Parker

Okay, so I got this book from the library and I fell in love with Kim Parker's artwork. She mainly paints florals and designs textiles for home decorating.

So here's my knock off of her work.

Disclaimer: this was strictly for practice technique only.

If you want to see Kim Parker's work, visit her website at http://www.kimparker.tv/